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Human + AI: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Trace more than seventy years of artificial intelligence — from Turing’s 1950 question to the generative era — and meet the founders whose human decisions built the technology we use today.
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Course Overview Video
The Scenario
A student says “AI was invented when ChatGPT launched.” Learners trace more than seventy years of human breakthroughs — and discover that today’s AI stands on decades of human decisions, human mistakes, and human persistence.
Learning Objectives
- Trace the major eras of AI: birth, early optimism, the AI winters, expert systems, the machine-learning revival, deep learning, and the generative era
- Name the key founders and describe each one’s contribution
- Explain how the decisions of each era shaped the technology we use today
- Connect the history of AI to responsible use in the present
Module Sequence
- 1950: Turing asks “Can machines think?” — the Turing Test
- 1956: Dartmouth — AI gets its name (McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester, Shannon)
- The pioneers: Samuel, Rosenblatt, Simon & Newell
- The AI winters: what went wrong, and what it taught us
- The deep learning revolution: Hinton, LeCun, Bengio; ImageNet and AlexNet
- The generative era: transformers to today — and the human decisions behind it
Key Figures
Alan Turing · John McCarthy · Marvin Minsky · Arthur Samuel · Frank Rosenblatt · Herbert Simon & Allen Newell · Geoffrey Hinton · Yann LeCun · Yoshua Bengio · Fei-Fei Li · Demis Hassabis
Assessment
Build a timeline matching each founder to their breakthrough; short essay: “What did the founders get right — and what would they warn us about today?”
The Human + AI Framework
Every breakthrough was a human decision. The machines only ever did what humans directed, checked, and decided — then as now.
Direct it. Check it. Question it. Decide.
National Standards Alignment
| Framework | Alignment |
|---|---|
| Career Cluster | Information Technology (National Career Clusters Framework, Advance CTE) |
| Career Ready Practices | CRP-8 Utilize critical thinking — what did the founders get right, and what would they warn us about; CRP-7 Employ valid and reliable research strategies — trace 70+ years of breakthroughs from sources; CRP-9 Model integrity and ethical leadership — connect AI history to responsible use today |
| AI4K12 Big Ideas | Perception — early AI sensing and pattern recognition; Representation & Reasoning — how each era represented knowledge; Learning — the machine-learning revival and deep learning; Natural Interaction — the generative era and human-facing AI; Societal Impact — human decisions behind every breakthrough |
National framework names verified September 25, 2026 against the Advance CTE National Career Clusters Framework, the Common Career Technical Core Career Ready Practices, and the AI4K12 Five Big Ideas (AAAI/CSTA). No codes were invented.