Lesson 1 – Introduction to AI Literacy: Beyond the Hype

Lesson Overview & Activities

1. What Even IS “AI”? Demystifying the Term (15 min)

* Activity: “Word Association”: What’s the first word/image that comes to mind when you hear “AI”? (Quick poll or chat response).

* Mini-Lecture: * Defining AI simply: Systems that mimic human intelligence to perform tasks.

* A brief, non-technical history: From early ideas to today’s boom. * AI vs. Human Intelligence: Focus on mimicry vs. consciousness.

* Discussion: “Where have you heard about AI most recently, and what was your impression?”

2. The Stars of Today’s AI: Generative AI & LLMs (30 min)

* Mini-Lecture: * Generative AI: What it means to “create” (text, images, code). Examples: ChatGPT, DALL-E.

* Large Language Models (LLMs): The brain behind many generative text AIs. How they predict the next word. * Other common AI types (briefly): Predictive AI (recommendations), Discriminative AI (classification).

* Interactive Demo: Quick live demo of a simple LLM (e.g., ChatGPT or Google Gemini) performing a basic task (e.g., summarizing a short paragraph, brainstorming ideas). Focus on the output and how it feels “human-like.”