Saturday Volunteer Work (part 2)
I participated in the IBM CSC Thailand3 volunteer day by engaging students in a TJbot learning activity. TJbot is IBM’s computer robot that can be programmed to dialogue with its users.
After everyone arrived at the computer lab, and got situated, TJbot and I had a conversation that went along these lines:
Jeff: Hello TJ
TJ: Hello Jeff
Jeff: Say Hi to the students
TJ: Sa Wat Dee Krab
Jeff: Where are you from?
TJ: I am from IBM. I am an AI robot.
Jeff: Thank you, TJ.
TJ: Thank you and Sa Wat Dee Krab.
We then introduced the students to the concept of Artificial Intelligence by watching IBM’s Watson computer on the game show Jeopardy. On the show, the computer responded to questions with likely answers where each answer had a % confidence level. We talked about how a computer can “learn” and be able to respond quite accurately when it has high confidence in its answers.
Next students were broken into 2 sub-teams and given the assignment to write out the steps they would take in 1 of 2 scenarios (ordering a pizza or reserving a move ticket). This task proved to be a bit challenging because they had to write the steps in English, and they were still working on their English proficiency. “Google” proved to be their best friend, assisting in the process.
Once they completed the step identification challenge, they were introduced to the TJbot web-interface where they could try out their computer programming skills. It only took a brief introduction to terms such as #Intent and #Dialog, and before long they were programming their robots quite effectively.
Everyone would give a round of applause whenever any student would speak to TJ and then TJ responded with the programmed answer. And it was quite hilarious when a student programmed TJbot to respond to the question “Who are you?” with “I AM BATMAN!” All English phrases do not translate well, but movie phrases have their way of effectively crossing all language barriers!
Everyone had a LOT of FUN and enjoyed learning about artificial intelligence and dialoguing with IBM’s TJbot!
#IBMCSC #CSCThailand3 #TJbot
