Artificial Intelligence has rapidly become part of young people's everyday lives through generative AI tools, recommendation systems and, increasingly, systems capable of reasoning, using tools and acting more autonomously. However, there is an important gap between using AI and understanding AI. Many young people can interact with AI tools without understanding what an AI model actually is, how it is trained, where its capabilities come from, why it makes mistakes, or what distinguishes a chatbot from a reasoning model or an AI agent.
This gap becomes increasingly relevant as AI develops at a remarkable pace and young people are exposed to highly contradictory claims about its future and its potential impact on education, employment and society. Beyond learning how to use existing tools, young people need a conceptual understanding that enables them to understand how modern AI works, follow how the technology is evolving, and critically assess what these developments may mean for their own lives and futures.
The project aims to strengthen young people's capacity to understand Artificial Intelligence and its evolution.
Objectives:
- To develop participants' understanding of the fundamental principles behind modern AI by practically exploring concepts such as machine learning, neural networks, training, tokens, transformers and LLMs, as well as the differences between traditional programming and systems that learn from data.
- To develop participants' understanding of the main directions in which AI is currently evolving by exploring the progression from generative models towards reasoning, multimodality, tool use and AI agents, as well as the approaches being used to increase AI capabilities.
- To increase participants’ ability to identify and assess how current and emerging AI developments may affect their own learning, work and everyday life.