AIRES in Schools

Goals

1. Clarify central concepts such as “machine learning,” “chatbot,” “algorithm,” “bias,” and others involved in the discussion around the programming and use of AI.
2. Address algorithmic discrimination, enabling an understanding of the concept, how it occurs, and how it affects users.
3. Demonstrate the relationship between law and AI and between philosophy and AI. Cover users’ rights and duties, the role of law in regulating AI; discuss how philosophy contributes to reflection on the use and risks of AI, and central concepts involving the nature of the mind and epistemology, as well as how philosophy provides a theoretical, ethical, and methodological foundation that guides both the technical aspects and the social and ethical impacts of AI.
4. Clarify the ethical principles of AI, using application examples and news items to show what is being discussed nationally and internationally about the risks posed by the use of AI, and how applying these principles helps mitigate such risks.
5. Clarify protective strategies against these technologies and how to maintain healthy online relationships, covering topics such as cyberbullying, catfishing, sharing of private images, personal information management, and online gaming.
6. Teach how to use text and image generators such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and others, and demonstrate how they can be useful as a complement to studies, explaining the precautions needed to use such models ethically and safely.

Methodology

The project proposes four biweekly meetings with an elementary school class, distributing the topics detailed in the goals for presentation to students by AIRES members. Since the idea is to build this training together with the school itself, it is proposed that philosophy and history classes be used to complement the content covered, fostering classroom discussion around other topics. At the end, as a fifth meeting, a debate on ethical dilemmas is held. The dilemmas are handed out to students on the day ethical principles are presented, which happens at the second meeting. From there, the history and philosophy teachers contribute and make time in their classes for students to prepare for the debate, which takes place at the fifth and final meeting.

Debate on ethical dilemmas

The debate on ethical dilemmas involves applying, to practical cases, the ethical principles and other content covered throughout the meetings.

The class receives 4 ethical dilemmas and is split into two groups for each dilemma: one arguing for and one arguing against the use of AI in the presented problems.

The dilemmas used are: the use of facial recognition in schools, virtual assistants and privacy, AI and the creation of the “perfect woman,” and social media algorithms.

This final activity is a way of systematizing everything learned during the meetings between AIRES members and the school’s students.