April 22, 2025 • 30 mins
Kate Arthur's journey from English literature graduate to AI education pioneer offers a refreshing perspective on our technological future. Her newly released book "Am I Literate?" poses a crucial question about what literacy means in an age where machines can read, write, and create alongside us.
Arthur shares the pivotal moments that shaped her career path - from working in communications in London to founding Kids Code Jeunesse (now Digital Moment) after recognizing education systems weren't keeping pace with technological evolution. Her collaboration with UNESCO to develop AI education frameworks reveals the delicate balance of creating guidelines that respect cultural differences while providing practical pathways for educators worldwide.
What makes Arthur's approach unique is her storytelling methodology. Rather than focusing solely on technical definitions, she weaves personal narratives and historical context to make artificial intelligence accessible. She defines AI simply as "when machines can learn from data and make predictions," demystifying a technology that often triggers fear rather than understanding.
The conversation takes a profound turn when Arthur discusses data ownership and narrative control. "If we don't own our story, then AI will," she warns, highlighting concerns about the three billion people worldwide without internet access whose stories may be misrepresented or absent from AI-generated content. This perspective challenges us to consider who benefits from our collective data contributions, suggesting that if we were each paid mere cents for our data points, we could potentially eliminate poverty.
Despite the remarkable capabilities of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Arthur reminds us that uniquely human relationships and storytelling provide the foundation we need to navigate technological chaos. The genuine connections we form through conversation cannot be replicated by machines, giving us confidence as we face an uncertain future. Listen to discover how understanding AI empowers us to actively shape the world we want to live in rather than passively accepting technological determinism.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back everyone to another episode of Shift Ed
podcast coming to you today, andI think my guest is also in our
province of Quebec.
Is that true, kate?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I am, yeah, I'm here, I'm in Montreal.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Excellent.
So I have Kate Arthur here, whohas been around education for a
long time ed tech a long time.
She's presently co-founder ofCombs Global Is that how you say
it, combs?
Combs, c-o-m-z yeah, and whichkind of helps people look at how
(00:50):
AI can be accessible foreveryone.
Kate, you might know also fromKids' Cope, which she started
way back.
She's now transformed inDigital Moment, offering great
services to our educators herein Quebec.
So, kate, thanks so much fortaking me up on this invite and
coming to talk to us.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's super to be here and Quebec Learn was when I
started Kids Code in.
Well, the idea was started in2012 and we established in 2013.
And Quebec Learn was one of ourfirst partners to to bring in
summer training coding workshops.
So it was a long while ago, butstill really important.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, the collaboration goes on.
Today we had Digital Momentcome and do a couple of AI
workshops.
Romain came on, who was great,and we shared those out and the
attendees, uh, thought it wasgreat because we have to start
somewhere right.
And um, ai is a new thing.
Kate just put out, um, herfirst book.
(01:54):
Is that correct, kate?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
your, it is yeah am I literate?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
a I literate a little play on words there um, so
we're going to talk about herbook and also just about AI and
its whole infusion into oureducational system.
So, kate, before we start allof that fun talk, let's get even
more knowledge from where itall started for you.
(02:20):
All started for you, um, if, ifI were to ask you, like, what
were some of those poignant, umtipping points in your career
that kind of brought you towhere you are now?
Um, what would some of those be?
How did you, how did you kindof make your way into this, into
this ai, ed tech field?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
yeah, so it feels like it does feel like a long
time ago, but I studied Englishliterature.
I've always wanted to be awriter.
It's what I thought I wouldbecome was a writer and a
publicist.
So I worked in communicationsas a publicist in London,
england.
As a writer, loved, loved,loved it.
(03:01):
The power of the word for me.
I could spend hours, you know,mulling over a sentence, just
the power of that to convey afeeling and emotion and
stringing it all together.
So that's really what I thoughtI was going to end up doing.
(03:21):
And then life happens right.
So I met my now husband in thelate 1990s in England and he was
in technology.
So he's a programmer, adeveloper, and now actually we
run an IT company together.
We founded one in the mid 2000shere in Canada and so it was
really through being exposed tohis work early on where I
(03:45):
started to dabble a little bitin what is all of this
technology.
And this was before socialmedia, before smartphones and
before the cloud became became athing.
And you know, I was doing mything in London and I worked in
the entertainment industry, inin theater there, and and he was
doing his thing.
And then we decided you know,london is a fantastic city, but
(04:07):
it's time to take a break.
So we sold everything andpacked our bags and bought a
ticket to around the worldticket.
And he said why don't we builda website to communicate with
family and friends while we'regone?
For me that was a daunting ideaand I you know this again my
(04:28):
WordPress.
None of this stuff existed.
And he said you do all thewriting and the content and I'll
build the backend.
And so that was really my firstmoment of being exposed to code
and it was the first opening tohow similar is to the work I had
been doing for those years incommunications.
(04:48):
But how we were communicatingwas changing and little did we
know how much of the disruption.
But that was really the earlydays of this digital world being
formed.
You know, we had the internetand the worldwide web had come a
decade earlier and now we werebuilding our lives in the
(05:10):
digital space.
So social media was comingalong.
We were connecting socially.
You know gaming actually playsa real fundamental role in the
development of AI back since the1950s.
But you know, at this period itwas progressing rapidly.
1950s.
But you know, at this period itwas, it was, it was progressing
(05:30):
rapidly, uh, video games andand that, all that development
so that I found really, reallyinteresting and and um, we
started a tech company.
Uh, in the, we moved to montreal.
I had family, my family washere and I had done high school
here and I had got a job at cbc,radio canada and in
communications, and we decidedto start a tech company together
and what we were doing wasmoving primarily not-for-profit
(05:52):
companies, helping them movetheir physical to the digital
cloud computing had was.
Really.
This was like 2007.
2008 was starting to move, sowe were seeing, uh, you know,
big business models shifting.
