Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: 'Hour of Code' Announces It's Now Evolving Into 'Hour of AI'

Link: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/08/1...

Last month Microsoft pledged $4 billion (in cash and AI/cloud technology) to
"advance" AI education in K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, and
nonprofits (according to a blog post by Microsoft President Brad Smith). But
in the launch event video, Smith also says it's time to "switch hats" from
coding to AI, adding that "the last 12 years have been about the Hour of
Code, but the future involves the Hour of AI." Long-time Slashdot reader
theodp writes: This sets the stage for Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi's
announcement that his tech-backed nonprofit's [annual educational event] Hour
of Code is being renamed to the Hour of AI... Explaining the pivot, Partovi
says: "Computer science for the last 50 years has had a focal point around
coding that's been - sort of like you learn computer science so that you
create code. There's other things you learn, like data science and algorithms
and cybersecurity, but the focal point has been coding. "And we're now in a
world where the focal point of computer science is shifting to AI... We all
know that AI can write much of the code. You don't need to worry about where
did the semicolons go, or did I close the parentheses or whatnot. The busy
work of computer science is going to be done by the computer itself. "The
creativity, the thinking, the systems design, the engineering, the algorithm
planning, the security concerns, privacy concerns, ethical concerns - those
parts of computer science are going to be what remains with a focal point
around AI. And what's going to be important is to make sure in education we
give students the tools so they don't just become passive users of AI, but so
that they learn how AI works." Speaking to Microsoft's Smith, Partovi vows to
redouble the nonprofit's policy work to "make this [AI literacy] a high
school graduation requirement so that no student graduates school without at
least a basic understanding of what's going to be part of the new liberal
arts background [...] As you showed with your hat, we are renaming the Hour
of Code to an Hour of AI."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528