STEM+C: Integrating AI Ethics into Robotics Learning Experiences

人工智能(AI)系统、工具和技术正迅速被采用和使用在青少年日常在家中和学校互动的设备和产品中。教育工作者开始认识到向K-12学生传授人工智能的必要性，并正在开发新的项目，如机器人技术，以满足这一需求。然而，尽管人工智能伦理在年轻人未来的个人、公民和工作生活中至关重要，但它在很大程度上被忽视了。该项目开发了人工智能伦理教学模块，并将其整合到现有的机器人青少年项目中。在学习机器人技术的同时，他们还将了解人工智能在机器人设计中出现的伦理问题，包括公平、透明度、自主性、尊重、问责、隐私和安全。该项目旨在通过两种创新的干预措施，在学生中促进对人工智能伦理和技能的责任，让学习者参与(1)基于人工智能伦理问题的故事，这些问题可能对青少年有意义，例如监督他们的身体活动，以及(2)由同理心驱动的实践活动，其中嵌入了伦理困境，在这个过程中，学生将体验犯下伦理错误、识别错误和修复错误的过程，潜在地培养对伦理问题的主人翁意识和解决这些问题的机构。这项研究将有助于理解将人工智能伦理整合到STEM项目(如学生的机器人学)中的影响，特别是关于他们对STEM和CS领域使用人工智能潜在的一系列新出现的伦理问题的参与、意识、知识和责任感。它将提供一种新的模式，通过将道德提升为首要关注的问题，而不是次要问题，以背景和相关的方式向与STEM概念相结合的学生教授人工智能。这个项目是由STEM+计算(STEM+C)项目资助的，该项目支持研究和开发，以了解计算和计算思维在STEM学习中的整合。推动该项目的研究问题是：(1)如何将人工智能伦理整合到机器人程序中，同时深化他们在STEM和CS方面的学习？(2)同理心驱动的实践活动如何帮助培养学生的人工智能伦理责任感；以及(3)在不同背景下，教师如何将人工智能伦理模块整合到他们自己的机器人程序中？在三年的课程中，人工智能伦理模块将被形式化地设计和研究，以评估它们对学生人工智能伦理推理以及STEM和CS技能的影响。研究人员还将研究不同正式和非正式环境中的教育工作者如何将这些人工智能伦理模块整合到他们的机器人项目中。72名中学生将在参加为期5天的机器人夏令营计划的同时，在三种夏令营计划条件下参加主题间研究学习：不含人工智能伦理的夏令营计划，从机器人计划中分离出人工智能伦理模块的夏令营计划，以及机器人与人工智能伦理相结合的夏令营计划。研究人员还将对50名同意参加在线社区的机器人教育者进行一项混合方法研究，研究教师如何将人工智能伦理模块整合到他们自己的机器人程序中。由此产生的人工智能伦理单元将通过与各组织和学校的伙伴关系以及通过项目网站广泛传播。鉴于人工智能对我们社会的深远影响，该项目旨在帮助学生培养对人工智能的责任感，以补充他们关于人工智能的技能和知识，以便更多的人在未来的专业实践中做好准备，能够处理道德问题，从而引导由人工智能驱动的不可避免的社会转型朝着更安全、更公平、更自由的方向发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems, tools, and techniques are being rapidly adopted and used in devices and products that youth interact with on a daily basis at home and in schools. Educators are starting to recognize the need to teach K-12 students about AI and are developing novel programs, such as robotics, to address this need. However, AI ethics, despite its critical importance in youth's future personal, civic, and work lives, has been largely neglected. This project develops and integrates AI ethics teaching modules into existing robotics youth programs. As students learn about robotics, they will also learn about emerging ethical issues in AI in the design of robots at the same time, including fairness, transparency, autonomy, respect, accountability, privacy, and security. The project aims to promote responsibility for AI ethics and skills among students through two types of innovative interventions by engaging learners in (1) stories based on AI ethics issues that are likely to be meaningful to young adolescents, such as surveillance of their physical activities, and (2) empathy driven hands-on activities with an embedded ethical dilemma in which students will experience the process of committing an ethical error, identifying the error, and fixing the error, potentially developing a stronger sense of ownership of ethical issues and agency to address them. The research will contribute to the understanding of the effects of integrating AI ethics into STEM programs such as robotics for students, particularly regarding their engagement in, awareness of, knowledge about, and sense of responsibility for a range of emerging ethical issues underlying the use of AI in STEM and CS fields. It will provide a new model for teaching AI to students integrated with STEM concepts in a contextualized and relevant manner, by elevating ethics as a primary concern, as opposed to as a side issue. This project is funded by the STEM + Computing (STEM+C) program that supports research and development to understand the integration of computing and computational thinking in STEM learning.The research questions driving this project are: (1) How does integrating AI ethics into a robotics program help develop students' ethical thinking, while deepening their learning in STEM and CS? (2) How do empathy-driven hands-on activities with embedded ethical dilemma help cultivate students' sense of AI ethics responsibility; and (3) How do teachers in various contexts integrate AI ethics modules into their own robotics programs? Over the course of three years, AI ethics modules will be formatively designed and studied to assess their effects on students' AI ethics reasoning along with STEM and CS skills. Researchers will also study how educators in different formal and informal contexts integrate these AI ethics modules into their robotics programs. 72 middle school students will participate in a between-subject research study while attending a 5-day robotics camp program in three camp program conditions: camp program without AI ethics, camp program with an AI ethics module separated from robotics program, and camp program with robotics integrated with AI ethics. Researchers will also conduct a mixed methods study of 50 robotics educators who have agreed to participate in an online community, studying how teachers integrate AI ethics modules into their own robotic programs. The resulting AI ethics modules will be disseminated widely through partnerships with organizations and schools, as well as through the project website. Given AI's far-reaching implications for our society, this project aims to help students develop responsibility for AI to complement their skill and knowledge about AI, so that more will be prepared and able to handle ethical issues in their future professional practices in order to guide the inevitable societal transformation driven by AI in a safer, fairer, and freer direction.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.