🎤 First Class – Introduction to AI Duration: 90 minutes
Step 1: Opening Hook – The Story of Two Chess Matches (15 min)
You say:
“Let me take you back to 1997. A computer named Deep Blue played chess against Garry
Kasparov, the world champion. After six tense games, the machine won. The world was
shocked. Newspapers screamed: ‘The machine is now smarter than humans!’
Fast forward to 2016. Another AI called AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, the world champion
of the game Go. Now, Go is far more complex than chess — the number of possible moves is
astronomical. What was different this time?”
You pause → ask students:
“What do you think changed between 1997 and 2016?”
Expected responses: Computing power, big data, new algorithms.
You conclude:
“Exactly! What changed was data + computing power + deep learning. This marks the
shift from early AI to the AI we live with today.”
Step 2: AI in Your Pocket – Everyday AI (10 min)
You say:
“Now, let me ask you something practical. How many of you used Google Maps today?
Watched YouTube or Netflix? Opened your phone with face recognition?”
[Raise hands, note answers on board.]
You continue:
Google Maps → AI in search & optimization.
Netflix/YouTube → Recommendation systems (machine learning).
Face ID → Deep learning in computer vision.
Siri/Alexa → Natural language processing.
You ask:
“Which of these AI systems excites you most? Which one worries you?”
[Students share thoughts → you listen, then highlight ethical side.]
Step 3: Story of AI – The Journey (20 min)
You narrate as a timeline story:
1950s: Alan Turing asks “Can machines think?” → Turing Test.
1960s–80s: Expert systems — rule-based programs.
1997: Deep Blue beats Kasparov.
2000s: AI quietly powers spam filters, search engines.
2010s: Deep Learning breakthroughs → image, speech, NLP.
2020s: Generative AI (ChatGPT, DALL·E, Copilot).
You show a movie clip or image (optional): Enthiran, Terminator, or Ex Machina.
You ask:
“Do movies make AI look scarier or more exciting than reality? Why?”
[Encourage open discussion — guide them that movies exaggerate but spark imagination.]
Step 4: AI vs ML vs DL (15 min)
You draw on the board (nested circles):
AI → ML → DL.
You explain with a story:
“Imagine you’re building a chatbot.
If you program fixed responses → That’s AI (rule-based).
If it learns from past conversations → That’s ML.
If it uses deep neural networks like ChatGPT → That’s DL.”
You ask:
“So, is ChatGPT AI, ML, or DL?”
[Students discuss → you clarify: It’s DL, a subset of ML, a subset of AI.]
Step 5: Myths vs. Reality of AI (10 min)
You say:
“Let’s bust some myths.”
Myth 1: AI can think exactly like humans.
Myth 2: AI will replace all jobs.
Myth 3: AI is always unbiased.
You ask:
“Which industries do you think AI will disrupt most in India — healthcare, finance,
agriculture, education?”
[Students share examples → you connect to real-world cases: AI in crop monitoring, disease
detection, fintech fraud detection.]
Step 6: Future Imagination – AI in 2040 (10 min)
You say:
“Now, let’s dream a little. Close your eyes for one minute. Imagine it’s the year 2040. AI is
everywhere. What do you see?”
[Pause for 1 minute silence → then form small groups.]
You instruct groups:
“Each group, share one positive and one negative future of AI.”
[Examples students may give: AI doctors curing diseases, AI robots replacing jobs, AI in
politics, AI in war.]
You conclude:
“See? AI is not just about coding or math — it’s about society, ethics, and our future.”
Step 7: Wrap-Up & Course Roadmap (10 min)
You summarize:
“Today we learned that AI is about making machines intelligent. We saw its history, its role
in daily life, the difference between AI, ML, and DL, and we even imagined the future.”
You present roadmap (simple bullets):
Unit 1: Foundations (agents, problem-solving, search).
Unit 2: Learning (ML/DL).
Unit 3: Applications (NLP, vision, robotics).
Unit 4: Ethics & Future of AI.
You close with a teaser:
“In the next class, we’ll ask a deeper question: What exactly makes a system ‘intelligent’?”
