As a parent, AI is yet another social media tool you should familiarize yourself with. I am here to give you a quick tutorial on the pros and cons to this new internet monster.
What is AI? Well, I simply asked Google’s AI what it was and this was the result: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technologies that enable computers to perform tasks that mimic human intelligence, such as seeing, understanding, and responding to language, analyzing data, and making recommendations.”
What is your child doing with AI?
They are definitely using it for cheating. I am a high school teacher and we are having to completely change the way we test students to prevent the use of AI. Also, inform your child that there are websites teachers can use to check if a paper or answer is written from AI. The other most common thing is making images. Recently, there was an image floating around of a little girl holding a teddy bear, associating the image with the recent North Carolina floods. It was completely AI generated.
There are a few ways to determine if an image is AI generated. The most obvious to me is the smoothness of an image. Faces will look abnormally smooth. A person’s anatomy may be altered such as missing fingers or having too many fingers, and the left and right sides may not be symmetrical. Sometimes, a left earring or eyebrow may be missing. The internet isn’t completely perfect, yet. Below I typed in the generator, “Child in Halloween costume.” Two things stood out to me: there looks to be a hole in their tooth and the wand looks blended into the fingers. This image below is 100% AI generated.
Now that we have the scary stuff out of the way, let’s talk about my favorite things AI can do!
All I have in my refrigerator is ground turkey and bell peppers. What can I make with them? DishGen is an AI website that gives recipes based on ingredients you list. When ground turkey and bell peppers are typed into the text box, DishGen gives a full recipe for Ground Turkey Stuffed Bell Peppers. Only have 20 minutes? Include that in the text box. ChatGPT can be your go-to for all questions. Need ideas for rainy day activities for your 10-year-old? ChatGPT is here with a few ideas: DIY Escape Room, Treasure Hunt, Video game tournament, and Science Experiments. Does an escape room sound fun? Ask ChatGPT how to make a DIY Escape room for a 10-year-old and it will give amazing step-by-step instructions along with examples for the puzzles. The biggest blessing is homework help. There are several AI websites that can help with homework. They cover all subjects from science to math, yes even math! A great math website is called Photomath. With Photomath, you use an app to take a picture of a problem and it shows you how to work it, sometimes with multiple ways. This is another great tool if you have to use a certain method to solve problems.
