US Gov. Invested Millions in Teaching Underrepresented Youth AI Integration with Critical Theory.

Empowering Youth Through AI Education

The National Science Foundation’s Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings awarded $2,249,999 to Oakland, California-based nonprofit YR Media. YR Media is a media, technology, and music training center and platform for emerging BIPOC content creators who are using their voices to change the world. The grant aims to teach “underrepresented” and “underserved” youth how to integrate critical theory with artificial intelligence technologies.

Starting in 2019, the grant titled “Innovative approaches to Informal Education in Artificial Intelligence” allocated millions of dollars to YR Media to research, design, and develop innovative approaches focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for under-represented youth ages 14-24.

The program, consisting of participants who are 90% youth of color and 80% low income, involved partnerships with the MIT Media Lab and Google staff. It was grounded in sociocultural learning theory and a theoretical framework of “Computational Thinking plus Critical Pedagogy.”

Exploring Critical Pedagogy

Critical pedagogy is an educational framework and broader social cause derived from critical theory. It stems from the cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School and includes concepts like critical race theory and critical approaches to human sexuality. By emphasizing the sociocultural component of the program, the grant poses questions like: “What do underrepresented youth understand about AI and its role in society?” and “What are the features of an engaging ethics-centered pedagogy with AI?”

The program’s research design will use ethnographic techniques and design research to study and analyze youth learning. While emphasizing the different experiences of various racial demographics, it aims to foster racial consciousness and empower students.

Young participants were encouraged to view AI through an ethics-and-equity lens, which the program suggests is desperately needed by the digital media and tech sectors as well as the general public.

With the assistance of open-source tutorials from the MIT App Inventor, participants created their own AI tools to gain perspectives on the social impact of AI. The program focused on areas such as facial recognition, deepfakes, and virtual proctoring software.

The program further explored the educational conditions that promote STEM engagement among BIPOC youth and others who have the most to offer and the most at stake in building ethical, equitable, and expressive AI.

The grant indicates that the model that has emerged from Understanding AI frames computer science as an expressive medium for storytelling, meaning-making, and social justice. Through this program and the fostering of “Critical Computational Expression,” the program’s young participants combine the investigation of key social issues and creative expression to produce dynamic digital products that inform and shift national conversations about STEM and society.

Artificial intelligence is a burgeoning field of key importance to the global economy and human civilization. All technology is integrated with the preferences of its creator; AI is no exception to this despite its alleged synthetic sentience.

The federal subsidization of programs facilitating the integration of divisive and hateful ideologies in both impressionable youth and technological development presents opportunities for the further erosion of national cohesion and a globally competitive tech sector.

YR Media and Google did not respond to The Federalist to comment on the program by the time of publication.

Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.