In the first half of the 2023-2024 school year, Youth for Empathetic AI leaders Justin and Henry Xie aimed to bring new ideas of Empathetic AI to the Westview Computer Science Club. Club meetings included discussions of what empathetic AI is, what empathetic AI can be used for, and how we can build towards designing more empathetic AI systems. One topic that stood out to many club members was artificial intelligence capabilities to be able to understand human emotion. In multiple meetings, club members brought up this topic in discussion, some arguing that Empathetic AI could provide support for mental health experts who help people who are going through stressful times in their lives, while others argued that AI could lead to misdiagnosis of patients due to an inability to capture a person’s true emotions.

Another area of AI that club members wanted to learn about was the concept of training AI to play video games. As such, several meetings were spent learning about and applying the four major types of machine learning (Supervised Learning, Unsupervised Learning, Reinforcement Learning, and Deep Learning) and what the similarities and differences there were. Furthermore, when introduced to a video of a Youtuber who trained a simple machine learning model to successfully navigate the pipes of Flappy Bird forever (essentially completing the game), the CS club members were intrigued by the process by recursive process undertaken by a model when learning how to successfully play games like the Google Dinosaur game, 2048, and the World’s Hardest Game.

The Westview Computer Science Club and its members still have much to discover about the world of AI and computer science. As the club continues learning about the intricacies of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer science project designs and considerations, YEAI hopes to continue collaborating with the club and emphasize the importance of our organization’s pillars of Empathy, Fairness, and Diversity in each club meeting and lesson. It is crucial that these pillars be implemented in future AI and CS systems in a way that is beneficial to all.

We wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Intriguing Machine Learning Videos
Basics of Machine Learning
AI playing Flappy Bird
AI playing Google Dinosaur game
AI playing 2048
AI playing the World’s Hardest Game