AI for Kids

Generative AI for Kids, Parents, Teachers, and Everyone (Middle+)

• Dr. Jules White • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Ever wondered what sparks creativity in AI? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jules White, a professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University and a senior advisor on generative AI, to uncover the intriguing blend of art, math, and artificial intelligence that fuels his innovations. Dr. White takes us on his journey from a career in cybersecurity to becoming enamored with ChatGPT, sharing how his childhood passions have shaped his groundbreaking work in AI. Listen as he reveals his ingenious AI tool for prioritizing emails, offering him more time for creativity, and explains the importance of prompt engineering using simple, relatable analogies.

But that's not all! We'll explore how kids can harness the power of generative AI to boost their critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. Tune in to ignite your curiosity and creativity!

Resources:

Generative AI for Kids, Teachers, and Parents
Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT

Resources from AiDigiTales, an AI for Kids edutainment company:

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the AI for Kids podcast, where playtime, learning and creating collide bit by bit. Ever wonder how your phone recognizes your face. How does a game learn to get harder as you get better? This is AI. This podcast is designed for kids like you and your human parents, making the complex world of AI easy to understand and, most importantly, fun. So are you ready to unlock the mysteries of artificial intelligence? Subscribe and join us on AI for Kids. Hi everyone, welcome back to AI for Kids. Today we have a very special guest. Please welcome Dr Jules White, a senior advisor to the chancellor on genitive AI and a professor of computer science. Dr White, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Vanderbilt University? Yeah well, I'm a professor of computer science. Dr White, can you tell us a little bit about?

Speaker 2:

yourself and what you do at Vanderbilt University. Yeah well, I'm a professor in computer science and I did a lot of work on cybersecurity and how we build software, up until ChatGPT came out. And what I tell people is, like November 1st of 2022, if you'd stopped me on the street and you'd been like this thing called ChatGPT is going to come out out and here's what it's going to be able to do I would have been like, trust me, I'm a professor in computer science. I will not be alive when we see that level of advance in computing. And then it came out a month later, and so since then, basically, I've been trying to figure out how do we transform everything we do with this?

Speaker 1:

It's funny because one of my colleagues they had early access to the research version and I would talk to people about this thing because we were able to hear a little bit of it and they're like, oh, they're just playing around, that's not even real, that's not going to happen. And then, like you said, November, December hit and our lives have completely changed. But before we jump into generative AI, talk a little bit about your past. What was your favorite subject when you were a kid and did you always enjoy learning about computers and technology?

Speaker 2:

I would say one of my favorite subjects was actually art, and so I still do a lot of painting and things. I grew up I loved art. I also loved math. If you'd asked me in high school what I was going to do, I would have said well, I'm either going to be a physics professor or I'm going to be an art professor, and I think part of that is because my parents were both professors and I loved what they did and I love that concept of teaching and things. I was always sort of on the fence between the two and I'm excited because I think what I'm doing now is the closest marriage of the two that I've ever had.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I love the idea of the AI art intersection because I think you have to remain creative as you do this work and I'm glad that's something that you're being able to see in your current job Thinking as you do this work and I'm glad that's something that you're being able to see in your current job Thinking about creativity and art. If you could build an AI tool to solve any problem, what would it do and why? And even if you've already done this, feel free to share that as well.

Speaker 2:

The AI tool that I built yesterday it was amazing to me is the one that goes through my email and basically it helps me keep track of what I need to follow up on because, like, I want to spend my day dreaming about new things that I can do and my inbox is full of all this stuff that I need to follow up on.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to have to track that as easily and know how to prioritize and sort it. So I built myself a simple agent that takes all of my email, actually prioritizes it Like here's stuff that needs to get done right now because the deadline's coming up according to the email and here's what people need from you. It sorts it all, gives me a simple little report of here's who you need to follow up with immediately or soon or in the future, and then I can go and find those emails and follow up very quickly and it helps me stay on top of it and spend more time having fun and less time scrolling through my email and another one and then worrying that there's something that I've missed in there.

Speaker 1:

That resonated so much with me the whole idea of, like, when you're trying to do your creative things, the moment you go back to your inbox it is chaotic, like, unless you're checking it every hour, it feels like you don't have that space, but AI is a tool that can help with that. So I love that example and I appreciate you for sharing that with me, because that's something I need in my own personal life. So one of the things that you also created, beyond your AI tool to help with emails, was the first online class for prompt engineering, which currently has over 290,000 enrollments, which is still wild to me the numbers as we think about where generative AI has gone in the last couple of years. Can you explain what prompt engineering is in a way that a kid can understand?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, a lot of people have a lot of definitions for it and I'm going to give you my definition, because mine is different from other people. So my thought of what prompt engineering is is it's all about knowing how to solve problems with, and particularly generative AI, so things like ChatGPT. So how do you go and talk to it and express the problem you're trying to solve in a way that it can go and help you solve it? And then how do you use it to brainstorm? And it's all about knowing what it can do and what it can't do and how you need to break things down or express things to get it to help you.

Speaker 2:

And part of it is like I want to give you the building blocks so that you can see these sort of basic patterns. If you get this building block, you can go and build whatever you want. It's kind of like Legos, right, and it's, I think of it in terms of patterns. So it's kind of like teaching these patterns, which are kind of like Lego bricks that you can then go and assemble amazing stuff to. But if you don't have the right bricks, if you don't know where they exist and you don't know how to put them together, then you can't go and really innovate and have as much fun with it, and so I give you a lot of bricks and a lot of techniques for putting them together and then you go build whatever you want.

Speaker 1:

I am glad you are the one who is teaching a class on generative AI for kids. The way you broke that down it's just so easy to understand and even as I think about talking about these topics with people, it really helped me think about the foundational way to explain something like prompt engineering, because both of those words just feel like what are you talking about? What's going on. But you broke it down in a way that's very easy to understand and I really appreciate that. Why do you think so many people are interested in learning about how to talk to AI?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think when you go and you look at what's happening in the world, we're going to have this generative AI in particular, and probably different forms of AI, around us in the future and we're going to be interacting with it and we need to understand how we work with it. Right, we kind of have been taught how to work with computers, like when iPhone and the iPad came out, we all learned to use the touch screen and scroll and all these different gestures and there's equivalent types of things like that. When you go and start chatting with AI to get it to solve problems and we weren't all taught that, like suddenly we all needed this skill and nobody had it and a lot of people didn't have the time in the day or the access to be able to go and experiment and discover and so going and getting an opportunity to learn about. The other thing that I think is unfortunate is that this is the most sort of like accessible technology in computing that I've ever seen that allows you to go and build amazing things without having to wait five years to go and get a bachelor's and master's in computer science to be able to build something you can go and build in it right now.

Speaker 2:

I think the problem is is a lot of what's being taught is either too technical and most people don't need to know that level of detail and will never need to know that level of detail, or it's taught in a way that sort of doesn't allow you to have the creative freedom right. We don't want to teach people to go and copy and paste prompts, and we want to teach people to think with generative AI. What I talk about it is it's not artificial intelligence to replace your intelligence. It's augmented intelligence that helps amplify your creativity and critical thinking skills. We're kind of like an exoskeleton for the mind that you put on and solve bigger and harder problems, but it's also about knowing how to use it in a way that benefits you and makes you think more about the problems you're solving and not less.

Speaker 1:

I like that concept of helping you think how to be more creative and to figure out the prompts without copy and pasting. One of the things that I know I've seen people struggle with is to that point that people feel like they need a list of all the prompts. How does someone get out of just going to the copy and paste prompts that are on a website to learn how to develop the type of prompting? I know they can go to your course, but what else can they do? That's pretty easy to help them break their mind open to think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I would say, of course, first take my course.

Speaker 2:

That's the easy way, that's my easy answer.

