High School Students' Takeaways From Inspirit AI
Inspirit AI has taught thousands of students a variety of topics adn applications of artificial intelligence. We interviewed some of those students to see what their main takeaways from the program were adn we were very heartened to see how much they’ve learned!
Jeremy Lu got an in-depth and hands-on education on concepts such as Generative Adversarial Network (GANs), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Reinforcement Learning. “It piqued my interest in unsupervised and supervised learning algorithms such as k-means, k-nearest neighbors, recurrent neural networks, and the mathematical operations behind backpropagation and logistic regression.”
Mahin Chawla already had an interest in computer sciences because it is one of his chosen subjects in school but Inspirit AI helped him grasp new and very in-depth knowledge of Artificial Intelligence.
Ally Bush learned all about Python libraries, the ethics of Artificial Intelligence, and industry-standard models. “I discovered that there were "professional models" and customizable models, both of which were useful to us.”
Prior to Inspirit AI, Diya Hituvalli had only a basic knowledge of Python but she felt this program gave her a comprehensive understanding of Artificial Intelligence. “I first learned about the different libraries available, and how to apply that to code. Then, I learned more about the topic of AI itself, and its applications, limitations, and ethical concerns. After that, I learned about various methods and strategies in AI and ML, such as linear and logistic regression. In the second half of the program, I learned about how to use all this knowledge in my AI project of fake news detection.”
Truc Hoang has always been interested in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, but through Inspirit AI, he was able to gain knowledge of what it is like working in these fields. “The project and the instructor spotlights activity particularly showed me how AI can be applied in very diverse areas.”
Andrew Klearman learned a lot about how simple it is to make an accurate model using python. Before Inspirit AI, Andrew didn’t have any experience working with the language before but now he feels very comfortable doing simple projects on his own. “The class made me even more excited about studying computer science in college. Watching all the teacher spotlights got me extremely excited about the capabilities of AI!”
Shruti Parasher similarly didn’t have any Computer Science or Artificial Intelligence knowledge prior to Inspirit AI. But, after just two weeks, she learned the basics of Python, basics of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, different Machine Learning models, and more! “I also have a newfound interest in AI and its vast range of applications in the world after doing this program.”
Derin Algül learned a lot of things about Artificial Intelligence that he didn’t even know existed. He learned about different models such as linear regression and some entertaining applications of AI. “For example, I learned about how an AI algorithm could play a game like "Mario" constantly until the point that it beats every level on the first try without any user input. AI is a lot similar to the human mind and it learns the best way to accomplish a certain goal by assessing how to overcome smaller obstacles which makes the goal harder to reach. So if you tell an AI model that its goal is to reach the end of each level in the game Mario; it will play the game many times and it will learn how to overcome obstacles such as the void, with the solution for this specific example being "jump".” He also learned how AI associates “weights” with each decision in order to give a certain numerical value to determine the importance of each decision. Overall, Inspirit AI not only taught him about many Artificial Intelligence concepts but also got him more interested in AI.
Vishnu Nandurkar entered Inspirit AI already loving coding in C++, Java, and Python and very curious about Artificial Intelligence. “This program opened my eyes to the world of AI. The program takes us through conceptual fundamentals, introduces AI application followed by hands-on programming [and] this program transformed my curiosity about AI into a passion for AI.”
Like some of her fellow students, Duriya Rehan knew absolutely nothing about Artificial Intelligence before Inspirit AI and was shocked to see how much quicker and more efficient problems were solved using AI. “This was surprising as just a few days ago I thought AI was a term used for robots that would one day take over the world. It surprised me to see how extensive CS is and how it is used in countless fields like medicine, spam emails detection, and self-driving cars. I really liked learning about NLP and Neural Networks and I hope to join Inspirit AI again to learn more about these topics.”
Amanya Sahney has always been tech-inclined but didn’t really know what Artificial Intelligence was before Inspirit AI. Inspirit AI not only taught her so many new topics such as Natural Language Processing, Convolutional Neural Networks, and Logistic Regression amongst others but also taught her new Python coding concepts and the ethical concerns surrounding AI such as privacy issues and gender bias. The program has opened a huge window of opportunity for her possible jobs and majors she wants to consider in college. “I'm extremely glad to have enrolled in this program and it was definitely the highlight of my entire summer as it opened my eyes to the world of AI.”
Towards the beginning of the program, Mahima Agrawal had a very basic understanding of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science. “I knew that AI was used in some of the assistants that phones had and used in viewer selection, but I did not know how it was used and what algorithms were implemented to have the AI conduct those tasks.” However, after Inspirit AI, she now knows about many different kinds of models that are used for different tasks, and which models to use for which task to get the highest accuracy. “Through my project, I learned how AI detects faces and the points that it uses to pinpoint the correct face. Although my project was emotion detection, I also understood a little bit about how facial recognition works.”
