On Our Best Behavior
On Our Best Behavior is a heartwarming podcast where Mom, Kelli and 16-year-old son, Maccoy delve into the complexities of school, life's struggles, highs and lows, and various challenges. With a blend of humor and sincerity, they navigate through these topics while sharing their own experiences and insights. Their conversations are not only relatable but also enlightening, offering listeners a fresh perspective on everyday issues. Alongside their engaging discussions, they welcome intriguing guests, adding a dynamic element to each episode. Tune in to join this duo on their journey of growth, learning, and discovery.
On Our Best Behavior
Amber Ivey: Empowering the Next Generation with AI
Unlock the potential of artificial intelligence for the next generation with insights from Amber Ivey, a trailblazer in data management and the founder of Ivey Collective. Amber takes us through her inspiring journey from data expert to AI advocate, particularly for children. She shares how her early reader book, "AI Meets AI," is equipping kids with foundational AI concepts, turning them into not just tech users but creators. Gain an understanding of how AI can enhance learning and development, preparing children for a future where technology is seamlessly integrated into their lives.
Explore the nuances of human-AI interaction with the relatable story of a young AI girl, Addie Iris, and an AI robot named Jazz. Discover how AI is beginning to grasp human values like responsibility and empathy, while we learn to better understand technology. We navigate the shifts from traditional methods to modern innovations and tackle concerns about maintaining human creativity in an increasingly AI-driven world. Amber sheds light on the misconceptions adults have about AI, urging us to rethink how we perceive its integration into society.
In the final segment, we emphasize the importance of storytelling and engaging educational methods to demystify AI for children. Drawing from personal experiences, we discuss how early exposure through relatable analogies and entertaining narratives can lay the groundwork for future tech education. Amber also provides valuable career advice, highlighting the significance of non-linear paths and continuous learning. This episode is a resourceful listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, education, and career development, offering both inspiration and practical insights.
aidigitales.com
It's Kelly and I'm so excited that we're in season four of On Our Best Behavior podcast Now. Today I'm just going to have myself and a special guest and we're going to learn all about AI artificial intelligence. So I really hope that you enjoy this episode and McCoy will be back with me next week. Enjoy, enjoy, and McCoy will be back with me next week. Enjoy. You're listening to another episode of On Our Best Behavior, and today we're going to be talking about artificial intelligence, commonly known as AI. And today our special guest, whose initials are conveniently AI, amber Ivey.
Speaker 1:She is known as a skillfully blended research and practical application. She's a dynamic leader in data management and utilization, as well as performance management. Amber's career exemplifies her dedication to fostering a culture of data literacy and continuous improvement and her vision of a technology-driven future. She's also the founder of Ivy Collective, a collective of industry experts that help people and organizations improve their personal and institutional practices. She also penned AI Meets AI, an introduction to artificial intelligence for kids, which is a captivating early reader book designed for five to nine-year-olds, introducing them to the intriguing world of AI. Amber, welcome to the podcast. What haven't you done, goodness sakes?
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I tell people all the time I have not been blessed with the honor of having kids. So these are my kids, so I can do all this other stuff. So there's a reason behind my madness, but nice to meet you. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:So is there anything that you kind of want to tell us about you? I mean, we're going to get into some questions, but tell us just a little bit about you in general.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So I tell people like by day, I help governments use data to solve some of the problems that they're trying to address, whether it's homelessness or issues around housing, and then by night, I help kids understand this wonderful world of AI. I used to talk about AI for adults, but I also realized that we are a little bit more nervous and fearful of things that are new to the source, of the group that is literally born with this technology. Who is their first interaction with the internet is literally through home assistants like Alexa or OK Google, like they're not on a computer first. They're literally talking to these devices to search the internet. So why not start with the group of folks?
Speaker 1:who are doing this?
Speaker 2:I love this stuff, I love talking about data and technology and I'm really excited to share more with you and your audience.
Speaker 1:I know. I think it's really true what you said, because oftentimes I'll ask my son like, hey, how do you do this? Or even a five-year-old will have more knowledge of technology or Alexa or the internet than me. So yeah, I think that you are definitely ahead of the curve on that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that you are definitely ahead of the curve on that one. I'm glad, hopefully so, like high schoolers or folks who have graduated school. They were talking about AI for them, but no one's meeting the kids who are literally going to be living with this thing and have been living with it, like I said, since birth, so really excited about it, and I think it's a topic that we all should know about.
Speaker 1:But I want to make sure kids are ready to compete and be creators in this space, and not just users of those technologies. So what sparked your interest in artificial intelligence? Personally, like how do you see the role of AI evolving in kids' daily lives?
Speaker 2:So it started for me just because of the data background. So data is a big part of what feeds AI and how AI learns. Without data, ai really can't exist. So as I was working in data, I started learning about all these cool technologies that were using things like what we call predictive analytics or AI type aspects to help do everything from help you understand a traffic pattern to understanding when the weather is changing, like there's different algorithms that have been used as part of our daily lives. So as I was learning about that in the data space, I'm like, oh, let me do more about this. I've done research into it and actually been a part of projects that launched AI type tools to help people understand how to use language in new ways and how to identify, search for folks, to help people to use AI to make search better. So as I was going through that, I'm like, oh, this is really interesting. I really like this, and if I'm going to continue in the data space, I need to understand the world of AI, so continuing to research it.
Speaker 2:And then at one point, I was actually asked to be a voice of an AI, which is a little scary to some. So my voice is trained, or was trained, for an AI avatar who travels the world to use. She sounds just like me, she speaks multiple languages. She says things I've never said in my life really around like I've really gotten into it, and it's mainly because of my background and past and as I looked into the future of these things and start start things seeing things like chat gpt come out, um, my voice was trained before all that happened, so I knew what was going on the background and also the predictive analytics or algorithms I was telling you about. I saw that beforehand.
Speaker 2:So when you introduce chat gT in the fall or winter wherever you want to call it in the 2022, and then everyone is like going crazy. Everyone is scared of what's happening. Schools are banning it. Parents are wondering what is going to happen with their kids. That was when I was like, okay, we got to make sure kids in particular understand how to use this and that they have a safe way to access this technology and know how their brain is probably going to change and development when we have something like this that could assist them.
Speaker 2:I think there's great ways to use this technology to help meet kids where they are. I know in our current school system, for example, we normally focus on the middle of the pack when it comes to kids. Ai, if used correctly, can help us identify the needs of the child, to get them the support they need, as well as the tutoring they need. And that's where I'm really excited about this for kids is helping kids, no matter where they are, no matter their zip code, get access to education. And for AI to really help teachers to be at their highest potential when they can't literally sit down with every student that's in their classroom.
Speaker 1:So I've heard a lot of things about, like, kids getting in trouble for plagiarizing or GPT writing their essays. What do you, how do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:So plagiarism is always wrong. It was wrong before chat GPT, is wrong after chat GPT but's wrong after chat GPT. But there are ways to use chat GPT to learn about grammar. So if you're not the greatest writer, you can ask the GPT to take on the persona of a teacher or a tutor. Say, hey, I'm struggling with English or I'm struggling with writing a report on X, y and Z. Can you help me think about the process to get there? What questions would you ask me to make sure I write the best paper? So there's ways to use the technology.
Speaker 2:I disagree that we should be using it for plagiarism or anything like that. I do think teachers are going to have to deal with just a new issue and have to think about ways to incentivize kids to use the technology to think about that. So, for example, I've seen teachers say, hey, write your essay Now. Write your essay. Make it better with ChatGPT Now write a paper on what was the difference in what you learned? To help connect the dots, because all of us have been trying these tools.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't make sense for us to use them and substitute it for human intelligence, because it can't really create anything new, right, it's learning off of what it already has, so it's just reading information and regurgitating it back. So we still need humans to think about the newness and the things that are unique to you as an individual. That has to happen with a human in the loop, a human a part of the process, and we can't just let AI write our papers and do all that, because I still want to know how John or Jane feel about this topic. I don't want a whole bunch of AI bots talking to each other for the rest of our lives. We're at that point now. I feel like LinkedIn is like full of just AI chatbots responding. So, yeah, we want to not go that far. We want human creativity. That has to remain, and this should help us do our jobs and the things we love better.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think that I mean I just learned something, because I remember, like not even knowing what chat GPT was. I feel like I was way behind the trend on that and then, like I didn't even realize, you could say things like help me write a paper about this or give me more topic ideas or give me guidance that's so helpful, versus I feel like I just hear people say write me an essay about unicorns, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and I think that's the piece of it. I was interviewing someone for my AI for Kids podcast and one thing he recommended he teaches this topic and he works at Vanderbilt and he recommended that you have at least three prompts in there. So not just write me an essay about unicorns, but I'm really interested in the topic of unicorns. I would love to write a book about unicorns, but I really want to understand how I do it. So he wants you to add a few layers in there.
Speaker 2:So make sure you're giving the chat GPT a few things that it should be doing not just write a paper but help me think. What is the outline, what is the concept, but add a few things in there so you can realize how it can really help you in your creative process and your writing process and the way I think about it. If I was sitting with my teacher and there was questions that I had coming up, I use it to ask the questions that I may not have a human next to me to answer, that I may also go to Google to answer, right, but it's just quicker for me to go to chat GPT versus writing my whole paper, because I again value what the human who's writing the topic has to say about the unicorns and I want to make sure chat GPT just doesn't pull from a thousand papers. It read about unicorns and then mashes them into one paper. So as many prompts or notes or tips to the GBC helps it to perform better and helps you get the best out of it.