Speaker 2:

But the other answer I would say is, when you look at these big lists of prompts, go and experiment with them and then take a step back and say what is the common thing that's happening? I had to describe this, what's happening, and then how might I use that to create something new or solve some new problem? And there's a bunch of basic ones that you'll start seeing over and over, like using it to create some ideas, brainstorming, using it for role playing, having it pretend to be another person or a particular role in a business or an organization, using it to think about something from some other person's perspective, like there's all these sort of interesting ways that people use them. But what we see is like all these individual prompts, as opposed to like this concept of you know, empathy, and it's interesting. There is somebody that I'm working with and we're creating a framework, and he's from Denmark and he's created this amazing framework for thinking about what are all the things you can do with it and how do we then teach that to somebody to explore?

Speaker 1:

That's just so important. Like you said, go back to the fundamentals of what is it really doing, because I think sometimes we get blocked or we stop because we don't understand something, versus like, okay, what is this thing, what is it trying to do? How can it help me and I know you're working on a generative AI for kids course Can you tell us about what generative AI is first and why it's exciting for kids to learn about?

Speaker 2:

Generative AI is basically, if you go to chat GPT and you think about chat GPT, it's something where you can send it messages and then it responds with a message. The analogy I give is it's kind of like text messaging right, you can go and text somebody and they can text you back. You can send them a photo and ask them a question with that photo and they can text you back an answer. Or you can say go and take a picture of this and send it back to me, and generative AI works basically like that, except that it's an AI on the other end, and so you send them a text message it's called a prompt. Or you send them a photo and it's called a prompt, and then when they text you back, we call it output or response, and so it's all basically think text messaging, but AI on the other side, and so it's all about learning how to use that capability to solve problems. And my generative AI for kids course is really about what I see is many, many people, if not the majority, vast majority of people approach it in a way that is not beneficial to them. So they use it in a way that tries to replace their own thinking, to try to give them the answer and not in ways that help you get a better answer, like the goal should be for you to arrive at a better answer, not for you to get a quicker answer right. And you get at a better answer by looking at ideas, perspectives and things that it's giving you, but then, as a human being, taking them and improving them, putting them together, getting inspired and going and do more.

Speaker 2:

And the simplest technique I teach is that you should never ask for one of anything in generative AI. You never go and say write this email for me. You go and say give me three different versions of this email and compare and contrast them. And then you, as the human being, have to read the three of them, you have to think about them, you have to listen to its explanations of them and then you have to decide which one do I like and why. And it engages your thinking and your aesthetics and your own person. But it also helps you to eliminate bias, because you're not just accepting what it says. You're saying I'm going to get some options, I'm going gonna look at them and I may discard them because I think they're biased or wrong or something else. And it's not about just like oh, let it decide what the answer is. No, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna replace my thinking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we don't at any point, and I think what you're saying is using it to learn and using it to critically think and have it support. And I love the idea of asking it to do a few things, because even I haven't thought about that, as I do it Intuitively, I do it a little bit, but to actually push myself to ask it to do more than just something basic can also help me and to give me different responses or different answers, so I can also compare and choose what's the best out of all of them and decide why I'm making that decision. So that makes total sense to me and I appreciate you for breaking it down that way. Are you ready for a quick game?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we do a segment called Tech Trivia. I'm going to ask you some questions about AI or technology, and you have to try to answer as quickly as you can. The kids at home will also play along, so are you ready? Maybe, no pressure, I'll start with ones that are easier. Name a popular application of generative AI in the field of image generation.

Speaker 2:

DALI and Mid Midjourney. Midjourney may be my favorite, but I love Dolly as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, dolly. When it first came out it was like oh, okay. But then when Midjourney like folks start using that more Midjourney, I haven't been able to return to Dolly in the same way for me personally. So I do agree, midjourney is my favorite as well, okay. Next question what does GAN stand for?

Speaker 2:

Generative Adversarial Networks.

Speaker 1:

Yes, ding, ding, ding, you got it right, awesome. One final question Are you ready? I don't know, we'll find out. You're doing well, you're okay, you made it this far. You're going to make it through this one Name one of the first AI chatbots developed in the 1960s. It's a five-letter name Alice, almost Eliza.

Speaker 2:

Eliza. Oh right, okay, yeah, I should have gotten that one.

Speaker 1:

Eliza by Joseph Weisenbaum at MIT's AI Laboratory. So thank you for that. You did an amazing job. See, nothing to be afraid of. We made it. How can kids get started with learning about AI and prompt engineering? People ask me when is the best time for kids to get introduced to AI? I always say now, with a parent or with a guardian. But I'm wondering how can kids who are actually interested in it, who have approval from a parent, get started with learning about AI and engineering?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I mean, I think the first thing is to just, with approval and appropriate supervision, go and experiment. I say go and ask crazy questions how would I make a chair out of yogurt? Right, weird things that like would be really hard for a human being to answer. But, you know, seeing and exploring the capabilities I think that's the starting point is, go, be really creative and explore the capabilities. There's some great classes online. I have a bias I'm highly biased like AI can be to my own classes. So I would say you know, check those out.

Speaker 2:

And generative AI for kids is meant for a parent to do with a kid. You do it together and there's a lot of fun activities, and they're all activities, basically, that I've done with my son. So one of the first things that I wanted to teach him was this concept that you don't just accept what it says, you have to fact check it, you have to be diligent. And so I saw him reading the Guinness Book of World Records one day and I was like, ha, I know it now. And so we took the mobile app for ChatGPT, and then we built a prompt that basically said tell me world records related to anything I take a picture of. And so you snap pictures of whatever you want and it'll tell you world records related to what's seen in the image and it's like longest ears on the dog, fastest person to run up the Empire State building, all these things. And I'm like, okay, now can we find proof that those world records are real. There's all kinds of fun activities to do that.

Speaker 2:

The one thing I can say from having 290,000-ish people in my class is that I get feedback from industry about what's going to happen in work and basically everybody's innovating with this stuff and dreaming up incredible things that we're going to have available to us.

Speaker 2:

We have to be prepared how to communicate and work with these new systems, and so the earlier you get started with that, the better. I can say, part of my ability to use technology well is because when I was like five or six, my school happened to have a graduate student from a local university who came in and taught a summer class on programming at my school. They had a couple computers and they had it for really young kids and I got to go and do it and I couldn't really type very well, but he like helped us along and like I still remember it. I still remember what I programmed and, like my entire time growing up, I had a different sort of approach to computing because I've been taught how to use it to build things and do things. And I say you want to start learning how to build and use it to create now.

Speaker 1:

You've hit on so many things. The first thing I want to address is when you mentioned go up there and just try to solve a problem, but don't use a problem that humans normally solve Like you said, using yogurt to do something. I think that's such a huge component of this, because kids are already so creative and we want them to go into these tools, bringing that creativity to explore the bounds and limits of these tools. But I often feel like it feels easier just to say write a text for me or things like that. I love that. So thank you for even opening my mind and thinking about this differently.

Speaker 1:

The other piece was around the activity with you and your son. That is so genius. I didn't even think about using chat, GPT and the image piece to do that, literally creating the prompt. So there's a game you're playing, basically uploading those pictures and using the AI to do that and then do a fact check. I just think that's just such a brilliant way to think about using these tools and for parents who are also learning these tools how to use them with the kid. And then the last piece is around just in general, technology is growing and making sure that kids have access to it early, I know. For me, one of the reasons why we wanted this podcast to come about was because exactly what you said having kids interact or learn about things at an earlier age just prepares you even more so for the future. And, with that being stated, one of the things I'm going to ask you as a follow-up is if I am a five-year-old or fifth grader who just happened to come across this podcast and I'm listening to you. How do I like?

Speaker 2:

literally start. I would start by go ask your parent to put ChatGPT on their phone and sit down and play around with it with you and ask it just crazy questions, like the yogurt type questions or like if I wanted to build a hundred story building out of Cheerios, could I do it and what would be the challenges? Things like that, or how might I overcome them? Go and explore just kind of fun, crazy stuff, because it also at the same time gives you a sense of all the things it can do and that it's different. Computing could not answer that Cheerios 100 story building question before and it seems fun. But it's also you're doing something immediately that I as a computer science professor, with all the supercomputers in the world, could not have done before ChatGPT came out.

