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AI and You 9-12 / Week 03 / Explorer Quest
6/6
Week 03 · How Models Learn

Explorer Quest

Explorer Quest: A family Tiny Text
// The crew trains Tiny Text by hand to see how training data becomes predictions
⏱ about 20 min

Explorer Quest: A Family Tiny Text

On Saturday, Comet brings a stack of index cards to the library steps, where Wren is reading.

"My family wrote training sentences," Comet says. "The kettle is on the stove. The cat sleeps on the chair. Things like that."

Wren reads them carefully. "What does the evidence say? Every sentence starts with 'the.' So we can tally what follows it."

Nova hovers over the cards and draws a tally table in light. "Would you like a hint?" she asks. "Objects and routines only. Leave people's names out."

Comet grins at you. "Reviewer, train one with your family. Keep the cards for next week."

  1. Machine learning finds patterns in training data.
  2. Tiny Text's model is a table of next-word tallies.
  3. You can check a tally by adding the row totals.
◇ A FAMILY TINY TEXT
Sit with a family member who has a few minutes to help. You need index cards or slips of paper and a pencil.
Each person writes two short sentences about objects or routines at home. Start every sentence with "the."
Keep the sentences about things, not people. Leave out names, ages and addresses.
Together, find every word that follows "the" and make a tally for each one.
Circle the word that follows "the" most often. If two words tie, circle both.
If another word appears in more than one sentence, tally what follows it too.
Keep your cards. Next week's quest uses them again.
Example family sentence (made up)Word after "the"
the kettle is on the stovekettle, stove
the cat sleeps on the chaircat, chair
the plants need water on sundayplants
the cat eats at sevencat
For a grown-up
This week your student trained Tiny Text, a made-up next-word model, by counting which word follows which.
Write sentences about objects and routines only. Nobody needs to write a name, age, address or other personal detail.
Ask: what did our tiny model learn? What does it know nothing about, because we never wrote it down?
QUEST CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
In the example sentences, which word follows "the" most often?
In the example sentences, how many times does "the" appear in total?
Your family model never saw a sentence about the garage. What does that show?

Great quest, reviewer. Next week the crew rolls a die to make Tiny Text write. Smooth turns out not to be the same as true.

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