In September, the AI4CI Hub took part in Discovery Day in Bristol. This was our first outreach event as a Hub and it couldn’t have been a better introduction to public engagement. Hosted as part of the FUTURES Festival, Discovery Day brought together more than 100 researchers, over 20 hands-on stalls, and an incredible 476 visitors, including families from local community partners Hillfields and Ambition Lawrence Weston.
Our stall “You, Me and AI – working together to solve big challenges” introduced families to a core idea behind the AI4CI Hub: that AI can help people work together to solve big problems. Through hands-on and playful experiences, participants explored how AI interacts with human needs and decisions.
The exhibit reflected the Hub’s research focus in several ways:
- It introduced collective intelligence through group problem-solving and an “ideas bank”.
- It supported human-centred design, inviting children to think about who the AI is for, what makes it fair or helpful, and how it should behave.
- It promoted inclusive engagement, making conversations about AI accessible to those who might not otherwise see themselves as part of the tech world.
The curiosity, excitement and creativity from visitors was inspiring and we were really proud of our Early Career Researchers and Hub team for bringing warmth and enthusiasm to every interaction. A huge thank you to Zixuan, Sachini, Ensor, Cangxiong, Lauren and Vicky for making our first public engagement outing such a success. We now have a set of tried and tested outreach materials we can take to future events – here’s to many more.
The activities
Wisdom of the Crowd
Children guessed how many balls were in a giant gumball machine, and we compared their answers with the group average. This simple game shows how groups working together can make better decisions than individuals and is a fun way to introduce the idea of collective intelligence. Whether children have superior sweet-counting skills might be a project for another day!
Classifier Challenge – which animal would confuse a computer?
Children helped sort animals into groups (mammals, birds or reptiles) based on their features. This ties in with their Key Stage education and mirrors how AI learns by recognising patterns in examples and sometimes gets confused. It’s a simple and playful introduction to machine learning. The children also voted for the trickiest animal: the pesky platypus!
Design a Smart Helper
Children designed their own AI assistant to help solve a real-world problem like cleaning a city or helping someone who’s unwell. Their ideas joined our Big Ideas Board and, if they didn’t want to take their pictures home, we proudly displayed them in our gallery!