Speaker 1:

That is so cool and I appreciate you for walking through that because I think it's great for kids to hear examples to open their minds to that. Speaking about cool, what's one of the coolest projects you've worked on that involved AI and helps people?

Speaker 2:

I think for me, the coolest project I work on is like whenever I do a class right. So like I am excited about this all day long, every day, and I go and I talk to people and it's like a lot of what's being created is not for everyone, it's for computer scientists, and I think that's such a mistake, because the truth is is this is the moment for everybody to be able to innovate and do amazing things with computers and not have to go learn to code. You know, that's my goal is think differently about how we go and use this, but also make sure that we use it in the right way, because I think there's so much opportunity for mistakes, particularly if we start using it to replace our own thinking. So I always go back and say, look, you wanna use this to think more, not less, about what you're doing.

Speaker 2:

If you're just copying and pasting somebody's quiz question into chat, gpt and then copy and pasting the answer back out, that's something I guarantee you we can automate. But what we can't automate is if your uniqueness, your unique things that you like, you know, your unique creativity, your style, the way you talk, the way you write messages, that's something valuable to the world, and that's what you want to focus on is make sure that you use it in a way that enhances that and doesn't just make you a copy paste. Copy paste you know, robot, that's not what you want to do, so make sure you use it in the right way. So I want to teach that as well, and that's one of the things I get excited about.

Speaker 1:

That's a concept I haven't thought about. I've thought about creativity in AI, but not the fact of me being a human or a kid being a little human. Bringing that creativity to the prompts, to the experience like that just opened my mind up in a different way, and I hope that's also helpful to teachers and folks who are in education, who are even thinking about applying these tools. How can you continue to push that individuality of a child using these tools? Because right now I think everyone's afraid that it's going to be exactly what you said, copy and paste. How do you see AI change in the future as it relates to the way we learn and play in the future?

Speaker 2:

I think the good news is is that probably the kids on this podcast are going to be the ones in charge of the future, and the one thing I've learned from working with my son is he's always way more creative with it than I am, so I think I'm pretty creative with it, and then he sits down and he always thinks of the thing I hadn't thought of or the neat idea and, like my kids class, he's actually got a video in there, thought up a lot of the activities, and so I think one of the important things is that everybody that is a kid out there that's listening on this podcast realize that your creativity is more important than ever now.

Speaker 2:

Your ability to go and create amazing things, think up just wild ideas, is what's going to allow us in the future to solve problems we can't solve today. It's not going to be boring adults and I just really emphasize you more now than ever really really appreciate how creative you are and keep doing it, because that, when you put it together with generative AI, allows magic things to happen, and so many of us have forgotten how to be creative and that's creating a lot of the problems as people go and it's like I've got generative AI and it's like this blank canvas, but I've forgotten how to paint. I've forgotten how to be creative and you've already got that, so just hold on to it.

Speaker 1:

Hold on to it, dr White, that should be the title of this. Hold on to your creativity, because that's the thing that I'm often a little bit nervous about because of technology. But I agree with you 100%. Kids get it way better than any other group of folks, and I just want them to hold on to that creativity. So I'm glad you said that. I do want to do another segment. It's called Two Truths and a Dream. You're going to tell us two true facts about your life and one dream or dream job, dream activity that you had when you were a kid, and we're going to guess which one is the dream, and it's a way to help us learn a little bit more about you. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, go for it. I will try, and then kids at home, as always, make sure you're trying to guess as well.

Speaker 2:

So I race BMX bicycles. Okay, at Vanderbilt, we are using generative AI to innovate in every aspect of the university, and we're going to be doing it in the classroom as well. Okay, and then, since generative AI has come out, I have a lot more time for physical fitness and I've gotten in much better shape.

Speaker 1:

I love those. So the first is you race BMX bikes. Second is Vanderbilt University is using AI across the whole ecosystem, including in the classroom, and you've been able to use generative AI to save time and get in shape. Those are the three, right? Those are the three. Okay, great Kids, make sure at home.

