The GIANT Room at the Common Sense Media Summit, the Latest Giant AI Report, and more!
Things We Love:
The State of America’s Kids and Families Unveiled At Common Sense Media Summit
In a pivotal gathering aimed at addressing the pressing challenges facing our nation’s children and families, Common Sense Media hosted its Summit on America's Kids and Families. Convening a powerful coalition of youth leaders, educators, researchers, policymakers, and experts, including Hilary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Sam Altman, and GIANT Room CEO Azi Jamalian, stakeholders united at this summit to tackle the most pressing challenges facing today's youth.
7 Key Takeaways from The GIANT Room Common Sense Media Panel Discussion
During the Common Sense Media panel discussion on “What is Possible in Research and Design When We Listen to Young People” The GIANT Room CEO Azi Jamalian shared how the GIANT Room has championed co-designing our collective future with kids for kids. Lisa Guernsey from New America, Amanda Lenhart from Common Sense Media, and Dr. Jason Yip, Ph.D 葉嘉興 from University of Washington presented their findings from collaborating on research and design projects with kids and truly seeking and absorbing the feedback that they provide before, during, and after the process. The following are seven key takeaways from the panel:
GIANT Remix Creative Bootcamps:
Back By Popular Demand: GIANT Game Design and Product Design Bootcamps!
GIANT Creative Game Design Bootcamp: Would You Rather…?
The reviews are in and GIANT families raved about the first Would You Rather GIANT Game Set co-designed by GIANT kids. After receiving their GIANT game sets, families have reported higher levels of connection and joy with increased levels of discussion and understanding, along with playing of the game over and over!
Because we want to spread the connection, joy, discussion, understanding, and playing to everyone we are bringing back the GIANT Creative Game Design Bootcamp, so that even more GIANT families can design their own Would You Rather game cards to add to the deck!
Recommended for ages 5-12
FORMAT: Online, asynchronous — This is done on your own time and at your own pace.
PRICE: FREE TO PARTICIPATE. There is no cost to participate in this GIANT Creative Bootcamp. Simply submit your “Would you rather” questions to participate. Watch our creative prompts to get inspired and then collect your child’s “Would you rather” questions, projects, designs, and ideas. We’ll design your card deck based on their submissions. You’ll get to give feedback and request changes throughout the process and will see a final preview at the end.
GIANT Product Design Bootcamp: Kawaii Love Monster Postcards
Our Kawaii Love Monster Valentine’s Day Postcards were a hit with all the kids who co-designed their own postcards AS WELL as all of their postcard recipients! This has been our most popular Creative Bootcamp to date, and we have gotten multiple requests from more families who would like to design their own kawaii love monster postcards!
Because we love our GIANT community so much, we are bringing back our GIANT Product Design Bootcamp: Kawaii Love Monster Postcards. Now you can create your own postcard for ANY occasion!
Participate in our free Creative Product Design Bootcamp to design the most lovable characters, make prototypes, express emotions, and remix ideas into personalized postcards at your own pace! We cannot wait to see the kawaii creations!
Recommended for ages 3-12
FORMAT: Online, asynchronous — This is done on your own time and at your own pace.
PRICE: FREE TO PARTICIPATE. There is no cost to participate in this GIANT Creative Bootcamp. Simply submit your designs to participate. Watch our creative prompts to get inspired and then collect your child’s projects, designs, and ideas. We’ll design personalized postcards based on their submissions. You’ll get to give feedback and request changes throughout the process and will see a final preview at the end.
GIANT Team Tested:
The GIANT Team Works Out at FaceGym
We all know the physical benefits of working out our muscles. But have you ever thought about working out your facial muscles? Some of the ladies from our GIANT team were recently hosted for a face workout at The FaceGym, and the experience was nothing short of transcendent.
The GIANT AI Report!
The fast-paced AI landscape may seem overwhelming, as we are constantly inundated with new developments and breaking news. The GIANT AI Report is here to break it down into digestible bite-sized pieces that are currently relevant to parenting and education.
In this edition, we take a look at how AI is advancing towards emulating how children learn language, teaching and testing Next Generation Science Standards, synthesizing math theorems and proofs, and decoding ancient sea scrolls! Open AI partners with a university and establishes a new Child Safety Team. Semafor launches an AI-curated news feed.
