Taiwan has launched two manuals on the proper uses and pitfalls of artificial intelligence (AI) for young students, as part of the government’s push to integrate technology in education.
The Ministry of Education published two booklets, one for pupils between third and sixth grade at elementary schools, and another for students at junior-high schools.
Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) wrote in the manuals’ introduction that the booklets are designed to deal with the changes to the process of obtaining knowledge and learning wrought by generative AI.
Photo: Reuters
The use of algorithms must be accompanied by an understanding of the technology and reflection on its implications to ensure AI is applied safely, effectively and responsibly, he said.
Users must be able to exercise critical thinking, and understand the technology’s operating principles, limits and risks to control the ever-increasing power of AI to avoid being misled by biased or incorrect data, he said.
The manuals also suggest asking algorithms to critique students’ work from the perspective of teachers, readers and editors.
The manuals emphasize that algorithms should be treated as helpers and not as a substitute for human labor, and that factual verification is required to counter AI’s potential to make mistakes.
They also urged readers to avoid entering personal data into AI tools and to clearly disclose the AI utilization in their work.
The manuals provide instructions on the use of prompts, establishing parameters and conditions, and dictating art style, scenery, lighting and atmosphere if using generative tools to create images.
They warn that overreliance on AI could be detrimental to critical thinking skills, media literacy and creativity, in addition to causing basic everyday skills to atrophy.
Students are encouraged to remain curious about learning and trying new things, relying on their own to learn from new material whenever possible.
The manuals are available for download on the ministry’s Web site.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS