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Organizing & Processing Information with AI · scripted

Practice

by Jules White

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What students will do

One pile of twenty things, supplied by the class, and the three instructions from the lesson applied to it on a shared screen: extract, transform, and organize. The point is to see each instruction do its one job, and to feel that the way we organize something is a choice that decides what we see.

Notes for teachers

Do this on a shared screen. Let students supply the pile; it should be things they care about. Before each prompt, ask the class which of the three instructions it is, and what should come back. The best moment is the last organization, when the class invents a grouping rule AI did not think of.

One pile, three instructions

Step 1 · Build the pile

  1. 1
    Ask the class for twenty things of one kind.
    Things they spent money on this month, apps on their phones, every place they ate in the last two weeks, everything due in the next month, every item in a backpack. Take whatever comes, in whatever order it comes.
  2. 2
    Type the list.

Step 2 · Extract

  1. 1
    Ask the class for a rule that only some of the items fit.
    Things that are free. Things you can do indoors. Foods you could make with a microwave. Songs under three minutes.
  2. 2
    Ask for only the ones that fit.
  3. 3
    Check the cut.
    Read the ones that were left out. Ask whether anything was cut that should have stayed. If the rule needed knowledge the list did not contain, such as how long a song is, ask where AI got that knowledge.
Discuss the extract
  • The list has twenty things. How many came back? What happened to the rest?
  • Did AI need to know anything about the items that was not in the list?

Step 3 · Transform

  1. 1
    Choose a common format for every item.
    Each item on one line as: the name, a five-word description, and a cost label of free, cheap, or expensive. Or: the name and a one-word category. Let the class pick.
  2. 2
    Ask for every item in that format.
  3. 3
    Count the lines.
    There should be twenty. Ask what the transform made possible that the plain list did not.
Discuss the transform
  • All twenty items are still here. What changed?
  • Did anything get lost in the new form? Does it matter?

Step 4 · Organize three ways

  1. 1
    Ask for three different groupings.
  2. 2
    Read the three rules aloud.
    Ask which organization surprised the class, and what it put together that they would not have.
What each organization shows
  • Pick one item. Where did it land in each of the three organizations? Which one tells you the most about it?
  • Nothing was added or removed. Why do the three results feel so different?

Step 5 · Invent the fourth

  1. 1
    As a class, invent a rule AI did not use.
    By how it makes you feel. By what your grandmother would think of it. By how hard it is to explain to a five-year-old.
  2. 2
    Organize the pile by the class’s rule.
    Then check whether AI understood the rule or just guessed.
The fourth organization
  • Did the class’s rule show something none of AI’s three did?
  • What did it hide?
  • Which of the three instructions did the class use in each step? Which one did most of the work?