So Google was developing GoogleDrive and you know we were
seeing this movement happening.
(06:13):
Where our data lived on ourmachines, now they were moving
out elsewhere.
And so, again, for me, that wasanother moment of huh.
We are now losing control, butable to connect in ways you know
.
It's like this double edgedsword of you know where is our
data going, and it was a realconcern for clients at the time
(06:34):
because you know everything wasfree or almost free if you moved
everything to the cloud, butyou were losing your access to
your own data and you know thecontrol of it.
So that was another moment, andthat's in the early, like 2010,.
2011 is when I really realizedour education systems aren't
(06:56):
moving as fast as they need toto keep up with the role of
communicating and creating.
So, not my focus wasn'tcomputer science, it was how are
we making sure our kids knowhow to build this world, that
that is happy, that is beingbuilt so quickly?
And we were living in, right,we were virtually living in this
space.
So how, how, what do we need tobring to the kids?
(07:18):
So that's when I started kidscoaching us and at that time, so
that was also like a big moment.
And then the last big momentwas in 2016 and and I was in
ottawa and you know I felt myjob.
I have a soapbox literally I doit behind me and I see and I
get on it a lot um, and one ofthem was to try and get money to
(07:39):
uh, to focus on uh, coding, andyou know, bringing this into
school systems and and community.
So you know, looking at thedifferent types of education so
formal, informal and non-formaleducation structures and how can
we bring coding into to youthenvironments.
And it was in 2016 where Iheard the first time I heard
(08:00):
artificial intelligence and Ididn't.
I had no idea what it was and Ithought couldn't figure it out
and then into yeah, because theywould.
The government had already had,industry was already putting
pressure, um, so which isusually what happens for
industries moving very, veryquickly and and so the
structures start to change.
(08:21):
And uh, and so I was in aclassroom six months later or so
, and one of our teachers whofrom uh, she was uh, marjolin,
she was one of, like our first Iwould anything that I felt like
we needed to pilot.
It would go into her classroom,and so we were in her class.
I was in her classroom and shestarted to use um siri and
(08:44):
thought I don't think the kidshave any idea.
Now we have technologyresponding, so no longer is it
just human to human, but nowwe're in a relationship with
human to machines.
And then I went down the rabbithole of AI.
So I think I took my first AIcourse in 2017.
(09:05):
And I really I say this to toher if I can understand it,
anyone can understand it.
My brain is not a computerscience one.
Um, and yeah, and so that'ssort of like the, the moments in
in my journey, of what broughtme to where I am today right and
now a published.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
author.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yes, yeah, I finally.
I finally became a writer.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That literary degree came in handy here in the end,
so great.
Now I read too that you lookedat the AI education frameworks
with UNESCO, and those came outnot too long ago.
What was your role in that andlike?
Can you kind of give us alittle bit of an idea of the
(09:49):
framework that they suggested?
Or you know the functioningsthat UNESCO were thinking about
when you were working with them?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, yeah.
So that was a highlight of mycareer in the last decade was
working with UNESCO.
We had a really strongrelationship here in Canada with
CC UNESCO, the CanadianCommission for UNESCO, and
Sebastian Goupil, who was thesecretary general at the time.
This is again like 2017.
(10:17):
He said, kate, can we speak?
And he said I've got something.
I have not an urgency as muchas there's a pressing need that
I'm seeing and some patternpatterns that I'm seeing that I
want to talk to you about.
So I got on the call with himand if any one of you knows
Sébastien, he's full of energyand he's like a doer.
You know you speak to him, youknow whatever he's going to say,
(10:39):
he's going to do.
And he said I'm hearing wavesaround the world about algorithm
literacy, this need for ourkids to understand what
algorithms are and their effectin the world and so we embarked
on that journey together andeventually, in the next couple
of years, we went into apartnership with UNESCO at the
(11:01):
international level.
So we had algorithm and dataliteracy.
We brought the two together.
And then the role my role wasreally to help share that and
bring that to the 192 memberstates, and it was.
It wasn't a big role, it wasmore.
You know, when they needed meto go and speak on that project,
I would, and so we, we had anestablished relationship and it
(11:25):
was.
You know these things.
You look back at but you realizelike nobody was doing what we
were doing, like there was,there was no ai education
framework, so there was no, itwasn't on anybody's radar.
Uh, so, similar to when westarted kids cogeness, it was
sort of like trying to figureout what was needed, um, to put
the pieces together.
(11:46):
And now we have so much uhavailable and resources, which
is fantastic, um, but at thetime there wasn't that.
Um and unesco took thisleadership role in in looking at
they had already done the aiethics, so they had already been
very involved in this and,under the, the leadership of
feng shong miao, who is uh, whoruns the department there, is
very, very progressive in in inai and its impact and what it
(12:10):
can and cannot do for education,and he invited me to be an
expert on their helping buildtheir frameworks.
So it was a very small role.
I went to Paris a few times andwe got to.
We sat in very small rooms.
You know very much.
Like you imagine, like youimagine in a school, in like the
(12:31):
principal's office that's whatit was like and you sit in there
and with experts in buildingframeworks and and so my
contribution in in these, inbuilding the framework.
So there are two of them, oneis for teachers and then one is
for students, and I was focusingon the one for students and it
(12:52):
was how do we connect thecomputing world and the
computing?
You know the journey that wehad already been through
computing with coding andcomputational thinking and
physical computing with AI.
So that was sort of like mylens of, of making sure we were
anchoring, and I would say liketo the literacy, right to the
computing literacy.
We were anchoring to that andthen also keeping a strong lens
(13:17):
on the ethics side of it.
So that was also my role.
You know Montreal we're veryfortunate to be surrounded by
incredible researchers doinggreat stuff and the Montreal
Declaration for for responsibleAI had come out by then.
