Growing up, my dad exposed us to a number of board games and, while he was open to all sorts of game mechanics, he especially enjoyed the wonkily strategic ones that might be best described as “simulations.” Yes, we’re talking cardboard chits and plenty of rules in strict number-outline order about how those cardboard chits operate.
My dad was tough to beat in such simulations, because he absorbed the rules with a precision that many a sci-fi battle computer would envy. In fact, he disliked games where he could not consult the probability charts for various units to hit with their different attacks, the charts for defensive tactics, and so on. How could he properly strategize without knowing the chats? Without knowing the underlying mechanic?
AI doesn’t show us the charts.
I thought of that when reading about this group of seventh graders and their magic show to illustrate how AI is providing the simulation of intelligence, but it’s really just magic tricks… and like good magic tricks, it let’s us humans fill in some assumptions.
Now magic tricks aren’t bad… and not everyone needs to know how magic tricks are done… certainly not to enjoy and benefit from them. In fact, as many of you probably know, there is a magician’s code not to reveal magic tricks to non-magicians. But it would be more than disingenuous to insist there’s no trick that could be revealed. Budding magicians get to know. In other words, you’re going to need to show the charts to some people and it’s good for all of us to know there are charts.
The whole video version of the class’s presentation runs just under six minutes. Here’s hoping more kids get these sorts of media literacy experiences.