Designing Conversational Assistants to Reduce Gender Bias
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Moray House School of Education
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Judy Robertson (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Andries V
(2023)
Alexa doesn't have that many feelings: Children's understanding of AI through interactions with smart speakers in their homes
in Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence
| Title | Smart Speakers and AI |
| Description | We created a video to address children's misunderstandings about Alexa and other AI. The video is co-prodcued with a drama club at a local high school. We also produced a teachers' guide and videos about how to change privacy settings for Alexa. The collection of materials is here https://dataschools.education/ai-literacy/. THe link to the main video is https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/t/1_1gn8s3x1 |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | It's too early to have gathered much impact data but we are planning to run a study with local schools who will use the video and other materials |
| URL | https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/t/1_1gn8s3x1 |
| Description | Children's knowledge and views about AI in the form of smart speakers such as Alexa was studied. We gathered quantitative data from a survey completed by 166 primary school children in Scotland, and qualitative thematic analysis of focus groups with 28 primary school children (Andries and Robertson, 2023) . A large proportion of the children overestimated the intelligence of AI smart speakers, and many were unsure of the extent to which they have feelings and agency. Privacy mattered a lot to the children, but they sometimes had inaccurate ideas about what the smart speakers did with their personal data. In addition to the research findings, we created a video (with young people) and a teacher's guide to address the misunderstandings which young people had about Alexa and other conversational assistants. |
| Exploitation Route | We have presented to the Scottish Government with the following policy recommendations: Based on the findings of the study of children's knowledge and attitudes to AI, it is recommended that teachers include the following topics as part of the Computing Science strand of the technologies area of the Curriculum for Excellence. Education about data privacy should be taught throughout primary school in an age-appropriate way. Children require explicit education to improve their AI literacy as the current design of the AI systems they use can lead them to make misleading inferences. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education |
| Description | We used the findings to create a video (with young people) about AI and smart speakers, aimed at primary school classes with an accompanying teacher's guide. |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Towards Embedding Responsible AI in the School System: Co-Creation with Young People |
| Amount | £311,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/Z505560/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2024 |
| End | 08/2024 |
| Description | Edinburgh Science Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We ran a 2 day drop-in session about conversational agents at the family Science Festival section of the Edinburgh Science Festival at the National Museum of Scotland |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Magazine article for teachers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Prof. Robertson shared the findings with teachers in a Hello World magazine article for computing teachers (https://edin.ac/46JdBlA, p34). This magazine has a readership of 39,000 teachers in 190 countries |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://edin.ac/46JdBlA |
| Description | Presentation to Scottish Government Education seminar series with accompanying policy brief |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | I presented the research at a seminar at the Scottish Government educational research seminar series in Dec 2023. Around 50 professionals attended from the national agencies e.g. Education Scotland, Scottish Government etc. There was considerable discussion about children's knowledge of AI. As it was recent, it is hard to gauge the impact |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | School event about how Alexa works |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We visited a school to run a workshop to explain how Alexa works and address some of the misconceptions we found in or empirical study. It is too early to tell the impact of this event as it is so recent. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Teacher workshop including Smart Speakers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We ran a workshop for 15 primary school teachers about data literacy which included a section on smart speakers. We presented the empirical findings of children's knowledge and views on the topic and asked the teachers to plan lessons about it. It is too early to state impact as this workshop was only a couple of months ago. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Teacher workshop including Smart Speakers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We summarised the research findings and played the video to a workshop of teachers on a data literacy course. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |