I'm Going to Learn What?!?

Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widely utilized, there is a need for non-computer scientists to understand 1) how the technology works, and 2) how it can impact their lives. Currently, however, computer science educators have been reluctant to teach AI to non-majors out of concern that the topic is too advanced. To fill this gap, we propose an AI and machine learning (ML) curriculum that is specifically designed for first-year students. In this paper, we describe our curriculum and show how it covers four key content areas: core concepts, implementation details, limitations, and ethical considerations. We then share our experiences teaching our new curriculum to 174 randomly-selected Freshman students. Our results show that non-computer scientists can comprehend AI/ML concepts without being overwhelmed by the subject material. Specifically, we show that students can design, code, and deploy their own intelligent agents to solve problems, and that they understand the importance and value of learning about AI in a general-education course.