The Montreal AI ethicsinstitute was up and running.
So there was a lot of stuffhappening and I and I was and
(13:40):
still am, I still work with theMontreal AI ethics institute
just keeping an eye on on thatethical lens.
So those were the frameworksand and it's very, very high
level because the complexitiesyou realize when you're working
at an international level howcomplicated the world is yes you
know, everybody has accessdifferent, and especially ai,
(14:04):
because cultures are different,values are different, so you
can't, you know, enforce orinstill anything.
It's more again, very, very uhhigh level frameworks right,
right, and what?
Speaker 1 (14:16):
what kind of ai mindset did you get out of doing
that interaction?
Like, did you start to see aiin a different light?
I imagine you would have with,with, with all of that exposure
and the conversations and the um, like, how did where where's
your mindset at now with ai?
Um, if you were to look at itas a a separate thing?
(14:38):
Yeah where do you see it?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
with with the work with unesco.
Um, they were there.
You realize, oh my god, there'ssome some brilliant people in
the world.
Like to be able to learn fromsome of the best minds and
people with so much experience.
Was was for me just like, wow,this is neat, um, and and the
the care right.
So we were very quick to judgeand say, oh, you know these
(15:05):
people, passionate care,dedicated to education, um, and
I learned, uh, I learned.
So there were two people that Iworked really closely with.
One was a computer sciencescientist I believe she was
stanford, um, very, very heavycomputer science, uh, mind frame
(15:27):
.
And then the other one was alsoshe studied linguistics and
education, so she you knowBloom's Taxonomy and whatnot, so
brought that perspective.
And so the two together reallyhelped me see how numbers and
words are absolutely fundamentalto not just reading and writing
(15:53):
, not just computing, but to AI.
And that's sort of how I youknow, I hadn't and it's just
coming to me now as we'retalking, but I hadn't really
like I'd seen the connectionsfor myself and in these being
ways of communicating, but anactual literacy when we have
(16:15):
skills and tools and knowledgeto be able to create and
communicate, and it's reallywith numbers and words.
So you know that that's, andthen that's why I felt like I
felt this need to also put mybook together.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Absolutely Well, and mentioning that, so you asked
the question.
Your title is a question, right?
Yes, Am I literate?
Yeah, what is literacy in adigital age or an AI age?
I guess I mean digital AI.
Probably interfused a bit.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, I would say literacy.
So if you're literate today, ithas to include AI, because if
we're literate, when we canaccess the data, when we can
transform it into knowledge andrespond meaningfully.
So the one biggest takeaway inliteracy today for me is that
(17:08):
machines are now literate too,so machines can access the data,
transform it into knowledge andrespond meaningfully.
The gray or the color of whatwe need to dig into and to be
educating our kids around isliteracy and data.
(17:34):
So, whether it's the khipunotswhich I talk about from the Inca
time to you know, words,reading and writing, which is
really in the Enlightenment andthe first Industrial Revolution,
reading and writing reallyplays a strong role in why
innovation and becomes howinnovation advances very quickly
.
So that'd be like the first andsecond industrial revolution
(17:56):
and third and fourth industrialrevolution.
We're going to computing,literacy, so coding, so we need
to know how to code, to build,to create and communicate, and
then, with AI, how data isworking, how algorithms are
working.
Now, as we're moving forward,we're now in this new
environment of literacy wherewe're not the only ones who are
(18:16):
literate.
So how do we buildrelationships to be able to
create and communicateresponsibly with each other,
with machines and also buildthese machines so that they're
responsibly with each other withmachines and also build these
machines so that they'reresponsibly communicating with
each other.
Because now we, you know whichis where the worry of losing the
control, because we're notinvolved in that literacy, that
(18:40):
relationship anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Right, right, I guess too, the challenge that I see
anyway from the educationalstandpoint is fusing kind of the
technology and what it can dowith teachers you know
professional jobs and what theyused to do and how it evolves
and like creating that awarenessor almost like developing a
(19:03):
different kind of mindset aroundwhat AI is, because so far what
we've seen in the educationalworld are preoccupations with
the negative part of what itbrings, without, I don't know,
acknowledging enough of for oneit's never going away and all
the good that it brings.
When you look at this, do youtalk about some of these things
(19:27):
in your book?
I know that I've read a fewlittle passages that were
available and it's verystorytelling.
So again you're bringing yourEnglish literature into it where
you're telling stories about,as you just did.
Where do we connect?
How do we connect teachers toit better so that they can see
(19:47):
that there is a long-termbenefit, and how can they start
to?
In small little pieces so thatit's not like brain?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And that's why I wrote the book and that's why I
wrote it as a story.
So there is enough informationand content out there about AI
and what it is and, you know,whoever wants to learn about it,
you can go and learn about itand access it for free online.
But there's something abouttelling stories and in
(20:22):
multi-layered environment of AIas well.
But we respond to stories, weconnect with stories and we
understand through storytelling,and I wanted to weave in the
the journey of computing and AI,the journey of literacy and
(20:42):
education within a story, andthat that's where Anchor is
through the generations of myfamily, and I wanted to
highlight the real importance ofus owning our data and owning
our story, because if we don'town it, then AI will.
(21:06):
At a micro level, at a personallevel, then AI will.
At a micro level, at a personallevel, but also at a historical
level.
You know, and at a you know, westill have almost 3 billion
people without access to theinternet and AI is now, you know
, as I mentioned, literate andable to tell all these stories
using data.
What was happening to thosepeople, the 3 billion people who
(21:26):
don't have access?
What's happening to theirstories?
How are they being recorded.
So that's why I I weaved it inand into this storytelling so
that it is accessible and and itcan go very quickly to.
You know, we can easily ourimaginations go quickly to doom,
doom and gloom, but if weunderstand and we are aware of
(21:49):
how uh, anything, but in thecase of ai, how it works, it
really does minimize the, the,the fear, and it gives agency to
be able to, to say, to give anopinion.
