"It's Just a Machine that Predicts" - Demystifying Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning with Teenagers

Abstract

Teenagers today face an expanding and unpredictable role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in society, yet educational interventions are still catching up. AI literacy is crucial for teenagers (and others) to help them make informed decisions about their futures. We present our work on Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML) literacy with 43 Japanese and 20 Finnish high school students, exploring their pre-existing perceptions of AI/ML and how those perceptions evolved after they trained image classification models. Our findings indicate that while a substantial number of teenagers still have limited or contradictory understanding of the topic, even short-term workshops can be effective in demystifying core AI/ML concepts when the activities are tailored to their interests. Furthermore, we find that cultural background and language may factor into how teenagers perceive AI. Our study contributes to growing research on AI/ML literacy by focusing on teenagers and including cross-cultural perspectives. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).

Keywords

Author Keywords

AI/ML Literacy Cross-cultural studies Youth Perceptions

Index Keywords

artificial intelligence Machine-learning Educational intervention High school students Artificial intelligence/ML literacy Catching-up Cross-cultural study Finnish Images classification Informed decision Youth perception

Author Affiliations

INTERACT Research Unit, Oulun Yliopisto, Oulu, North Ostrobothnia, Finland

Oulun Yliopisto, Oulu, North Ostrobothnia, Finland

Code School Finland, Oulu, Finland

Funding & Acknowledgements

Strategic Research Council, STN

We thank the Finnish and Japanese teachers and school personnel who helped organise the workshops and research, as well as assistant principal Mikael H kki from Puolanka primary and high schools for providing insights into the implementation of programming and digital literacy education in Finland. We thank Code School Finland for planning and implementing the workshops; and the opportunity to conduct this research, with personal thanks to Kaisu Pallaskallio and Sirkku Tahvanainen for assistance through discussion, support, and interviews. Above all, we are grateful to the youth who participated in the AI literacy workshops and this study. This work is supported by the GenerationAI project funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Research Council of Finland (grants #352859, #352871). GenerationAI developed the Teachable Machine application used in this work. This work is also supported by the PAIZ project funded by the Research Council of Finland (grant #340603) at the INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu.

Oulun Yliopisto

We thank the Finnish and Japanese teachers and school personnel who helped organise the workshops and research, as well as assistant principal Mikael H kki from Puolanka primary and high schools for providing insights into the implementation of programming and digital literacy education in Finland. We thank Code School Finland for planning and implementing the workshops; and the opportunity to conduct this research, with personal thanks to Kaisu Pallaskallio and Sirkku Tahvanainen for assistance through discussion, support, and interviews. Above all, we are grateful to the youth who participated in the AI literacy workshops and this study. This work is supported by the GenerationAI project funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Research Council of Finland (grants #352859, #352871). GenerationAI developed the Teachable Machine application used in this work. This work is also supported by the PAIZ project funded by the Research Council of Finland (grant #340603) at the INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu.

Research Council of Finland, AKA

Grant: 352859, 352871, 340603

We thank the Finnish and Japanese teachers and school personnel who helped organise the workshops and research, as well as assistant principal Mikael H kki from Puolanka primary and high schools for providing insights into the implementation of programming and digital literacy education in Finland. We thank Code School Finland for planning and implementing the workshops; and the opportunity to conduct this research, with personal thanks to Kaisu Pallaskallio and Sirkku Tahvanainen for assistance through discussion, support, and interviews. Above all, we are grateful to the youth who participated in the AI literacy workshops and this study. This work is supported by the GenerationAI project funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Research Council of Finland (grants #352859, #352871). GenerationAI developed the Teachable Machine application used in this work. This work is also supported by the PAIZ project funded by the Research Council of Finland (grant #340603) at the INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu.

Research Council of Finland, AKA

We thank the Finnish and Japanese teachers and school personnel who helped organise the workshops and research, as well as assistant principal Mikael H kki from Puolanka primary and high schools for providing insights into the implementation of programming and digital literacy education in Finland. We thank Code School Finland for planning and implementing the workshops; and the opportunity to conduct this research, with personal thanks to Kaisu Pallaskallio and Sirkku Tahvanainen for assistance through discussion, support, and interviews. Above all, we are grateful to the youth who participated in the AI literacy workshops and this study. This work is supported by the GenerationAI project funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Research Council of Finland (grants #352859, #352871). GenerationAI developed the Teachable Machine application used in this work. This work is also supported by the PAIZ project funded by the Research Council of Finland (grant #340603) at the INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu.

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"It's Just a Machine that Predicts" - Demystifying Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning with Teenagers

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