In China, AI is no longer optional for some kids. It’s part of the curriculum : NPR
Li Zichen, a fifth-grade student at a Chinese public school, demonstrates a remote-controlled robot that can lift and move blocks and be programmed using artificial intelligence.
John Ruwitch/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
John Ruwitch/NPR
In a classroom at a primary school in Beijing’s university district, 11-year-old Li Zichen was demonstrating a small robot. It is a remote-controlled vehicle that lifts and moves blocks and can be programmed using artificial intelligence. It’s a small project, but it made him think big: about the rovers that China sent to Mars and the Moon.
“If a rover encounters a crater in front of it, for example, it can’t decide what to do after communicating with Earth,” he says, because sending signals through space takes too long. “It has to decide for itself. So I think AI is very important for the country’s deep space exploration.”
Meanwhile, Li’s classmate Song Haoyue used artificial intelligence as a graphic design tool to help her create a poster for a competition.
“I used Wukong, an AI-based image software, to create designs,” she explained. She had him make a poster about a mythical bird that tries to fill the ocean, one pebble at a time – a parable about perseverance.
The debate over artificial intelligence in U.S. schools has been brewing for years, with some highlighting the risks of AI in schools — such as delaying cognitive or social development — and others worrying that it exacerbates a growing digital divide.
In China, the authorities have taken a position.
Wang Le, Zichen and Haoyue’s computer science teacher at the primary school affiliated with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, a public school, said the Ministry of Education had adopted a new framework. “They require integrating AI courses into the information technology curriculum,” she said.
Wang Le integrates AI into his elementary school information technology lessons.
John Ruwitch/NPR/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
John Ruwitch/NPR/NPR
By the fall, all primary and secondary school students in Beijing and several other districts began learning about AI. Third graders learn the basics. Fourth graders focus on data and coding. In fifth grade, students discover “intelligent agents” and algorithms.
It’s about preparing children for life ahead, Wang said. And something else: “It’s about improving the country’s competitiveness by guaranteeing a future pool of qualified professionals.”
“Keji Xingguo“, she said. It is a political slogan which means: “Building a strong nation through science and technology”.
This slogan perhaps sums up the ruling Communist Party’s greatest dream: to create a technologically advanced and self-sufficient country. AI has been called essential to national security and economic competitiveness. The government wants China to become a world leader in AI over the next four years.
But while the state’s main goal with AI policy in schools is to develop a talent pool, the children’s parents – like all parents – are thinking about their children’s future.
In a small walk-up apartment on the sixth floor, Li Yutian, Zichen’s father, expressed his wholehearted support for his child’s interest in robotics and computers. He says he recently took his son to a Xiaomi factory to see what automation looks like in practice. Xiaomi makes some of the best-selling cell phones, gadgets and cars in China.
Li Zichen watches his father use a computer at their home, with his mother in the background.
John Ruwitch/NPR/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
John Ruwitch/NPR/NPR
The two talked on the way home, with the father telling his son Zichen that he should find a job that IA can’t do and differentiate himself to survive. “I said, ‘In the future, if you want a mechanical-type job, you could, for example, do things like maintain robots, or program them and guide them, rather than competing with them,'” he recalls.
Around dinner tables in China, there is debate about some of the same problems Americans face as children increasingly use AI: problems like becoming too dependent on technology and stunting their problem-solving abilities. Li Yutian believes China’s strict internet restrictions will help ward off some of AI’s worst risks, such as exposing children to violent content.
But protecting children from this technology is not the right solution, he thinks. “I always thought that not adopting it might be the biggest risk of all,” he said.
Song Zefeng, the father of the girl who made the poster with AI, largely agrees.
“It depends on the level,” he said. “For fifth and sixth grades, at the elementary level, overexposure is not appropriate.”
Kids that age shouldn’t be online much anyway, he says. But Song thinks making AI a mandatory part of the curriculum is a smart move.
“The development of AI itself is quite certain, but the greater uncertainty lies in what society will actually look like in the future,” he said.
He believes that if his daughter can draw inspiration from what she learns in the classroom, she may be better placed to understand what role she can play in an AI-dominated future – and to cope with the changes that lie ahead.
NPR producer Jasmine Ling contributed to this story.