So you still might think robotswere going to take over the
world, but I'd rather each of usindividually had enough
(22:13):
knowledge to be able to to havean opinion than have to listen
to elon musk or whoever istelling us what's going to
happen, right.
So when you understand that ai,the machines have been built
over decades, the models havebeen built over decades, the
models have been trained andbuilt over decades and improving
over time using our data andhow the progress of that data,
(22:35):
that data journey, came from.
You know social media, well,internet starting, you know.
So it's young 1990s, right.
And to us now feeding enormousamounts of data that our brains
cannot even fathom how much datathese models are accessing.
When you see that that's howit's working mathematical models
(22:57):
, using our data to makepredictions, it feels less
overwhelming than, oh my God,terminator's coming and our
world's done right, and thenyou're gonna start to see.
Oh well, maybe it is theresponsibility of governments to
put frameworks and laws inplace to control the development
, because industry's job, theironly job, is to make money, and
(23:21):
and and they will not stop.
You know, like that, that andthat's what they're supposed to
do.
They're not, they're not,they're not supposed to govern
and to to self-governance, it's.
It goes against, you know, thestock market, basically.
So you know when we can eachhave our soapbox to stand on.
(23:43):
I think you know, and we'veseen over history in the
industrial revolutions when weeach have that literacy, we can
each contribute to the worldthat we want to see and how we
want to move things forward.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Absolutely.
I love that you're mentioningto the humanity of it all that I
mean the stories come from us,they come from our history, they
come from our families.
The stories come from us, theycome from our history, they come
from our families, our friends,that no machine can take that
and claim it as their own Right.
So we do have that.
You know that won't ever goaway and they learn from what we
(24:19):
already know.
Yeah, like as you were saying,the input that we put in and
more and more so.
I mean we should all be beingpaid by AI, I think, just
because of all the help we'regiving these machines to learn
more, it's coming from people,but I love that perspective on
that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, I think there was a study I read a number of
years ago that if we were eachpaid a few cents for each data
point we put in, we wouldalleviate poverty.
Right, you know, that's a bigchange that we can have.
Yeah, and you know, whenthere's the argument that AI can
code for us now, ai can writefor us now, for sure it can.
(25:00):
But nobody, no AI system, willbe able to have this
relationship you and I have inthis conversation that we're
having right now, and then Iwill take my learning and our
conversation to anotherexperience, you know.
So, we, we are built on storiesand and I do talk about this,
and it's important that we shareour stories because it
(25:22):
especially for the generationtoday and their future
generations storytelling givesus a confidence and a foundation
.
It roots us to able to navigatechaos and uncertainty, and
we're definitely, I would say,quite deep into that chaos,
uncertainty.
Now, when you can have storieseither you know from your
(25:43):
parents, your grandparents, oryou know through books um, they
do provide a certain level ofcomfort, um, to navigate and
sort of like a roadmap of sortsabsolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So the book was just released, not that long ago,
right it?
Was a couple weeks ago outthere.
How do you, how do you feelpeople have responded to it so
far?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
um, I don't know how many people have read it,
because it literally has.
Uh, it has just come out and II did have beta readers, uh,
which everyone's gonna say, oh,it's great.
So you know, I don't know.
My goal with the book was it'snot a work of literary genius,
(26:31):
that wasn't the purpose of it,and I also felt an urgency.
It took me about six months towrite.
I felt this urgency to bringthis forward.
I felt this urgency to bringthis forward.
It's not talking about, liketoday's AI as much as again
anchoring its journey so that wecan all start to engage in what
(26:52):
we want our societies to looklike.
So I hope, when the goal is toprovide enough information so
that somebody can talk with alittle bit of knowledge about
what artificial intelligence is.
I get to speak a lot about AIat conferences and whatnot, and
(27:12):
I will always start off sayingI'm going to assume none of you
know what artificialintelligence is, because we talk
about it, we talk about it insociety so much and I really
don't think we know what it is.
You know, because it's justmoving so quickly.
So the goal is, you know, Ihave a definition of AI and I
(27:34):
would say like really, reallyoff the cuff.
It's when machines can learnfrom data and make predictions.
There has to be a learningcomponent to it.
But everyone should be able tohave their definition, and there
are many, many, many, manydefinitions, and I do talk about
this like there's no one setdefinition, but we all, we
should each be able to toexplain it in our way absolutely
(27:55):
.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah, I've noticed too.
When we're offering workshopsnow and ai is in the title,
we're sure to get a ton ofpeople to it right as you, as
you noted, like it's thisfiguring it out, like what is it
?
And like I agree with you, Ithink a lot of us and and and
some that have been dabbling init, are still trying to get our
(28:17):
our minds around it and how weare going to fit inside this or
or not fit inside, but coexistwith this tipping point.
That's happened.
What was it?
November 2022?
Yeah, yeah, yeah when it all,just the box is opened.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, which you know, when ChatGPT was released, and
that was ChatGPT 3.5.
So there was a three, there wasa 2.5, there was a two.
So it was again like these,these moments of of a building
up, and it was only at the pointwhere a generative AI model was
(28:54):
able to create new contentwhere we woke up Right, and so
that's also that literacy.
Prior to that, ai has beenaround again for decades and we
have had, you know, we've beenusing google translate and you
know, maps and all these thatthat has been using artificial
(29:14):
intelligence models, but it wasa moment that a general ai was
able to create new content forus that we all went, oh, my god
what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
that first like try of generating a, an image from a
prompt, you know, and you'rejust like what did this just do?
Yeah, yeah, like it's just.
And we see that in teachers tooand we're showing, like we'll
demo, like how to, how to createa rubric with, with chat gpt
for given, you know, grade level, subject and stuff like that,
and their eyes popping out withhow quickly it can generate
(29:50):
stuff like this.
