Funding to improve AI skills among schoolchildren and under-served communities

Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been awarded to projects intending to empower pupils with knowledge and skills to use artificial intelligence safely.

Around £500,000 has been given to kick-start several initiatives aiming to transform AI literacy in schools – for children to learn how to use machine learning responsibly.

The funding has been provided by Responsible AI UK , a consortium of experts from UK universities working to develop trustworthy artificial intelligence.

Some of the projects will support asylum seekers affected by misinformation, while others will supply teachers with resources to integrate AI into the classroom.

The skills programme funding will also launch legal courses about generative AI, which creates text, images or audio instead of making predictions about existing data.

RAi UK CEO Gopal Ramchurn is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence from the University of Southampton.

He praised the projects and said they will empower people of all ages to navigate the complexities of AI and harness its potential for positive impact.

Prof Ramchurn added: “Our skills programme focuses on responsible AI skills and not just AI – with the aim of delivering best practices for educators to ensure all AI is responsibly built, deployed, and used.

“Our broader remit with the research and innovation community paid off as we identified clear gaps in the skills landscape, particularly within schools.”

A total of six projects, based across the UK, have been awarded a share of the £500,000 funding provided by RAi UK – and will:

1)    Develop educational resources such as picture books and games to introduce AI concepts to young learners,
2)    Partner with secondary school students to explore how best to use generative AI responsible,
3)    Equip young refugees with skills to address AI-made misinformation,
4)    Create open-access legal courses held online about generative AI,
5)    Develop resources for teachers to integrate AI into the curriculum,
6)    Supply teachers with tools to help students become critically aware of the limitations of AI.

Dr Reem Talhouk, from Northumbria University, oversees the refugee misinformation project.

She said: "We hope to equip young refugees and asylum seekers with the skills needed to contend with the role of AI in misinformation-disinformation and be the champions of responsible AI in their communities."

Funding for the projects was announced at RAi UK’s first All-Hands meeting in Cardiff – which was attended by leading experts working on the development of responsible AI.

Professor Geoff Cox, from London South Bank University, leads the project which will investigate how image-based AI could challenge teaching of the future.

He added: "We are curious how image-based AI challenges existing approaches to the teaching of visual creativity.

"New digital tools such as Generative AI are easily adopted by young people through everyday media, but there is little or no formal guidance on how to use these technologies safely or responsibly."

Read more about the projects and RAi UK at www.rai.ac.uk .