AI Learns Language Through the Experience of a Single Child in Groundbreaking Study
In a groundbreaking study published in the Science journal, researchers unveiled a machine learning model that emulates how children learn language, offering profound insights into early language acquisition. Using video and audio recordings from a child's perspective, the model successfully associated words with visual objects, shedding light on the intricate process of language understanding and use. The study challenges traditional theories and suggests that simple associative learning mechanisms, coupled with multimodal representation learning, can serve as a foundation for replicating the initial stages of word learning.
Game Platforms Like Roblox Can Be a Breakthrough Teaching Tool
Educators and developers are exploring the integration of gaming elements into school assessments to make them more engaging, stealthy, and informative, echoing the immersive experiences of video games. Initiatives like the Northwest Evaluation Association's 3D-digital assessment on Roblox aim to leverage gameplay to measure complex concepts like Newton's Second Law of Motion. Despite challenges in mindset and assessment design, advocates envision a future where playful assessments not only capture a broader array of skills but also foster creative and inquiry-based learning environments. This shift signifies a departure from traditional test formats towards more interactive and empowering evaluation methods.
AlphaGeometry: An Olympiad-level AI system for geometry
Math has been a known limitation for AI. However, in a recent report published in Nature a study presents AlphaGeometry, a novel theorem prover for Euclidean plane geometry, which addresses the challenge of automating mathematical theorem proving, especially in geometry where translation difficulties inhibit machine-learning approaches. Unlike previous methods relying on human demonstrations, AlphaGeometry synthesizes millions of theorems and proofs across varying complexities, leveraging a neuro-symbolic system guided by a neural language model trained on extensive synthetic data. Impressively, AlphaGeometry outperforms previous methods on olympiad-level problems, producing human-readable proofs and demonstrating the potential for automated reasoning to approach human-level performance in mathematical domains.
Elon Musk Backs AI Project to Decode Ancient Roman Scrolls
Elon Musk's backing of the Vesuvius Challenge, a project aimed at decoding ancient Roman scrolls damaged by the Pompeii eruption, marks a significant milestone in historical research and artificial intelligence. The project has already achieved breakthroughs, utilizing AI to scan and interpret paragraphs from the scrolls found in Herculaneum.
OpenAI Announces First Partnership With a University
OpenAI recently announced a partnership with Arizona State University (ASU), providing full access to ChatGPT Enterprise for coursework, tutoring, and research. ASU plans to leverage ChatGPT for personalized AI tutoring in STEM subjects and to develop AI avatars for creative study assistance. The collaboration aims to enhance student learning experiences while ensuring privacy and intellectual property protection, with ASU exploring innovative applications of ChatGPT in higher education.
OpenAI Forms a New Team To Study Child Safety
OpenAI has established a new Child Safety team to address concerns about the potential misuse of its AI tools by children, reflecting a broader industry trend of tech companies dedicating resources to comply with regulations such as the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. The team's role includes managing processes, incidents, and reviews related to underage users, and OpenAI is actively seeking a child safety enforcement specialist to join the team. This move follows OpenAI's collaboration with Common Sense Media on kid-friendly AI guidelines and highlights the company's commitment to ensuring responsible AI usage among minors amid growing concerns about the risks and benefits of children interacting with AI tools.
Semafor Reporters Are Going To Curate the News With AI
Semafor, a newly revamped politics site, is introducing Signals, a product that aggregates and summarizes news stories from various sources on daily topics. This curation process is aided by MISO, an AI-powered search tool that helps reporters find relevant content, particularly from non-English sites, making the process more efficient. MISO has been dubbed as “a custom bot built on OpenAI’s platform and using Microsoft’s Bing search engine.” While MISO conducts searches in multiple languages, the final curation and editorial judgment are still performed by humans. Semafor's collaboration with Microsoft aims to explore responsible AI usage in journalism, highlighting the evolving role of technology in news reporting.
How are kids using AI to fuel their creativity? Check out the GIANT Remixes co-designed, and co-created by The GIANT Room team, GIANT kids, and AI, along with our latest Remix Creative Bootcamp!