That would have taken an hour,you know, or more um and I.
Somebody shared this rule withme.
They said 80 20, so ai can takecare of like 80 of of this
stuff, but the 20% still is you.
You've got to go and vet thestuff and tweak and fortify it,
(30:11):
and so I love the percentagethat we can kind of offload some
of this stuff.
But we are still required Ourliteracy and our numeracy is
also required to be able tounderstand and interact with,
which I think you shed some coollight on today.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, very interesting.
Well, kate, this has beenreally fun.
I thank you for putting thisbook out, for being a leader in
this field here in our province,and I would love to continue
this chat down the road.
I think there's so much more totalk about.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, thanks, it's been a pleasure, great to be
here.
Thanks, chris.
Thanks a lot.
Welcome back everyone to another episode of Shift Ed
podcast coming to you today, andI think my guest is also in our
province of Quebec.
Is that true, kate?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I am, yeah, I'm here, I'm in Montreal.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Excellent.
So I have Kate Arthur here, whohas been around education for a
long time ed tech a long time.
She's presently co-founder ofCombs Global Is that how you say
it, combs?
Combs, c-o-m-z yeah, and whichkind of helps people look at how
(00:50):
AI can be accessible foreveryone.
Kate, you might know also fromKids' Cope, which she started
way back.
She's now transformed inDigital Moment, offering great
services to our educators herein Quebec.
So, kate, thanks so much fortaking me up on this invite and
coming to talk to us.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's super to be here and Quebec Learn was when I
started Kids Code in.
Well, the idea was started in2012 and we established in 2013.
And Quebec Learn was one of ourfirst partners to to bring in
summer training coding workshops.
So it was a long while ago, butstill really important.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, the collaboration goes on.
Today we had Digital Momentcome and do a couple of AI
workshops.
Romain came on, who was great,and we shared those out and the
attendees, uh, thought it wasgreat because we have to start
somewhere right.
And um, ai is a new thing.
Kate just put out, um, herfirst book.
(01:54):
Is that correct, kate?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
your, it is yeah am I literate?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
a I literate a little play on words there um, so
we're going to talk about herbook and also just about AI and
its whole infusion into oureducational system.
So, kate, before we start allof that fun talk, let's get even
more knowledge from where itall started for you.
(02:20):
All started for you, um, if, ifI were to ask you, like, what
were some of those poignant, umtipping points in your career
that kind of brought you towhere you are now?
Um, what would some of those be?
How did you, how did you kindof make your way into this, into
this ai, ed tech field?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
yeah, so it feels like it does feel like a long
time ago, but I studied Englishliterature.
I've always wanted to be awriter.
It's what I thought I wouldbecome was a writer and a
publicist.
So I worked in communicationsas a publicist in London,
england.
As a writer, loved, loved,loved it.
(03:01):
The power of the word for me.
I could spend hours, you know,mulling over a sentence, just
the power of that to convey afeeling and emotion and
stringing it all together.
So that's really what I thoughtI was going to end up doing.
(03:21):
And then life happens right.
So I met my now husband in thelate 1990s in England and he was
in technology.
So he's a programmer, adeveloper, and now actually we
run an IT company together.
We founded one in the mid 2000shere in Canada and so it was
really through being exposed tohis work early on where I
(03:45):
started to dabble a little bitin what is all of this
technology.
And this was before socialmedia, before smartphones and
before the cloud became became athing.
And you know, I was doing mything in London and I worked in
the entertainment industry, inin theater there, and and he was
doing his thing.
And then we decided you know,london is a fantastic city, but
(04:07):
it's time to take a break.
So we sold everything andpacked our bags and bought a
ticket to around the worldticket.
And he said why don't we builda website to communicate with
family and friends while we'regone?
For me that was a daunting ideaand I you know this again my
(04:28):
WordPress.
None of this stuff existed.
And he said you do all thewriting and the content and I'll
build the backend.
And so that was really my firstmoment of being exposed to code
and it was the first opening tohow similar is to the work I had
been doing for those years incommunications.
(04:48):
But how we were communicatingwas changing and little did we
know how much of the disruption.
But that was really the earlydays of this digital world being
formed.
You know, we had the internetand the worldwide web had come a
decade earlier and now we werebuilding our lives in the
(05:10):
digital space.
So social media was comingalong.
We were connecting socially.
You know gaming actually playsa real fundamental role in the
development of AI back since the1950s.
But you know, at this period itwas progressing rapidly.
1950s.
But you know, at this period itwas, it was, it was progressing
(05:30):
rapidly, uh, video games andand that, all that development
so that I found really, reallyinteresting and and um, we
started a tech company.
Uh, in the, we moved to montreal.
I had family, my family washere and I had done high school
here and I had got a job at cbc,radio canada and in
communications, and we decidedto start a tech company together
and what we were doing wasmoving primarily not-for-profit
(05:52):
companies, helping them movetheir physical to the digital
cloud computing had was.
Really.
This was like 2007.
2008 was starting to move, sowe were seeing, uh, you know,
big business models shifting.
So Google was developing GoogleDrive and you know we were
seeing this movement happening.
(06:13):
Where our data lived on ourmachines, now they were moving
out elsewhere.
And so, again, for me, that wasanother moment of huh.
We are now losing control, butable to connect in ways you know
.
It's like this double edgedsword of you know where is our
data going, and it was a realconcern for clients at the time
(06:34):
because you know everything wasfree or almost free if you moved
everything to the cloud, butyou were losing your access to
your own data and you know thecontrol of it.
So that was another moment, andthat's in the early, like 2010,.
2011 is when I really realizedour education systems aren't
(06:56):
moving as fast as they need toto keep up with the role of
communicating and creating.
So, not my focus wasn'tcomputer science, it was how are
we making sure our kids knowhow to build this world, that
that is happy, that is beingbuilt so quickly?
