In Hong Kong, middle school students will learn to master artificial intelligence from the start of the next school year

Around the world, governments are wondering how artificial intelligence will change the world of work and the education of children. In Hong Kong, the local authorities do not want to waste time in this revolution: they have just unveiled a change in the school curriculum. From September 2023, students will take mastery courses in artificial intelligence.

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The Education Bureau, which controls curriculum content in Hong Kong, has just announced that it has finalized content for new courses on artificial intelligence. All college students in the 450 public schools in the city will start these courses after the summer holidays.

Children in Hong Kong are already learning about coding in primary school and there are also exchanges planned with teachers on artificial intelligence in certain colleges. But, this year, the Office of Education, the equivalent of the Ministry of National Education, absolutely wanted a unified and complete program for all children aged 12 to 15.

Understand the advantages and possible drifts

This ministry explains that not all students will necessarily work in tech or innovation, but that artificial intelligence will necessarily impact their lives and that they must therefore understand the basics and the advantages, but also the potential abuses. . For now, the training is spread over 14 hours and integrated into the usual information and communication technology course. So children will learn to generate images and texts on sites similar to ChatGPT.

There will be initiation to computer vision, where machines are initiated to analyze images in order to then make them render a service. The Office of Education also plans courses on speech synthesis, workshops where college students will have to work in teams and try to use artificial intelligence to solve a concrete problem. Several lessons are scheduled on the ethical issues of artificial intelligence: the authorities want children to understand the social consequences of these new technologies on their lives outside of school.

One of the challenges is that teachers must be able to teach this new material immediately. The Hong Kong government has announced that it will also launch training workshops for its college teachers at the start of the school year in September. For now, he has scheduled a thousand training sessions so that teachers can be up to speed before leading their own artificial intelligence courses.