The first image of Artificial Intelligence for our children could be human-like robots, carrying boxes, watering plants or moving metal bars.
Elon Musk unveiled his prototype ‘Optimus’, at Tesla’s AI day this year, showing footage of the robot doing just that.
But we’re still a long way from having one of these in each of our homes, particularly when these robots would need to deal with all manner of unexpected situations (like the dog kicking over its water bowl).
What’s plain is that applications of true Artificial Intelligence will be all around us, and that means our workforce of the future needs to be prepared to build these tools, operate alongside them and understand how they work when we engage with them across our civil societies.
That means we’re going to need to make sure our education system adapts and includes the right building blocks.
We’re already behind
Looking at other economies, we’re already a bit behind. China is competing with the US in producing the most STEM PhDs in the world - both around 40,000 in 2018 - and it’s expected that China will develop a significant lead over the next five years. That said, given the wider freedom of expression allowed in UK and US institutions, there is potential to have the edge on quality while still driving quantity. So where should we start?
It’s about quality as well as quantity
We’ve seen the push by our government, companies, research institutions and charities to inspire and drive students into studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) subjects at university to help build the UK’s highly skilled workforce of the future.
What we don’t always hear about is what needs to be done to prepare them across primary and secondary school. This is an extension into broader design and ethical principles, as well as real-world applications that tie them all together.
We need to teach children the beginnings of ‘human-centred design’, which focuses on building AI in a way that delivers value to us all as human beings, that accounts for our wants and needs and the issues we face rather than just addressing a single problem.
It doesn’t stop there: students need to begin the broader reading and understanding of ethics, so these can be considered when building, testing and applying AI to different uses.
These design ideas and ethical principles should be rounded out by practically exploring existing issues and concerns within the development of AI, including privacy concerns, while challenging students to think of how they might be mitigated.
This type of learning is not just for STEM students who’ll be building AI, but hugely important for all of our awareness as we interact with AI tools and decisions on a daily basis. It will enable us to participate in the debates in our public forums and parliaments on the use of AI too.
Getting resources into the right hands
The challenge is getting the right resources for this education into the right hands. Accessibility across the schooling system is hugely important, and not just for the selective Public or Grammar Schools.
We know from experience that without diverse representation in the teams who build AI we could end up building unintended bias into our AI tools or even entrenching existing inequalities.
There are plenty of examples where this has already happened, from AI hiring tools which have marginalised women and people of colour, to automated benefits assessment tools which have incorrectly impacted some of the poorest in society.
In the short term, there are teams from charities like the Raspberry Pi Foundation and AI leader’s Deepmind leading the charge to ensure our children have access to the right resources for AI and STEM.
They’re bringing the latest thinking and resources, including lesson plans and teacher training, and ensuring they are freely accessible to schools across the UK. More broadly, it’s also important for the Department for Education to ensure this is fed into our national curriculum.
Don’t forget about equality
The final piece in the puzzle is ensuring that those engaging in STEM education across our schools are as diverse as possible. In 2017, 27.1% of girls A-Level entries were for STEM subjects, compared to 45.6% of boys. At an industry level, the Engineering industry is dominated by White men (93%), and according to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), Black people face underrepresentation in all fields of STEM employment.
This means getting as many people, from different backgrounds, ethnicities and genders involved in STEM education as possible when they’re kids. Recommendations have been made by the APPG to push forward changes that help advance equity in STEM, and there are some great non-profits like STEMettes, the Brilliant Club and the British Science Association who are tirelessly working to help bridge this gap.
It’s for the UK, and the wider world
We’ll need AI to help solve our biggest societal problems, including drug discovery, safer and more efficient transport, climate modelling, disaster prediction - the list goes on.
The only way we’ll be able to do this effectively, ethically, and with the interests of us and the planet at heart, is by driving forward a rounded education for our children so they can build and apply the tools we need to secure our future.