Speaker 1:What are some common misconceptions about AI that you hope to dispel with your book?
Speaker 2:that it's going to replace us. That's what I hope, right Like I believe you and I are of the generation of like Terminator, irobot and all the things that told us that these things are going to destroy the world. Right To be determined, but it's using these technologies. One of the things that we make sure to talk about in the book is that there is no artificial intelligence without humans, like they're not possible.
Speaker 2:So in the book there's a little girl named Addie Iris. She's AI and she meets an AI robot named Jazz, who had lost his way going back to Johns Hopkins because his GPS is broken the whole time. The AI is learning from her about human things that an AI doesn't know about. An AI can emulate and simulate human emotions and feelings, but it doesn't. We don't believe it feels. Just yet we're not at that version of AI. But in the book she's talking about responsibility and picking up trash and what it means to care and help someone who lost their wallet or keys, what it means to do those really human things that are needed and the AI is learning from her and what it means.
Speaker 2:And at the same time, she's also learning from the AI how it thinks, how it works, how technology works, and that's the goal is that these things should work together. Humans should be able to work with AI. Insert technology right. Ai is just the next technology we're using. At one point we didn't use touchscreen right. We had buttons that we were pushing. Then we had to all learn how to use a screen where you're just touching a screen and there's nothing happening. Of course, they add like a vibration, so you got feedback, but we're literally touching just a screen and something has happened underneath it. We have to learn how to do that.
Speaker 2:So, for me, how do we now interact with a technology that has been once behind the scenes in our devices, in our computers, and is now like in our face?
Speaker 2:How do we interact with that, become better with it and make it a part of our lives, without taking away what makes us innately human, because it can't be human? So I think that's important and we always talk about more than anything else is creativity, because my biggest fear is that kids will lose their creativity. So that's one thing I am pushing. So the human part is also being creative, problem solving and doing the things that we should continue to keep in ourselves and work with AI to do the things that we don't want to do. Like I don't want to respond to a hundred emails right If I don't have to, but I do want to go and draw or create or write a book, or think or sing and things that make me happy. How can you figure out the things you don't want to do, that are more like repetitive tasks that no one likes, and actually do the cool, creative stuff that you're hoping to get done?
Speaker 1:Circling kind of back to like chat GPT doing the work for you. I feel like in our generation, like you said, with the Terminator and iRobot, I feel like so excited when I don't know something that I can just find the answer. But I feel like the kids today, they've always had that, so they're just kind of like whatever, I don't care. So if that was a thing when I was a kid, I just feel like it's so awesome that you don't really have to wonder anymore If you're wondering.
Speaker 1:I can't even think of an example, but I do that all the time. I don't know that, so I'm going to look it up. But my son is just like hey, mom, he'll ask me a question and I'll say I don't know, why don't you Google it or why don't you look it up? And he'll be like oh, that's okay, you know. And so then I almost feel like the generation start to get a little bit and maybe it's just me, but they start to kind of get a little lazy because things are so easy or they don't really care right now. They can always go find out whenever they want to.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I think that is a big problem, just in the information age. I believe the creators of the internet thought that, oh, we're going to give all this information to humans. It's going to make us so much more advanced and so much more X, Y and Z, and then it turns around and we all want to dance on TikTok, right? So it's like there's a balance to these really cool technologies that can give us access to the information we need in a way that is easily accessible and your son is probably taking the view of is there, so I don't have to worry about it versus like having to get encyclopedias, having to go to the library.
Speaker 1:It's a different world the library.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yes, it's a different different world, um, and we were brought up in a world where we had to literally go find it, do decibel, decibel system like what is the name of the book, how do we, how do I find it? And then go do a report where they're like alexa, tell me what's the weather, alexa, do whatever. So trying to figure out is if, if it's a good thing or a bad thing. What I will say where I am hopeful is that I am experiencing kids like. I get to interview kids all the time with AI stuff. They're further, even though they don't care about the same things. When I talk to them about some subjects, I'm like I was not thinking about that at your age.
Speaker 2:And I wasn't thinking about that as a college student.
Speaker 2:So some of the things they are thinking about, because they have that advancement and don't have to, I guess, maybe waste the brain space on figuring something out. They're able to learn other things at a higher level that I myself took forever and maybe still haven't learned. So I think there's a trade-off that we may not see, and for us, I know, for me it also appears like hey, this is laziness. But I'm also realizing their skill set, for their time makes sense for their time, and that's what I'm still struggling with. As I'm talking to you, I'm talking to myself too. They're like it sucks, but that's my hope for sure.
