What is artificial intelligence? How is artificial intelligence going to change our lives?

"Alexa, play my favorite song! Alexa, shut the garage door!" Imagine a world in which you simply call out a request while sitting in your living room and have a small computer comply. Suddenly, the driving beat of your favorite song fills the air while in the distance you hear the grind of the garage door coming down.

This scenario is no longer science fiction! Our world is becoming increasingly inhabited by machines that can talk to us, listen to us, perform as asked, and even solve problems with no direction from humans. A machine with artificial intelligence is one that can perceive its environment and change its computing and behavior to reflect that environment, while using tools at hand to solve problems or reach goals.

In Artificial Intelligence: Thinking Machines and Smart Robots with Science Activities for Kids, readers ages 10 to 15 learn the early definitions of AI and discover how these definitions, and the tests that are applied to determine whether a machine has AI or not, have changed as machines have grown increasingly competent in unexpected ways. Through a combination of science activities and student-paced learning, readers discover the AI machines of today and their uses in various fields, such as entertainment, the military, and health care.

What about the future? How will AI affect the way we understand and integrate with technology and with each other? How can AI improve our lives? Is there anything dangerous about AI? What are the ethical issues surrounding the use of AI? Essential questions such as these promote critical examination of issues from all sides, while primary sources and science-minded engineering activities, such as experimenting with the programs Sound Net and iNaturalist and making a model of a neural network, let readers have a blast learning about the age of thinking machines we're in right now.

Angie Smibert is the author of more than 20 nonfiction books about science and technology for kids. Some of those titles include Building Better Robots; How it Works: The Internet; All about Coding; and 12 Great Moments that Changed Internet History. Before writing full time, she helped pioneer online training at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Besides writing, she also teaches writing and human-computer interaction at Indiana University East. She lives in Roanoke, Virginia.

Timeline

Intro: What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Chapter 1: The Hunt for Hal: Early Forms of AI

Take a Turing Test. (Can be done with 2-3 people)

Try a chatbot (like Cleverbot)

"Code" the steps to play and win at Tic-Tac-Toe

Make a model of a neural net out of playdough and toothpicks

Play Conway's "game of life" sim online or on paper

Chapter 2: Good Morning Alexis: AI Today

Play Go (or Chess) and write steps to play/win

Talk to Alexa (online version)

Write steps for a person to follow as if he/she were a robot

Explore Mars via simulated Curiosity rover (on JPL site)

Try a deep learning driven app (such as iNaturalist.org)

Watch video of life-like android such as Sophia (Hanson Robotics)

Chapter 3: AI in the Future

Watch or listen to AI created 'art'

Experiment with Sound Net

Make a doodlebot

Do the original Three Wise Man test with friends

Chapter 4: Do We Need AI?

Watch DARPAs Robot Challenge and design own rescue robot

Design a robot to work alongside humans in space

Explore the uncanny valley and make your robotic face

Chapter 5: The Debate around AI

Read about debate between Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) and Elon Musk (founder of Tesla and SpaceX) about AI. Then come up with your own argument!

Chapter 6: AI in SciFi

Write your own laws of robotics /AI

Write a short story or poem artificial intelligence 50 years from now.

Watch 2001 (or another twentieth-century movie about AI/robots). How has our view of AI changed?

Glossary

Resources

Index