Hong Kong is one of the first cities in the world to implement a comprehensive curriculum on artificial intelligence (AI) for junior secondary students. The curriculum, which was developed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Education Bureau, aims to equip students with basic AI knowledge and skills, as well as foster their awareness of the ethical and social implications of AI.

The curriculum covers 10 to 14 hours of AI education, which can be integrated into the existing information and communication technology (ICT) subject for students in Form One to Three. The curriculum consists of six modules:

• Fundamental AI concepts: Students will learn what AI is, how it works, and what are its applications and limitations.
• Computer vision: Students will learn how AI can process and understand images and videos, such as face recognition, object detection, and image generation.
• Computer speech and language: Students will learn how AI can process and understand speech and text, such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and text generation.
• Robotic reasoning: Students will learn how AI can control robots and make decisions, such as path planning, obstacle avoidance, and reinforcement learning.
• AI ethics: Students will learn how to use AI responsibly and ethically, such as avoiding bias, ensuring privacy, and respecting human dignity.
• Social impact of AI: Students will learn how AI can affect society positively and negatively, such as creating new opportunities, enhancing productivity, but also displacing jobs, increasing inequality, and threatening security.

One of the highlights of the curriculum is the inclusion of generative AI, which is the latest advancement in AI that can create new content from scratch, such as images, text, music, and video. Students will have the opportunity to use mirror sites of ChatGPT, a generative AI tool developed by OpenAI that can generate realistic and coherent text based on a given prompt. Students will be able to generate pictures and write letters using ChatGPT, as well as evaluate the quality and accuracy of its outputs.

The curriculum also features group projects that allow students to apply their AI knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems. For example, students can design an AI system that can help elderly people with daily tasks, or an AI system that can detect fake news and misinformation.

The curriculum aims to prepare students for an AI-influenced future by developing their computational thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and critical thinking skills. It also aims to inspire students’ interest in pursuing further studies or careers in innovation and technology.

The Education Bureau hopes that the curriculum will be adopted by all public secondary schools in Hong Kong starting from September 2023. The bureau believes that it is essential for students to have a solid foundation of AI knowledge and a balanced perspective on its impact on society.