Speaker 1:So when we were talking about misconceptions, so for adults, the biggest misconception I hear all the time is like oh, you know the government's listening. Misconception I hear all the time is like oh, you know the government's listening. Or oh, you know, you say one thing and now your phone like is bringing up whatever it is you're talking about. So how do you get it out of? Like I try to tell people all the time I really don't care if the government's watching me, because I don't have anything to hide from them. So if they want to check in on me, like hey, what's up? But why are people so paranoid about that?
Speaker 2:I think it also doesn't help that, like media, social media, books we've read have all told us that this is happening and now we're like, oh, it is happening. So I think it's some someplace. People are struggling with what is happening versus reality. I am also okay with my apps listening. The ones that I don't want to listen. I shut off the microphone and close it up, but I like when I go onto a website and they're telling me what I was thinking about. I know it sounds a little weird, but some things I'm like I want to have easy access to that pair of shoes that I did not need, that I'm now wearing this in the exact color or that I'm talking about. I need to go to the movies and then the movie pops up and I can easily access it. I think some of that just allows us not to have to worry and spend the time. But I do tell people you can still limit what you give access to, and that's up to you, especially for kids. You want to make sure your kids are having limitations.
Speaker 2:There are plenty of technology tools that allow kids to have phones that aren't as advanced as ours, so they're not interacting with that. I care more about the kids in this space than adults, because we've already we've given our so much information into something. Some data breach has taken some information like to the point of like. We heard about social security numbers. Those are all out there. Like all of that is gone. But for a kid, I'm more protective there. So just making sure your kid is not putting their personal information in, or if you're getting them a phone, you're using more of a parent safe phone or different apps, like they even have apps for them to listen to or technologies for them to listen to podcasts without going online. So there's ways to help kids reduce the amount of information they're sharing before they're 18. But once you're 18 and up, and if you have an app, you've given it up.
Speaker 2:So I'm like it's part of just being a part of the culture we're in. I don't think that's a scary thing. I think that things are just changing and it's a way to help us do our lives a little bit easier and to focus on the things we care about, like spending time with family, friends and again being creative. So how do you? Oh, go ahead. I'll say this If you don't want it, feel free to go back to a brick Nokia phone that doesn't have access to any of that. You can technically opt out by not having a smartphone, but it's very hard to log into anything without a smartphone. So I will say that.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a double standard right, Like people don't want this, but they definitely want the perk, so it's a trade-off right. Oh yeah, so how do you see AI influencing the future of education, especially for younger generations?
Speaker 2:I've been speaking to a lot of teachers who are already bringing AI in the classroom, everything from literally personalized AI assistants that'll be in the room with you. So there's actually a school in Austin. They have an AI fully AI school. This is wild. So this is like the extreme version, and I'll talk about like the less extreme version in a second. Kids only go in classroom for two hours a week in the school. It's called Alpha School. That learning is done with an AI based on where the student is. The rest of the day is doing other activities like building IKEA, furniture, learning banking, learning entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:So literally the teaching is two hours and everything else is like life and other skillsets that they need to learn. What is crazy is those kids test higher than anyone else in the state by only truncating learning, targeted learning for what the kids needs there. So that's one level of like the extreme version of this. There's a middle version of you meet a kid where they are with what they're ready to learn Like. Think about being in school where, even if you weren't having a good day for math or reading, that's what you learned that day. You may have needed to draw something that day or like scribble. That wasn't what's going to happen. You're going to do math even though you may have had other stuff going on. There's learning that allows the kid to learn what they need in that moment in that day, based on what else is happening, of course, keeping them on track. It's like a middle version of that. And then the entry level is teachers are really trying to figure out how to help students again, have assistance, have support and also give the teachers the support they need to be able to operate with a class size of 20 something.
Speaker 2:Students Like we know, the ideal class size is way lower. Like you should be around like 13 to 15 students. I believe we're at 20 to 30 in most schools. So how can you help that teacher who is overly taxed do the best job and help those kids get the support they need? So you're not only focusing on that middle percentage, that you're able to truly focus on all kids in the class. That's where I see learning going.
Speaker 2:Places like Khan Academy have I think it's called Khan Migo they have basically a tutor that works with students to help them get to where they need to be. It's an AI tutor. So I see more of that happening, where I think we're at the first time in history in a while because there was earlier class sizes that were smaller where students will truly get personalized learning. I don't think we've had personalized learning in this way and that would allow a kid to get the support they need to test well as well as be able to advance and not be like left behind because they're at the front of the class or the back of the class.
Speaker 1:I love that Austin situation because I feel like I would have done really well with that, because don't you think too like kids kind of start to like zone out after you're listening for so long, but once you're doing like hands-on life skills, like that is helpful. I mean, I worry about my son. Like how is he really when he's 18, which is only two and a half years away like how is he really going to adult? I just don't see it, you know, at this point, because I probably enable him and do everything for him. But you know, if I would have had more classes, like we even had like home ec when in our generation and they don't really do that anymore. So banking and life skills, I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. It's just so cool to see the kids like. They do videos all the time, so feel free to look it up. But it's doing all of these things and the kids will talk about how it's helping them, how they're acing, the standardized tests and they're only getting two hours.
Speaker 2:And to your point of like thinking about like just zoom and sitting in a room or sitting in a conference all day where I cannot move, we're expecting a kid with all that energy to just sit in the same place all day. Like I don't understand how we're still here post-technology, post-covid, like there has to be more ability to interact and to learn things in other ways. And I think the benefit of our generation we actually got outside and got to play, got to tinker, got to break things and I think some of the like overly like teaching towards the test has kind of taken that away from the current generation. And then you're like basically building a robot and I'm like care for kids not being robots. I want kids to be creative and their lovely creative selves. But I can't even sit in this seat for eight hours. I can't expect a kid who is like figuring it out Hormones are raging to sit Right.
Speaker 1:Well then, plus, like, think about the way that the world has come with, like medical diagnosis, so you have all these kids that have ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, you know, and, and then you, just you, put all these kids with all these different struggles in a room and then you are all expected to learn the same way, at the same pace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:But my hope with technology, you can identify that in a kid and give them math again in a way that makes sense for them when it's right for them so that they can learn it.
Speaker 2:But I love what the Alpha School is doing and interested to see how it continues to grow, and I love what all the teachers are doing who are at least trying it out. I am not for banning it. I believe in safety and making sure that there's an adult involved. I know I learned about a technology I forgot the name but I learned about a technology that teachers are using now where the teachers can build their own chatbots for free and tell the chatbot how it wants it to interact with the students. So, for example, if they're learning Spanish, the chatbot can be focused on teaching someone Spanish and the teacher has the dialogue of what's happening back and forth and they can, on their own time, see where a student is in their progression and know what's happening and also see the language and conversation that's happening. So they get to build it and, like guard the conversation. I think that's really cool that you can do this with a lot of these technologies.
Speaker 1:I think we already talked about this, but and I and I know your answer already, but do you think AI should become a standard part of the school curriculum in the future? Yes, I think it has to be.
Speaker 2:I think when, like in the private sector right now, no less than a hundred companies feel like they're popping up every single day and then we're telling kids.
Speaker 2:Hey don't don't interact with this, when in my day job I'm literally interacting with it, asking other folks to interact with it. We're piloting stuff and trying out different tools, and then we're telling kids not to interact with it. But then you want that kid to come into the workforce. That is now basically using AI and being told to use AI so it can be competitive and more futuristic right, but then we're telling kids not to do it and that's misplaced and I do think we need to do a better job of making sure kids are ready to come into the workforce or go into the school system.
Speaker 2:Of course, I know plagiarism again is a big deal. I think every time a new technology comes out, we blame old issues on the new technology. It's been a problem forever. Cheating has been a problem for forever. That will never go away With pencil and paper, with a horse carriage and a wagon those things existed from the beginning, but we seem to get heightened up on the risks that have been here because we're humans and humans are going to do these things, right. So I want us to make sure that we don't misplace just humans doing things that they shouldn't do onto the technology and then look at how you can use the technology to stop some of that, because AI can also identify where some of that risk or fraud is happening. That's been happening for a while with algorithms. So how can we use that in a way that helps kids be prepared? But this has to be a part of their lives. It can be done in a safe, secure way. Parents, I know, are afraid, but I want you to know that you can do it alongside with them and you should be learning with them, because it's just going so fast.
Speaker 2:I did want to mention this one thing. I was at a conference and they were talking about a skills half-life, so basically what amount of time a skill lasts within a system and when you need to get another skill. So back in the day you could have 10 years of a skill and you don't need to re-up on a new skill for 10 years. Now it's down to one to two years, meaning that every one to two years you need to learn a new skill. So to tell kids not to use this new thing and it's probably going to be a part of a lot of the new skill sets doesn't make sense when a skill's lifetime is only lasting a couple of years, we got to make sure they're getting what they need to be able to compete as well as just to live in this new world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really true, and I think, too, like not using AI is actually slowing these kids down, right, because then they get into the real world and then they're like, what the heck? I never, we didn't have this, they didn't teach us this? Yeah, no, I agree with that a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, even something as simple as even prior technologies. Think about people who didn't have PowerPoint and then they had to come into the workforce to figure out how to use PowerPoint. A new technology is AI. They had to come into the workforce to figure out how to use PowerPoint. A new technology is AI. And if everyone you're working with has been using it for 500 years and you get in and you were banned from using it all through high school, all through college, then you get in here and you're competing now against one newer staff member. You're competing against seasoned individuals who now have AI in their back pocket.
