“The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present…”

While our future will not be filled with as much doom and gloom as the hypothetical future of the Terminator series (hopefully!), we share the need that something should be done right away in order to avoid alienating the ‘humans’ from the ‘machines’ of our society.

Since the latest rise of accessible “Artificial Intelligence” tools such as ChatGPT, both specialized researchers and the general public have been prompted to think about how they can and should interact with and make use of these tools. It has become evident that the nature of these tools and the general concept of “AI” remains a mystery to many, and that this circumstance may lead to a fear of what “AI” has the potential to do and to become. In addition, there is an immediate risk of both misuse and of being misled by these tools, since we only get to see what is spit out of the machine and often not how this output is generated.

As a reaction to these challenges, which will only continue to grow, this session sets the stage for discussing how we are preparing the future generation to deal with an increasing exposure to “AI” and its predictions. We focus on how we are teaching data science in Danish high schools – one of the last stages of general education in Denmark before entering society as a fully functional citizen.

Program

The session will start with three brief presentations of about 15 minutes each, providing views on the teaching of data science in high school both now and in the future.

In the second part of the session, the speakers will participate in a moderated panel discussion for about 40 minutes. There will be ample opportunity for the audience to participate by providing questions and input for the panel to discuss.

Speakers

• Claus Ekstrøm, Professor of Biostatistics at University of Copenhagen
• Jan Brønnum Sørensen, teacher at Aalborg City Gymnasium, part of the Aalborg Intelligence initiative
• Sine Zambach, Assistant Professor at Copenhagen Business School, author of ‘Kvinde kend din kode’ and ‘AI i gymnasiet’

Chair and panel moderator: Christoffer Sejling, PhD student at Section of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen

The full session will take 90 minutes.

Organizers

The session is organized by the Danish Statistical Society’s committee for Communication and Press (DSTS-C&P).

• Christoffer Sejling, PhD Student, Section of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen & member of DSTS-C&P.
• Anne Helby Petersen, Assistant Professor, Section of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen & board member of the Danish Statistical Society and DSTS-C&P.

Level

Introductory – suitable for beginners with little to no prior knowledge of the subject.