And we were living in, right,we were virtually living in this
space.
So how, how, what do we need tobring to the kids?
(07:18):
So that's when I started kidscoaching us and at that time, so
that was also like a big moment.
And then the last big momentwas in 2016 and and I was in
ottawa and you know I felt myjob.
I have a soapbox literally I doit behind me and I see and I
get on it a lot um, and one ofthem was to try and get money to
(07:39):
uh, to focus on uh, coding, andyou know, bringing this into
school systems and and community.
So you know, looking at thedifferent types of education so
formal, informal and non-formaleducation structures and how can
we bring coding into to youthenvironments.
And it was in 2016 where Iheard the first time I heard
(08:00):
artificial intelligence and Ididn't.
I had no idea what it was and Ithought couldn't figure it out
and then into yeah, because theywould.
The government had already had,industry was already putting
pressure, um, so which isusually what happens for
industries moving very, veryquickly and and so the
structures start to change.
(08:21):
And uh, and so I was in aclassroom six months later or so
, and one of our teachers whofrom uh, she was uh, marjolin,
she was one of, like our first Iwould anything that I felt like
we needed to pilot.
It would go into her classroom,and so we were in her class.
I was in her classroom and shestarted to use um siri and
(08:44):
thought I don't think the kidshave any idea.
Now we have technologyresponding, so no longer is it
just human to human, but nowwe're in a relationship with
human to machines.
And then I went down the rabbithole of AI.
So I think I took my first AIcourse in 2017.
(09:05):
And I really I say this to toher if I can understand it,
anyone can understand it.
My brain is not a computerscience one.
Um, and yeah, and so that'ssort of like the, the moments in
in my journey, of what broughtme to where I am today right and
now a published.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
author.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yes, yeah, I finally.
I finally became a writer.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That literary degree came in handy here in the end,
so great.
Now I read too that you lookedat the AI education frameworks
with UNESCO, and those came outnot too long ago.
What was your role in that andlike?
Can you kind of give us alittle bit of an idea of the
(09:49):
framework that they suggested?
Or you know the functioningsthat UNESCO were thinking about
when you were working with them?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, yeah.
So that was a highlight of mycareer in the last decade was
working with UNESCO.
We had a really strongrelationship here in Canada with
CC UNESCO, the CanadianCommission for UNESCO, and
Sebastian Goupil, who was thesecretary general at the time.
This is again like 2017.
(10:17):
He said, kate, can we speak?
And he said I've got something.
I have not an urgency as muchas there's a pressing need that
I'm seeing and some patternpatterns that I'm seeing that I
want to talk to you about.
So I got on the call with himand if any one of you knows
Sébastien, he's full of energyand he's like a doer.
You know you speak to him, youknow whatever he's going to say,
(10:39):
he's going to do.
And he said I'm hearing wavesaround the world about algorithm
literacy, this need for ourkids to understand what
algorithms are and their effectin the world and so we embarked
on that journey together andeventually, in the next couple
of years, we went into apartnership with UNESCO at the
(11:01):
international level.
So we had algorithm and dataliteracy.
We brought the two together.
And then the role my role wasreally to help share that and
bring that to the 192 memberstates, and it was.
It wasn't a big role, it wasmore.
You know, when they needed meto go and speak on that project,
I would, and so we, we had anestablished relationship and it
(11:25):
was.
You know these things.
You look back at but you realizelike nobody was doing what we
were doing, like there was,there was no ai education
framework, so there was no, itwasn't on anybody's radar.
Uh, so, similar to when westarted kids cogeness, it was
sort of like trying to figureout what was needed, um, to put
the pieces together.
(11:46):
And now we have so much uhavailable and resources, which
is fantastic, um, but at thetime there wasn't that.
Um and unesco took thisleadership role in in looking at
they had already done the aiethics, so they had already been
very involved in this and,under the, the leadership of
feng shong miao, who is uh, whoruns the department there, is
very, very progressive in in inai and its impact and what it
(12:10):
can and cannot do for education,and he invited me to be an
expert on their helping buildtheir frameworks.
So it was a very small role.
I went to Paris a few times andwe got to.
We sat in very small rooms.
You know very much.
Like you imagine, like youimagine in a school, in like the
(12:31):
principal's office that's whatit was like and you sit in there
and with experts in buildingframeworks and and so my
contribution in in these, inbuilding the framework.
So there are two of them, oneis for teachers and then one is
for students, and I was focusingon the one for students and it
(12:52):
was how do we connect thecomputing world and the
computing?
You know the journey that wehad already been through
computing with coding andcomputational thinking and
physical computing with AI.
So that was sort of like mylens of, of making sure we were
anchoring, and I would say liketo the literacy, right to the
computing literacy.
We were anchoring to that andthen also keeping a strong lens
(13:17):
on the ethics side of it.
So that was also my role.
You know Montreal we're veryfortunate to be surrounded by
incredible researchers doinggreat stuff and the Montreal
Declaration for for responsibleAI had come out by then.
The Montreal AI ethicsinstitute was up and running.
So there was a lot of stuffhappening and I and I was and
(13:40):
still am, I still work with theMontreal AI ethics institute
just keeping an eye on on thatethical lens.
So those were the frameworksand and it's very, very high
level because the complexitiesyou realize when you're working
at an international level howcomplicated the world is yes you
know, everybody has accessdifferent, and especially ai,
(14:04):
because cultures are different,values are different, so you
can't, you know, enforce orinstill anything.
It's more again, very, very uhhigh level frameworks right,
right, and what?
Speaker 1 (14:16):
what kind of ai mindset did you get out of doing
that interaction?
Like, did you start to see aiin a different light?
I imagine you would have with,with, with all of that exposure
and the conversations and the um, like, how did where where's
your mindset at now with ai?
