“Promoting AI literacy for the public” – Student Competition at SIGCSE TS 2023

Ms Maria Kasinidou, PhD candidate at the Open University of Cyprus and researcher at the Cyprus Center for Algorithmic Transparency, participated in the Student Competition of the 54th Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education is organized by the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). SIGCSE TS 2023 was held from March 15 – 18, 2023, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Ms Kasinidou presented her work entitled “Promoting AI Literacy for the Public” which focused on the important role of AI in our lives and the necessity of educating different members of the public about AI.

Abstract: The increased involvement that AI plays in people’s lives highlights the demand for greater public knowledge about AI. Lifelong learning environments are especially crucial for building AI literacy as they possess the ability to reach a larger audience and create opportunities for everyone to learn. This ongoing project aims at exploring the perception and understanding of AI by different members of the public (i.e., children, adults). In addition, it aims at promoting AI literacy among different groups of the public (e.g., educators, adults, elderly and children) through an open course and identifying the best practices for developing appropriate training activities for each group. As an initial step, a pilot study was conducted for investigating the response of the general public to a distance learning initiative and their educational needs for learning about AI. Results indicate that after attending a short course on AI, participants were able to understand and recognize what AI is, appreciate its positive and negative aspects, and most importantly, acknowledge the need for educating children and adults about AI. Finally, the results highlight that educating the general public about AI is a complex task that must be informed by further research. As a next step, questionnaires will be distributed in an attempt to understand how public perceive AI. Considering public’s knowledge and understanding of AI, appropriate learning activities will be developed aiming to help different groups of the public to acquire the necessary skills related to AI literacy. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3545947.3573292

16 March 2023 12:00 am (GMT)

Toronto, Ontario, Canada