Speaker 1:It's not, you're not on the same playing field.
Speaker 2:So I want to make sure people are on the same playing field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I work in healthcare and I remember, you know, I started in healthcare when it was everything was on paper and now it's all electronic. And it's funny that a lot of the especially the old ladies, you know they hate the change. They just and I, I'm an embracer If this is going to make it easier for me. But we'll reminisce sometimes, like remember when you were at one location but the next day you were going to be at a different location. So then you would like hand carry all those charts or you'd have to lock them up or check them out. And now you just log into a computer and you can see everything. Like, oh my gosh, this is so great. But a lot of people are like, oh, I miss those paper charts. And then there's some people who are like they don't want you to know anything about them. And then there's some people who are like why isn't an electronic medical record just nationwide? Why can't any clinic see my stuff?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'm like I'll sign a paper, right, yeah, just make it easier for me. I'm like I hate signing a waiver to let you share with another office. I'm like, as long as you're in a medical field and you have HIPAA protections, I can sign it over. Please help me.
Speaker 1:I'm here because I trust you and I want your help, so help me. So, with the book that you wrote, how did you simplify complex AI concepts for a young audience to make them kind of comprehend what the heck's going on?
Speaker 2:So one good thing based on my career, I worked a lot with governments and working with governments, I worked a lot with public officials who were like elected officials.
Speaker 2:And often those individuals do not come from government backgrounds or these wonky spaces and they definitely don't want to talk about data in a way that's like technical or whatever. So I've had the ability of like breaking down topics in simple ways, because I had to explain something in a data set in a way that someone who is not a mathematician, is not a data person understood to make a decision for someone's life. So that skillset was just built through my day-to-day. So when coming to the book for kids, it was really along the idea of storytelling and thinking about okay, so how do my nieces and nephew and my little cousins who are hanging around, how do they understand things? They love stories, they love visuals, and what I say about the books that I write is that we're not the technical group that's going to get a kid to coding right. We're the seed where a kid learns about what the algorithm is, what training a robot means, what those pieces are. We're helping to give them those early building blocks or foundations so they can start to understand what these technologies are. So then a coding camp or different groups can come alongside us and build up on what we've already built. So we make sure to explain it in a way that sometimes the kids don't even know they're learning about AI. They think they're learning about robots, but later on the hope is that they heard a concept and learned a concept where they're then going to know what's happening.
Speaker 2:One little girl, her mom, sent me a video. She was listening to our podcast and it was talking about algorithms and she was turning. She was four, turning five. So she sent a little video note and she was like yeah, I learned about algorithms. And I'm like, first of all, she has no idea what algorithm is. We break it down the way they understand, like oh, building blocks, da, da, da, da. And we break it down the way they understand like, oh, building blocks, da, da, da da. And we compare it to something that works in their life. But I know that word isn't what's resonating. What's resonating is the concept of oh, it's like building a block or building something to build a castle, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:So we try to break it down in ways they understand, and the hope is that we're teaching them about AI without letting them know they're being taught about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a trick. That's how you learn the best.
Speaker 2:That is how you do it, and I thought about ways like how, when you and I were growing up like the schoolhouse rocks of the world, the Sesame streets of the world, I still remember those songs, I still remember those lessons because I was tricked into learning it through. We call it edutainment, education and entertainment at the same time edutainment, education and entertainment at the same time. And there are studies that show that jingles and things like that help people remember. Like we all know ABCs and all the nursery rhymes, just because that's how your brain remembers. So trying to do things that helps the kid remember. So when it is time for them to think about that next step or go to a coding class, they're like oh, I already know what this is, I understand how this works, didn't know this was happening, but that's why that makes sense. So, yeah, we try to do it in that way.
Speaker 1:I always say that, like my best teachers taught me things that I still use today, which is a little embarrassing, but like spelling together, I always still remember to get her doing any kind of like double check multiplication of nines.