Um, if you were to look at itas a a separate thing?
(14:38):
Yeah where do you see it?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
with with the work with unesco.
Um, they were there.
You realize, oh my god, there'ssome some brilliant people in
the world.
Like to be able to learn fromsome of the best minds and
people with so much experience.
Was was for me just like, wow,this is neat, um, and and the
the care right.
So we were very quick to judgeand say, oh, you know these
(15:05):
people, passionate care,dedicated to education, um, and
I learned, uh, I learned.
So there were two people that Iworked really closely with.
One was a computer sciencescientist I believe she was
stanford, um, very, very heavycomputer science, uh, mind frame
(15:27):
.
And then the other one was alsoshe studied linguistics and
education, so she you knowBloom's Taxonomy and whatnot, so
brought that perspective.
And so the two together reallyhelped me see how numbers and
words are absolutely fundamentalto not just reading and writing
(15:53):
, not just computing, but to AI.
And that's sort of how I youknow, I hadn't and it's just
coming to me now as we'retalking, but I hadn't really
like I'd seen the connectionsfor myself and in these being
ways of communicating, but anactual literacy when we have
(16:15):
skills and tools and knowledgeto be able to create and
communicate, and it's reallywith numbers and words.
So you know that that's, andthen that's why I felt like I
felt this need to also put mybook together.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Absolutely Well, and mentioning that, so you asked
the question.
Your title is a question, right?
Yes, Am I literate?
Yeah, what is literacy in adigital age or an AI age?
I guess I mean digital AI.
Probably interfused a bit.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, I would say literacy.
So if you're literate today, ithas to include AI, because if
we're literate, when we canaccess the data, when we can
transform it into knowledge andrespond meaningfully.
So the one biggest takeaway inliteracy today for me is that
(17:08):
machines are now literate too,so machines can access the data,
transform it into knowledge andrespond meaningfully.
The gray or the color of whatwe need to dig into and to be
educating our kids around isliteracy and data.
(17:34):
So, whether it's the khipunotswhich I talk about from the Inca
time to you know, words,reading and writing, which is
really in the Enlightenment andthe first Industrial Revolution,
reading and writing reallyplays a strong role in why
innovation and becomes howinnovation advances very quickly
.
So that'd be like the first andsecond industrial revolution
(17:56):
and third and fourth industrialrevolution.
We're going to computing,literacy, so coding, so we need
to know how to code, to build,to create and communicate, and
then, with AI, how data isworking, how algorithms are
working.
Now, as we're moving forward,we're now in this new
environment of literacy wherewe're not the only ones who are
(18:16):
literate.
So how do we buildrelationships to be able to
create and communicateresponsibly with each other,
with machines and also buildthese machines so that they're
responsibly with each other withmachines and also build these
machines so that they'reresponsibly communicating with
each other.
Because now we, you know whichis where the worry of losing the
control, because we're notinvolved in that literacy, that
(18:40):
relationship anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Right, right, I guess too, the challenge that I see
anyway from the educationalstandpoint is fusing kind of the
technology and what it can dowith teachers you know
professional jobs and what theyused to do and how it evolves
and like creating that awarenessor almost like developing a
(19:03):
different kind of mindset aroundwhat AI is, because so far what
we've seen in the educationalworld are preoccupations with
the negative part of what itbrings, without, I don't know,
acknowledging enough of for oneit's never going away and all
the good that it brings.
When you look at this, do youtalk about some of these things
(19:27):
in your book?
I know that I've read a fewlittle passages that were
available and it's verystorytelling.
So again you're bringing yourEnglish literature into it where
you're telling stories about,as you just did.
Where do we connect?
How do we connect teachers toit better so that they can see
(19:47):
that there is a long-termbenefit, and how can they start
to?
In small little pieces so thatit's not like brain?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And that's why I wrote the book and that's why I
wrote it as a story.
So there is enough informationand content out there about AI
and what it is and, you know,whoever wants to learn about it,
you can go and learn about itand access it for free online.
But there's something abouttelling stories and in
(20:22):
multi-layered environment of AIas well.
But we respond to stories, weconnect with stories and we
understand through storytelling,and I wanted to weave in the
the journey of computing and AI,the journey of literacy and
(20:42):
education within a story, andthat that's where Anchor is
through the generations of myfamily, and I wanted to
highlight the real importance ofus owning our data and owning
our story, because if we don'town it, then AI will.
(21:06):
At a micro level, at a personallevel, then AI will.
At a micro level, at a personallevel, but also at a historical
level.
You know, and at a you know, westill have almost 3 billion
people without access to theinternet and AI is now, you know
, as I mentioned, literate andable to tell all these stories
using data.
What was happening to thosepeople, the 3 billion people who
(21:26):
don't have access?
What's happening to theirstories?
How are they being recorded.
So that's why I I weaved it inand into this storytelling so
that it is accessible and and itcan go very quickly to.
You know, we can easily ourimaginations go quickly to doom,
doom and gloom, but if weunderstand and we are aware of
(21:49):
how uh, anything, but in thecase of ai, how it works, it
really does minimize the, the,the fear, and it gives agency to
be able to, to say, to give anopinion.
So you still might think robotswere going to take over the
world, but I'd rather each of usindividually had enough
(22:13):
knowledge to be able to to havean opinion than have to listen
to elon musk or whoever istelling us what's going to
happen, right.
So when you understand that ai,the machines have been built
over decades, the models havebeen built over decades, the
models have been trained andbuilt over decades and improving
over time using our data andhow the progress of that data,
(22:35):
that data journey, came from.
You know social media, well,internet starting, you know.
So it's young 1990s, right.
And to us now feeding enormousamounts of data that our brains
cannot even fathom how much datathese models are accessing.
When you see that that's howit's working mathematical models
(22:57):
, using our data to makepredictions, it feels less
overwhelming than, oh my God,terminator's coming and our
world's done right, and thenyou're gonna start to see.
