Edmonton students get lesson in proper use of artificial intelligence

Edmonton high school students are learning how to use artificial intelligence at the Fantasyland Conference Centre on Wednesday.

This comes as lawmakers look to crack down on AI chatbots for youth, with Manitoba recently making moves to ban chatbots for those under 16.

“A more important point is that you just don’t want them to use it for the wrong reasons,” said Kanwar Bajwa, a Grade 12 student at W.P. Wagner School

Bajwa is one of more than 300 students who got a crash course in AI on Wednesday. He understands why Manitoba would want to put an age limit on chatbots to avoid youth blindly following what AI says, potentially influencing their opinions in a harmful way. But doesn’t know how it could be enforced with age verification.

“They’ll probably try and find some way to circumvent it or try to probably find some way to like use somebody else’s ID or have their parents sign off on it in a way that makes it look like. ‘Yeah, I’m above 16,’” said Bajwa.

Jill Kowalchuk, an AI literacy manager with Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, said, “Guardrails are incredibly important, and we need to work with the government. We need to work with school boards to build out the right AI policy.”

The expert in AI literacy says AI with kids can be a safety issue, and that relying on the tech could deprive students of critical thinking skills needed for their careers. That’s why the Edmonton-based Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute is working with the province and school boards on how to bring AI into the classroom safely.

“We need to make sure that students are building those critical thinking skills and abilities without AI first, so that when they do use it, they can use it responsibly and effectively, and it is a way to extend their cognition,” said Kowalchuk.

Adding the tech isn’t going anywhere and will be part of these students’ future jobs, needing to prepare them now.

“Our students get to learn about where AI fits within their world, and with AI being here already, and it’s going to be part of their future. This really helps them build their skills and understand what they’re going to need for their future,” said Bernice Pui, conference chair of the EPSB Student AI Conference.

For Bajwa, already finding uses for AI, and just hoping his fellow students use it as a tool rather than a crutch.

“AI should do the boring stuff for me, so I can focus more on the interesting stuff, the new things,” said Bajwa, “As long as you’re being smart about how you’re using or why you’re using it’s not going to cause issues in that vein.”