Speaker 1:I'm always using my fingers and putting the one down, but like those little things, like really stick with you. I had a teacher who she would always just like seven times eight was a really hard multiplication for third graders and so just sporadically throughout the day she'd be like what's seven times eight and everyone would just yell out 56. And like I still remember that and I remember when my son was learning multiplication and that one was so hard for him and it was so easy for me because of that teacher. So yes, I think like doing fun stuff and when it's so relevant and kids are using technology anyway, it makes it more fun for them. I think that it sticks better, they learn better, and when it's fun, you learn more.
Speaker 2:I agree 100%, and it has to be fun, it has to be fun.
Speaker 1:The classes I never learned anything or retained is the ones where you're just like, like you said, you're sitting in a conference room for eight hours like oh my gosh, I'm really tired, when is this going to end?
Speaker 1:So I want to kind of circle back. I usually ask this in the beginning, but when I was reading about you I thought that your background was super interesting, with working with governments and it kind of sounds like FBI, a little bit like artificial intelligence government. So my podcast was kind of part of the bornness of it was that we talk about like career paths and trying to get kids to understand like there's a lot of jobs out there that you don't even necessarily know exist, right, like how do you decide what you want to do for the rest of your life when you really don't even know all of your options? So what was your path into where you are now, like when you were going to school or trying to figure out what you wanted to be when you grew up? Like what was your like? I think I'm going to look into this. And then how did you get to what you're doing now?
Speaker 2:My story is so I'll say this that I had an idea that I wanted to be something. I thought when I was a kid I always said I wanted to be a lawyer, but then, when it came down to it, I was like but that's a lot of school, so that normally takes like seven years total with your bachelor's and your JD. And I was like, probably not, I need to make money out of college. So I actually went into random field logistics management. I was like, probably not, I need to make money out of college. So I actually went into random field logistics management. I was really good with numbers and efficiency and logistics allows you to basically figure out how to get things quickly to where they belong while making a company profit. And then I woke up one day and I was like, but I'm making this company profit and have a really good process and people are literally coming to my process to learn about it, to spread across the company, but I'm not helping anyone. So it started with a Google search Preach at GPT. I was like how do you make the world a better place? Like that's as simple as it was to try to figure out what I could do and I honestly didn't think about government as a place and I'm like, oh, people are doing this thing with government. And I honestly didn't think about government as a place and I'm like, oh, people are doing this thing with government. Oh, it helps people.
Speaker 2:Crazy thing is both of my parents are former military government. Both of them also, when they left the military, went to work in the government. My mom was a nurse and then my dad also worked in the government. I never thought about government as a place to help or support. So I got an opportunity while I was still working as a logistic manager I support. So I got an opportunity while I was still working as a logistic manager. I was like, let me go volunteer at a local health and human services agency and there I learned about how government was working. But it really wasn't working Like the people that was helping. It was just missing things and people weren't getting the help they needed.
Speaker 2:So I was like, oh, I can help government, apply to a master's program to work in government. And even when I was there, I was like I don't know what I'm doing, what is going to happen. And I had a great professor who was in a class like a performance management class where, again, helping people do things better. And he was like, if you want to do math and help government work, there's a certain field that was just emerging. It was called stat programs. It's just performance management or making government work better. And I was like, oh, that's what I wanted to do. And I got the opportunity before I graduated to work actually for the state of Maryland under former governor O'Malley and his stat program, where we were helping the whole entire state reach the goals it was trying to achieve under the governor, using data and information. And I was like this is so cool, like who knew this was a job, and one of the things I say with that is like listening, I had the right mentors. I had people who were helping me along the way because I didn't know. I just had a career thesis of I want to make government work better and I want to use data doing it, and I followed that career thesis since then and I just ended up in different places, different places.
Speaker 2:After that I was able to stay on for another administration I worked under at the time former Republican Governor Hogan. O'malley was a Democrat, governor Hogan was Republican. I got to work under two different administrations to see how they work. I helped them launch the Office of Government Governor's Office of Performance Improvement, which was cool. Never would have been able to have that opportunity had I not taken the path and was open to seeing what opportunities there were there.
Speaker 2:And then I got recruited over the work for organization that wanted to understand how everyone uses data across the whole country and got to learn about that. And then I went on to run a center that was doing, again, data work with mostly local cities and helping them figure out how to use data to solve problems. So it started with literally me doing a Google search and then, when there was opportunities for me to volunteer or opportunities to ask teachers questions or ask people, what's next after this, like someone else opening a door for me and that's what led me here. Like I had an idea and I kept that North Star of helping governments work better with data at the front of that and through that I got to learn about AI and algorithms and what that looks like and I got to say, oh cool, this is great work. I want to keep helping people do this. I want to run programs that help people do this. I want to help government do the best for government, and that will always be my career thesis. It may show up in different ways and different roles, but I'm always going to be working with government in some way or shape or another to help it work better, because that's the thing that drives me.