Oh well, maybe it is theresponsibility of governments to
put frameworks and laws inplace to control the development
, because industry's job, theironly job, is to make money, and
(23:21):
and and they will not stop.
You know, like that, that andthat's what they're supposed to
do.
They're not, they're not,they're not supposed to govern
and to to self-governance, it's.
It goes against, you know, thestock market, basically.
So you know when we can eachhave our soapbox to stand on.
(23:43):
I think you know, and we'veseen over history in the
industrial revolutions when weeach have that literacy, we can
each contribute to the worldthat we want to see and how we
want to move things forward.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Absolutely.
I love that you're mentioningto the humanity of it all that I
mean the stories come from us,they come from our history, they
come from our families.
The stories come from us, theycome from our history, they come
from our families, our friends,that no machine can take that
and claim it as their own Right.
So we do have that.
You know that won't ever goaway and they learn from what we
(24:19):
already know.
Yeah, like as you were saying,the input that we put in and
more and more so.
I mean we should all be beingpaid by AI, I think, just
because of all the help we'regiving these machines to learn
more, it's coming from people,but I love that perspective on
that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, I think there was a study I read a number of
years ago that if we were eachpaid a few cents for each data
point we put in, we wouldalleviate poverty.
Right, you know, that's a bigchange that we can have.
Yeah, and you know, whenthere's the argument that AI can
code for us now, ai can writefor us now, for sure it can.
(25:00):
But nobody, no AI system, willbe able to have this
relationship you and I have inthis conversation that we're
having right now, and then Iwill take my learning and our
conversation to anotherexperience, you know.
So, we, we are built on storiesand and I do talk about this,
and it's important that we shareour stories because it
(25:22):
especially for the generationtoday and their future
generations storytelling givesus a confidence and a foundation
.
It roots us to able to navigatechaos and uncertainty, and
we're definitely, I would say,quite deep into that chaos,
uncertainty.
Now, when you can have storieseither you know from your
(25:43):
parents, your grandparents, oryou know through books um, they
do provide a certain level ofcomfort, um, to navigate and
sort of like a roadmap of sortsabsolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So the book was just released, not that long ago,
right it?
Was a couple weeks ago outthere.
How do you, how do you feelpeople have responded to it so
far?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
um, I don't know how many people have read it,
because it literally has.
Uh, it has just come out and II did have beta readers, uh,
which everyone's gonna say, oh,it's great.
So you know, I don't know.
My goal with the book was it'snot a work of literary genius,
(26:31):
that wasn't the purpose of it,and I also felt an urgency.
It took me about six months towrite.
I felt this urgency to bringthis forward.
I felt this urgency to bringthis forward.
It's not talking about, liketoday's AI as much as again
anchoring its journey so that wecan all start to engage in what
(26:52):
we want our societies to looklike.
So I hope, when the goal is toprovide enough information so
that somebody can talk with alittle bit of knowledge about
what artificial intelligence is.
I get to speak a lot about AIat conferences and whatnot, and
(27:12):
I will always start off sayingI'm going to assume none of you
know what artificialintelligence is, because we talk
about it, we talk about it insociety so much and I really
don't think we know what it is.
You know, because it's justmoving so quickly.
So the goal is, you know, Ihave a definition of AI and I
(27:34):
would say like really, reallyoff the cuff.
It's when machines can learnfrom data and make predictions.
There has to be a learningcomponent to it.
But everyone should be able tohave their definition, and there
are many, many, many, manydefinitions, and I do talk about
this like there's no one setdefinition, but we all, we
should each be able to toexplain it in our way absolutely
(27:55):
.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah, I've noticed too.
When we're offering workshopsnow and ai is in the title,
we're sure to get a ton ofpeople to it right as you, as
you noted, like it's thisfiguring it out, like what is it
?
And like I agree with you, Ithink a lot of us and and and
some that have been dabbling init, are still trying to get our
(28:17):
our minds around it and how weare going to fit inside this or
or not fit inside, but coexistwith this tipping point.
That's happened.
What was it?
November 2022?
Yeah, yeah, yeah when it all,just the box is opened.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, which you know, when ChatGPT was released, and
that was ChatGPT 3.5.
So there was a three, there wasa 2.5, there was a two.
So it was again like these,these moments of of a building
up, and it was only at the pointwhere a generative AI model was
(28:54):
able to create new contentwhere we woke up Right, and so
that's also that literacy.
Prior to that, ai has beenaround again for decades and we
have had, you know, we've beenusing google translate and you
know, maps and all these thatthat has been using artificial
(29:14):
intelligence models, but it wasa moment that a general ai was
able to create new content forus that we all went, oh, my god
what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
that first like try of generating a, an image from a
prompt, you know, and you'rejust like what did this just do?
Yeah, yeah, like it's just.
And we see that in teachers tooand we're showing, like we'll
demo, like how to, how to createa rubric with, with chat gpt
for given, you know, grade level, subject and stuff like that,
and their eyes popping out withhow quickly it can generate
(29:50):
stuff like this.
That would have taken an hour,you know, or more um and I.
Somebody shared this rule withme.
They said 80 20, so ai can takecare of like 80 of of this
stuff, but the 20% still is you.
You've got to go and vet thestuff and tweak and fortify it,
(30:11):
and so I love the percentagethat we can kind of offload some
of this stuff.
But we are still required Ourliteracy and our numeracy is
also required to be able tounderstand and interact with,
which I think you shed some coollight on today.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, very interesting.
Well, kate, this has beenreally fun.
I thank you for putting thisbook out, for being a leader in
this field here in our province,and I would love to continue
this chat down the road.
I think there's so much more totalk about.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, thanks, it's been a pleasure, great to be
here.
Thanks, chris.
Thanks a lot.
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