Global Classroom: GISSV AI Project

"The pace of progress in artificial intelligence is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast—it is growing at a pace close to exponential." ~Elon Musk

From October to December 2017, grade 10 has been working in a cross-curricular and transatlantic project on the implications of the development in the area of Artificial Intelligence. Together with their peers from Beatrix College, Tilburg, The Netherlands, each group chose a research question and produced a website or a film with the results of their research.

"We must address, individually and collectively, moral and ethical issues raised by cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and biotechnology." –Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum

The students examined the ethical, economic, political, and social implications of Artificial Intelligence in their research question. They had help from numerous experts in the field, who took their time to give the students insight into their field of expertise: Thomas Weiss from Daimler-Benz, Kai Goebel from NASA, Joaquin Quinonera Candela from Facebook, Heinrich Matzinger from Georgia Tech, and Franz Josef Och from Google. The students were also invited to visit AIBrain, a company specializing in artificial intelligence in smartphone and applications in Menlo Park.

"It's going to be interesting to see how society deals with artificial intelligence, but it will definitely be cool." ~Colin Angle, CEO iRobot

The impressive outcome is presented here, so that the whole school community can enjoy the results of this unique undertaking.

Project Description

Experts

For their research on Artificial Intelligence GISSV's grade 10 welcomed experts in the classroom - read on here:

Franz Josef Och, Google

Kai Goebel, NASA

Kai Goebel has been working with Artificial Intelligence for more than 20 years and is currently leading the Discovery and Systems Health Technology Area at NASA Ames Research Center as well as the Prognostics and Decision-Making in NASA’s System-wide Safety and Assurance Technologies Project. Topics of the session:

What is intelligence?
Which aspects of human intelligence will artificial intelligence be able to reach?
Why do we need artificial intelligence in space travel?

Joaquin Quinonero Candela, Facebook

Joaquin Quinonero Candela is the Director of Applied Machine Learning at Facebook and showed how Artificial Intelligence is used for people recognition on photos. Topics of the session:

Possibilities and boundaries of artificial intelligence doing photo recognition
Dangers of decision-making through AT, for example for hiring purposes
Introduction of the research project and helpful advice

Two examples of his work:

https://www.facebook.com/FacebookforDevelopers/vid... (starting at minute 47)
https://hbr.org/2017/07/inside-facebooks-ai-worksh...

Thomas Weiss, Daimler-Benz

Heinrich Matzinger, Professor für Mathematik an der Georgia Tech

Prof. Heinrich Matzinger taught the students some simple algorithms that are used as the foundation of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Topics of the session:

Basics of simple algorithms
Differentiation between machine learning and artificial intelligence
Will machines ever “think” for themselves, make decisions for themselves and therefore can be called truly intelligent?

AI Brain, Menlo Park

On top of that, the students had the opportunity to visit AIBrain in Menlo Park. They talked to the CEO, Richard A. Shinn, about his vision of working with artificial intelligence, especially in education. AI belongs to the prominent companies in this area and specializes in usage of artificial intelligence in smartphones and applications.

Project Team

Initiators: Marc von Dongen, Head of School at Beatrix College, and Jenny Jungeblut, Head of High School at GISSV

Contributing teachers: Stef Siepel, Beatrix College and Martin Lentzen, GISSV

Student Project Groups:

Odin and Tristan (GISSV) with Jeroen, Nick and Riley (Beatrix College)
Jannis and Finn (GISSV) with Hozaan, Isa and Katharina (Beatrix College)
Anna and Jonathan (GISSV) with Inge and Menno (Beatrix College)
Nico and Leonhard (GISSV) with Jannes, Kevin and Fleur (Beatrix College)
Paul, Steen and Nikos (GISSV) with Bente, Karlijn, Isabelle, Hevy, Lisanne, Reeve (Beatrix College) as well as Sonja and Dorothea (Austauschschülerinnen vom Marie-Curie Gymnasium Dresden)
Nina Hölzl and Hanna Meister (GISSV) with Nathalie, Niels, Joep, Eva and Femke (Beatrix College)