Synthetic intelligence is forcing all types of difficult questions on colleges and academics: What are the results of blindly trusting what AI tells us? What good—or hurt—would possibly come from the huge information assortment underlying the know-how?

And perhaps most significantly: Can one thing we invented to raised our lives wind up hurting us as a substitute?

Although the know-how could also be comparatively new, many of those large questions aren’t. The truth is, science fiction writers have probed them for many years, even centuries.

That makes science fiction a rare device for serving to college students perceive AI and its potential influence on society, academics say.

Listed here are among the texts that educators—from pc science academics to English instructors—say they’ve discovered helpful in serving to college students grow to be AI literate. (For the document, one is a nonfiction memoir.)

AI 2041 by Kai Fu-Lee and Chen Qiufan

The ten quick tales on this e-book are set in several cities world wide 20 years after the e-book’s 2021 publication—when most excessive schoolers might be of their 30s. Many function teenage characters. After every story, there’s a brief rationalization of the know-how it explores.

Instructor Take:

The authors paint an image of a “affordable future [with] AI. Like, in 20 years, like what would life be like with this factor?” mentioned Andrew Smith, who teaches pc science at Woodstock Excessive Faculty in Woodstock, Vt. The tales discover points corresponding to information assortment, privateness, and the biases in society that may be amplified by AI-powered programs, all points that college students and educators are inspecting increasingly as using AI expands in Okay-12 training and throughout different sectors.

All Programs Learn: Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

This 2018 novella kicks off a best-selling sequence that now consists of six different books. It tells the story of a violent, AI-powered android because it searches for that means and engages in relationships.

Instructor Take:

This novel is a good way to discover the intersection of social-emotional studying and know-how, mentioned Nicholas Bousquet, who teaches pc science at Plainfield Excessive Faculty in Central Village, Conn.

“Wells imagines a anonymous, company-owned [robot] who’s wrestling with lots of the similar challenges dealing with younger adults in the present day, together with psychological well being, social anxiousness, morality and ethics in a company context, and the almost irresistible attract of display time to flee all of it,” he mentioned.

Ender’s Recreation by Orson Scott Card

This 1985 novel, the beginning of a sequence, explores youngsters’s distinctive and terrifying function in a world the place Earth has a struggle with an alien species—with clear parallels to the Chilly Warfare between the US and the Soviet Union, which had the residents of each international locations seeing one another because the enemy.

Instructor Take:

The story, which takes place in a dystopian, morally grey world, is a good springboard for discussing ethics, mentioned Pam Amendola, an English trainer at Dawson County Excessive Faculty in Dawsonville, Ga. She has used the story to spark discussions on questions corresponding to: “What’s an ethical compass?”

She relates the societal upheaval within the story to technological change in society in the present day, led to partly by AI. That “creates a pause for them to have that introspective second and ask themselves, ‘is that this proper?’ That’s what literature has accomplished up to now. It’s offered some extent of reflection for a lot of, many, many alternative subjects.”

‘The First Sally, or Trurl’s Digital Bard’ by Stanislaw Lem

This quick story, printed in 1965, tells the story of an inventor who creates a technological “bard” that may be prompted to jot down poems—greater than a half century earlier than ChatGPT was launched. It’s value noting that Google named it’s AI chatbot “Bard.”

Instructor Take:

Matt Johnson, who teaches physics and synthetic intelligence at Whitney Excessive Faculty in Southern California’s ABC Unified college district, mentioned he likes utilizing “quick tales, significantly these I can discover at no cost on-line—which are typically a bit older. I’m an enormous fan of Isaac Asimov and Stanislaw Lem for this stuff as a result of they’re large on concepts, however they write with accessible language and construction.”

‘Folding Beijing’ by Hao Jingfang

This Chinese language novelette, printed in 2012, takes place in a future Beijing that’s grow to be vastly overcrowded. Many roles have been misplaced resulting from automation and bodily house is a premium. Decrease class individuals spend their days sleeping underground, solely awakening at night time to clear waste, a lot of it created by the know-how utilized by the higher lessons.

Instructor Take:

The story explores each the bodily waste that AI merchandise create and appears at how the rise of automation would possibly displace many employees.

That offers college students a glimpse into AI know-how’s potential environmental penalties, mentioned Jeremy Promote, an English trainer at Magnolia Excessive Faculty in California’s Anaheim Union Excessive Faculty district. “We’ve got all these cool devices and all this cool tech,” he mentioned. “However what’s the real-world influence?”

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Shelley began this novel when she was simply 18, not a lot older than most highschool college students. Revealed in 1818, it’s the story of a scientist who imbues life into non-living matter, with devastating penalties.

Instructor Take:

This Gothic basic could appear a far cry from robots and enormous language fashions, however its central themes are clearly related to the dialog on AI.

“I believe Frankenstein is a good place to start out,” mentioned Hale Durant, who labored as a highschool librarian earlier than turning into an implementation specialist at ai.EDU, a nonprofit that works to advertise AI literacy. “When people attempt to create one thing that’s clever, the clever factor sometimes doesn’t behave the way in which they anticipate it to.”

Lady Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity By Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Expertise by Rana el Kaliouby

This 2020 memoir—which academics say reads like a novel—tells the story of el Kaliouby’s work on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, which targeted on getting machines to learn human feelings.

Instructor Take:

The e-book wrestles with what it’s like “making an attempt to be a lady from the Center East breaking into tech,” mentioned Chad McGowan, who teaches pc science at Ashland Excessive Faculty in Ashland, Mass. “It’s undoubtedly very relatable for a few of my college students to simply hear about that wrestle.”

The e-book additionally presents loads of fodder for McGowan’s college students to delve into among the large moral and governance questions surrounding AI—in addition to take into consideration what informs their very own ideas, McGowan mentioned.

‘Valedictorian’ by N.Okay. Jemison

This quick story, printed in 2012, tells the story of a teenage woman who’s a part of a society consisting of the final remaining people, in a world dominated by synthetic intelligence. Her success in class would possibly lead her to be handed over to an AI-human hybrid system.

Instructor Take:

This can be a “crowd favourite,” mentioned Bousquet. “‘Valedictorian’ poses essential questions on what teenage individuality, management, and resistance would possibly appear like in a near-future dystopia dominated by intrusive know-how.”

Bousquet provides that LeVar Burton’s “very good” studying of the story—out there on Spotify— “is an glorious [tool] for college students working to shut literacy or studying gaps.“