Speaker 2:So I tell people it doesn't have to be a clear path. Some people know from birth what they want to be and they do it their whole entire lives. Some folks don't figure it out until they're over 40, and that's totally fine. Or over 60, like. Whatever it is, life is a journey. Make the best out of it. Network, keep people in your life. Ask people questions. People are always willing to help. Reach out to people on LinkedIn. The number of people I've reached out to, as well as that, reach out to me. They will say, yes, you think everyone's hitting them up. Often they're not and they're willing to take the call. So, like feel free to reach out to people, especially if you're trying to figure it out. People were also helped, so they want to help others. So there's always like this give back. So I tell people just make the steps and keep walking and have a focus, but also be okay if the path changes, like I'm not in logistics anymore.
Speaker 2:I actually went to law school as well. A lot of the work I do. It just felt like it was important to have a law degree, with contracts and a lot of things that I do in my work. So eventually I got to the law piece. But I would have been not fulfilled if I didn't have the mix of the data, the government and the law and the technology and being able to play in that world. So it's okay to take your time and it's okay to try things out and, when in doubt, volunteer. And I will say this do not spend a whole bunch of money on a degree before testing it out to make sure, because I've seen too many of my friends have three and four degrees because they went from degree to degree but did not go work in the area and then they realized when they worked in the area they did not like it. So try things out. Apprenticeship programs, volunteer internships all those things help you really quickly learn if you like or not, before you spend two years, four years focusing in an area.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your book. Where can people get your book? Where can people listen to your podcast? What's it called? Let's talk about all those things.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, I will send everyone to our website and you can find the links there. But the book is available on Amazon, but the website, the company is called. Let me rewind. I went from one book and I was like, oh no, we have to do more than this. This isn't enough. The book did well. We're a bestseller in our category on Amazon and got a lot of little press write-ups about it. So I'm like, okay, we have to actually do something with this, especially since we're early on. So we created a company called AI DigiTales, which is basically instead of digital, ai DigiTales, which is the whole idea of like storytelling and that's how we teach kids about this. So the website is A-I-D-I-G-I-T-A-L-E-Scom or AIDigitalescom and then the podcast very simple, ai for Kids is the name of the podcast. It's available on all major platforms. Also, if you go to the website, you can get to the books, the podcast. We also have free AI worksheets if you want to interact with those. But all that is available vis-a-vis the website.
Speaker 1:Amber, what's next for you?
Speaker 2:So we have a new book coming out. It is called coming out November 8th, which is STEM Day, and it's called Let Kids Be Kids, not Robots, and this is the continuation of the story. So it's a continuation of the story of Addie and Jazz and you get to meet some of their new friends. So I grew up in a very I mentioned a little bit earlier, but my parents were military, so I grew up moving around every two years. I've lived as far east as Germany, as far west as Arizona, so I've met people along the way that have different backgrounds. So I started to introduce some of those characters in this book. And Jazz gets to go to school with the kids and they get to see how kids react when AI is in their school. So I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 2:We're also coming out with an animated series for the AI Meets AI Love that Small like limited series where we're following the book and the hope is to blow that up even further. But the series will be coming out early next January and it'll be on YouTube. So again, we're trying to do like either low tech, low cost options for kids to get an intro into these things, because again, our goal is to meet kids, no matter where their zip code is, whether in a city or in rural America. We want kids to have access to this stuff and we know most people have access to a smartphone. So how can a kid easily be able to see these things and not have to worry about having a laptop or desktop at home? But we're excited about growing and continuing to teach kids about AI for kids.
Speaker 1:And I just want to throw out there that I love the illustration on the book, like the characters are so cute, and I always think that helps, like when the pictures are good and cute and the characters look lovable, like that helps a lot and I think that you did a really good job with that as well.
Speaker 2:Thank you. We wanted them to be lovable and people to open up and like, oh my gosh, they're so cute, so yeah success.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't really have anything else for you. Amber, Do you have any questions for me?
Speaker 2:No, I just really appreciate what you're doing and that you're taking this step to talk about things like career and allowing people to come here to talk about their journeys. I think it's just so important, especially in a world where workforce like we don't have. A lot of people are looking for jobs and there's a lot of job openings and a lot of people without jobs. So people being able to hear how folks got to a place without it being this perfectly matched story, I think that's just very encouraging and I just want to thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1:Thank you. All right, well, thank you so much for talking to us and I will make sure that all your links are in the show notes so people can find you even more easily. And thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And then I always tell everyone Amber, once you're a guest on the podcast, now we're best friends, so besties for life. All right, we'll talk to you later, okay, bye, bye. Well, that was fun.
Speaker 2:Thank you, same here, yeah.
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