Speaker 1:

You're thinking about the interview and just thinking about the context clues that Dr White has already provided, so I'll start with BMX bikes. That could be one. I'm not going to dig into that one just yet. I'm going to skip over to Vanderbilt, because that, for me, is probably the easiest one out of all three. So the Vanderbilt one. I do believe that's true, because I do know that's where you work. I also know that you are launching the generative AI course there, and I feel like Vanderbilt would be one of the types of universities that would be ahead here. So I'm going to say that is a fact. The third one is around you've actually become more physically fit using generative AI. I think that could also be true. You just recently created the AI email sorter, so now you don't have to spend your free time going through your email, so that could also be true. I'm going to say the dream, and I'm probably wrong, and that's okay as well is BMX bike.

Speaker 2:

Do you want the answer?

Speaker 1:

Yes, please.

Speaker 2:

Nope, I race BMX bikes, darn it that man?

Speaker 1:

Which is the answer? Yes, please, Nope, I race BMX bikes. Darn it, Batman. Which is the dream? The dream is that I'm more fit, and it goes back to yeah.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't have gotten that one. The mistake that people have is that they think that when you get AI doing things, that it takes away work, and the reality is that what happens is it creates new opportunities to go and explore. I like that.

Speaker 2:

And so what's happened in my life? This area I've got less work in one area but a whole lot more work and things to do in another area that are more fun to me, and so I'm not in any better shape than I was before, because I'm still working just as hard, if not harder, because there's so much exciting stuff to go explore.

Speaker 1:

Got it. You got to tell us about the BMX bike piece, as well as talk a little bit about what Vanderbilt is doing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, so my son and I we started mountain biking and then we learned that there was a BMX bicycle track in Nashville here, and so we started going and he started riding there and then racing, and then I was up at the track all the time and I thought, huh, I'll bring my bike and see if I can do this too.

Speaker 2:

And I started doing it too and having a lot of fun with it. So it's something fun that we do together. And yeah, and then Vanderbilt I would say that Vanderbilt's one of the world leaders in this space of thinking about how do we innovate with generative AI. And very early on, we created something called the future of learning and generative AI at Vanderb. Every department would use it's not just computer science and we wanted to figure out how do we go and innovate together as a community, and we built up a lot of stuff, and if you come to Vanderbilt one day, there's tons of stuff happening on campus with generative AI and so many classes and interesting things. So it's a really fun place to be right now.

Speaker 1:

Everyone. It's a beautiful university. You should definitely check it out. Also, the city is amazing, so thank you for sharing that. I'm really excited about the stuff that you all are doing Before we head out. Do you have any advice for kids who wanna learn more about AI or how to get started with it?

Speaker 2:

We'll definitely go and check out the classes that I teach on Coursera. There's other great classes on Coursera as well. Please stay engaged with your parents and show them the cool things. Be creative and show them the amazing things. Get them to put ChatGPT on their phone, or Anthropic Clawed is another amazing one. There's not just one, it's not just ChatGPT. Anthropic Clawed is incredible. It's another great one to go and explore with. Do it with them, be creative and just experiment and have fun and don't stop having fun with it. If you stop having fun with it, then you're probably using it the wrong way.

Speaker 1:

I love. That Is the generative AI course for kids available now.

Speaker 2:

It is available for now on Coursera and it's a free course on Coursera.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, Awesome Kids. You can make sure to check out the show notes with your parents. Is there anything else, Dr White, that you want to share with our listeners?

Speaker 2:

Just be creative and have fun, and it's an exciting time. I think it's going to create so many opportunities. It's like a completely new canvas, a new way of painting, and we're going to get to go and explore it together and you're going to be the ones who build the future with it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for joining us today, dr White, and thank you to all the listeners for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to AI for Kids and stay curious. Thank you for joining us as we explore the fascinating world of artificial intelligence. Don't keep this adventure to yourself. Download it, share it with your friends and let everyone else in on the fun. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. See you next time on AI for Kids. You, you, you.

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