The impact of artificial intelligence has been highlighted over and over again throughout the evidence gather by the UK cross-party Parliamentary group, APPG on Artificial Intelligence (APPG AI).
Who will be most impacted though? Well, the answer is simple: our future generations. Otherwise known as our children.
In Spring 2018, Big Innovation Centre, the Secretariat of APPG AI, partnered with schools across the UK to launch a competition asking children to envision a future filled with AI. We wanted to encourage UK children to think critically and creatively about how AI will impact them, and to also give them a platform to make their voices heard.
Specifically, the brief shared with them asked to:
“Take a couple of minutes to think about how technology like Artificial Intelligence is changing your lives. The future is yours. Imagine what your future will and should look like in ten years. You can draw, make a collage, write, or anything else you want. Use colours! Be creative!”
Eighty-six students participated in the competition, and the submissions received were truly astonishing.
We reviewed the submissions with awe and published them all on the APPG AI website – encouraging the APPG AI community to vote on their favourites.
The votes were than counted and the top choices from each school were presented at an APPG AI Dinner, attended by Members from the House of Lords, Members from the House of Commons, the APPG AI Permanent Advisory Board, and other key stakeholders in the fields of AI and education.
The winners were:
- Dunottar School: Hope Blakckstone
- Sturminster Newton School: Abi Millard
- South Wilts Grammar School for Girls: Bethany McRobert
All participants received an APPG AI Certificate, signed by co-chairs Stephen Metcalfe MP and Lord Clement-Jones. A special certificate and a copy of Michael Wooldridg e’s ‘Artificial Intelligence: Everything you need to know abut the coming AI. A Ladybird Expert Book’ were presented to the three winners.
The submissions highlighted both the opportunities and the risks posed by new AI technologies. In whole, they also showed the entire APPG AI Community – made up of Parliamentarians, technologists, business decision makers, academics, and more – that the students are more aware of AI’s impact than most of us originally believed.
It is important to include their voices in the important decisions being made around how AI will be regulated and implemented in society, especially because most of the impact will be felt by them in the future.
