How to explain AI to a 4 year old
My son turns 4 in a couple of months and he has an insatiable curiosity about everything around him. So for some of the bigger things like religion, science, his body, etc, I like to think through how to explain things to him beforehand rather than muddling through it in the moment. My approach to any conversation with him involves giving him as much of an accurate picture as he can understand / has the patience to listen through.
He already interacts with AI on a daily basis. He asks our Google Speaker to play his favorite songs or ask about dinosaurs. It is just a matter of time before he figures out how to unlock the TV pin and asks Chromecast to play his favorite shows. Given this background, he has some frame of reference for what AI is or can do.
Here are some definitions a quick search gives me:
A set of technologies that enable computers to perform a variety of advanced functions, including the ability to see, understand and translate spoken and written language, analyze data, make recommendations, and more - Google Cloud
A field of research in computer science that develops and studies methods and software that enable machines to perceive their environment and use learning and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals - Wikipedia
Technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy - IBM
Ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings - Brittanica
The first two definitions above speak to the capability to perceive and interact with their environment and the last two allude to the ability to perform tasks that a human would. The tricky bit here is to explain to a 4 year old who already interacts with machines as if they were people what human-like behavior is and how it differs from the behavior of traditional machines which are much more deterministic.
So I have settled on the following explanation: “Intelligence is what lets you see, hear, touch or feel things around you and then to react or act in a way that is unique to you. In our body, the brain does this job. Artificial Intelligence is a way to make machines that can do this for us so we can avoid work that is too tedious, time taking or dangerous. An example is the Google Speaker which plays songs for you at a distance so you dont have to walk across and do it yourself. Remember how you went to bike camp to train how to ride a bike. The same way, AI also needs training initially but once it learns, it can go off on its own just like you without help” Given his aversion to anything that involves tedium, I am hopeful it will resonate.
What about GenAI then? Well if he followed along to the explanation above, this one should be easier. GenAI is a type of AI that is used to make or GENerate new things like a story or a poem or a picture (or maybe a toy some day) on its own with minimal instruction.
