(TNS) — They slid on headsets and steadied themselves.
The two boys had a full view of the lecture hall in the University of South Florida’s engineering building and all the other high school kids there with them.
But through their glasses, they also saw a table with colorful building blocks in front of them. They reached out, each slowly grabbing a block, then placing it atop a stack of others.
To the other kids, it looked like they were picking up and tossing cubes of air. To the boys, it looked real.
The simulated pieces are part of something called augmented reality, according to the USF students assisting with the class. Hand-tracking software translates physical movement to the virtual world, so the students can interact with the simulated blocks the same way they could with real ones.
The USF students asked: Who else wants a turn?
Hands shot up and campers shuffled into a line.
It was a welcome break. The teenagers at USF’s first artificial intelligence camp on Thursday had been coding their final projects — their own AI apps — for most of the day.
In the five-day camp, faculty from USF’s Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, taught rising 10th through 12th grade students how AI works, where its limitations are and how to use it responsibly. As AI infiltrates industries from health to manufacturing, and Florida universities ponder how it should be embedded across disciplines, many high schoolers are looking for better ways to understand it.
Some traveled from across the state to spend the week learning from USF faculty. The Bellini College, which opened last year, is the state’s first dedicated artificial intelligence college.
There aren’t many youth summer programs committed solely to teaching high school students about responsible AI usage because it’s such a new tool, said Caryn Preston, USF’s assistant director of youth experiences.
The camp’s students, many of whom had prior coding or AI experience, said they are excited about the possibilities that the new technology brings. But even they also worry about AI’s drawbacks.
AI is a powerful tool that without guardrails, can be used for good or bad, said professor Ankur Mali, who taught at the camp.
“After like 10, 15 years, these kids will be the ones who are creating new AI technologies,” he said. “They are redefining how AI can be used in day-to-day life.”
USF staff approaches summer programs by thinking of the week’s end goal, Preston said. Music campers produce a song, filmmakers make a short movie and so on.
AI campers made their own app.
Lines of green, black and red code populated the lecture hall’s giant screen on Thursday while Raiyan Abdul Baten, a Bellini College professor, taught the students how to code the back end of an AI chatbot. In his example, the chatbot would act as an ordering assistant for Chipotle.
Frequent chatbot users know how to prompt a similar ordering AI with something like: “I want a burrito with chicken, salsa and no beans.”
The students learned how to program the chatbot itself, by directing it how to behave: “You are Chipotle’s friendly ordering assistant …”
By the end of the week, the students made AI apps that can classify images by category. One group coded an app to sort images of dogs and cats, another made one to identify up to five types of food. They presented their projects to parents and local leaders on Friday.
Zachary Perron, who attends Robinson High School in Tampa, said before going to camp he thought AI was magical.
“I thought that it came in through a huge database and they just pulled out random information, and I didn’t really know how it worked at all,” he said. “Now, it’s predictable.”
Students learned that AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on, which humans feed the programs, Preston said.
The camp taught students to use AI as a tool, similarly to how they would use a calculator, Mali said. He said he doesn’t want students to shy away from AI or become overly dependent on it.
“We are helping them build a better person who’s using AI for social good,” he said. “That’s the theme. We don’t want them to go off track and go against the technology, but use technology for their betterment.”
Many of the campers use AI in their daily lives. Leo Hwang from Orlando uses AI to make flashcards to study for Spanish class. Beatriz Zuanazzi Bettega from Parkland builds travel itineraries. Vidairen Barbet-Narvaez, who is homeschooled, said he uses AI if he has “really specific questions” that Google can’t answer.
He said he feels like some people depend on AI for everything. Others, including some of his friends who are artists, completely shun it, he said.
Skyler Taylor from Jacksonville said data centers that take people’s land to power AI systems make him nervous. Gen Z is also already socially awkward, he said, and AI might make that worse.
“I see online, a lot of people are dating their ChatGPT,” he said with a tense laugh. “It’s ruining communication more than it already was.”
Taylor still thinks AI brings lots of benefits, like how scientists are using AI to reach cancer cures faster.
Zuanazzi Bettega said she’s excited to see AI slowly take over industries. Barbet-Narvaez doubts AI will take away too many job opportunities and thinks it will be a skill jobs start to require. He said his mom, a software engineer, is already integrating AI into her work.
Does any of this make them worried about their own career opportunities?
Zuanazzi Bettega shrugged. She’s a little worried.
“But also not really,” she said. “Because I want to work in AI.”
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