The 24-member AI Task Force was created by House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in February to find out how Congress can help advance the responsible use and development of AI in America, according to a news release Wednesday.
Those recommendations came in this week’s report, which spans 253 pages and covers AI issues in 15 areas, from national security and civil rights to energy usage and agriculture. In a 23-page section on education and the workforce, the task force calls on Congress to boost support for K-12 STEM and AI education.
Specifically, the report asks Congress to back federal funding for teacher professional development, with an emphasis on AI literacy for educators. It also states that Congress and the executive branch should find a way to simplify the process of choosing effective AI tools for education.
The goal is to equip U.S. schools and students with the technology, curriculum and skills to ensure the U.S. has “the appropriate talent needed to research, develop and deploy AI applications,” the document states.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
These are barriers to AI proficiency that must be addressed, according to Pat Yongpradit, chief academic officer of the nonprofit Code.org and leader of the TeachAI initiative, who testified before the AI Task Force.
“With computer science, I mean, kids don’t even have access to it. There are lots of kids in schools that might want to learn computer science that can’t because it’s just not on the menu,” he said. “Let’s start with that access and participation, and maybe then we can start worrying about whether kids are really learning what they need to learn in an age of AI. That’s a huge fundamental gap right now, if we want people to be AI literate.”
To bridge that gap, the task force recommends a targeted focus on improving STEM education and access in all schools, including those in rural and underserved communities. This will allow U.S. students to achieve basic AI literacy and, in turn, open the door to more advanced AI work, according to the report.
The document defines AI literacy as understanding how AI works, using AI responsibly, awareness of its social and ethical impacts, and understanding of its potential benefits and risks.
The report makes many of the same recommendations for higher education, with an added focus on increasing AI-related workforce training and university access to the computational power and data needed to train complex AI systems.
UNCOMMON ALLIANCES
The hope is that the report will build knowledge and consensus among members of Congress as to how the federal government can best support educators in the age of AI, according to Erin Mote, chief executive officer of the nonprofit InnovateEDU and leader of the EDSAFE AI Alliance.
EDSAFE members met with the AI Task Force to provide content and advice for the education chapter, Mote said, adding that the goal was to “close the feedback loop between policy and practice.” She said she believes recommendations in the report will have strong bipartisan support at the federal level.
“If we want to continue to be the most innovative country in the world, we need to invest not just in the technology and the infrastructure, but we need to invest in our workforce and in our education system,” Mote said. “I think there are some uncommon alliances around this work that we all need to do to really think about the AI in education use case and public infrastructure.”
