Class 6 · Unit 1: AI and everyday life · Lesson 1.2 · 40 min
Is it AI, or just automatic?
Every morning at 6, click — the orchard pump switches on by itself. Even when it rained all night. Is it smart?
Today you will: Build a rule machine in Calc · Watch a learning machine guess your drawings · Use one test: can it cope with something new?
Story
Bilal's grandfather has a water pump in the orchard. Every morning at 6 o'clock, click, it switches on by itself.
Bilal: “Look. It's smart! It knows when to water the trees.”
His sister Hiba laughs. "It doesn't know anything. It just has a timer. If it rains all night, it will still switch on at 6."
Who is right? Is the pump intelligent?
Watch
Automation vs. AI — — scan code 6.1.2 in the printed book.
Warm up your fingers
Skill: home row, adding D and K (7 min)
- On typing.com, open Beginner → "Home Row: D and K".
- Middle fingers rest on D and K. Say each letter quietly as you type it.
- Goal: finish the lesson with at least 90% accuracy. Speed will come later.
On the laptop
Mission 1: Be the Rule Machine (pairs, 7 min)
- ☐1
Open
rule-machine.odsfrom the class folder. Column A lists fruits: red circle, green circle, yellow long, red circle, green circle. - ☐2
Predict: what will the rule say about a green circle?
- ☐3
Click B1 and type the rule exactly:
=IF(A1="red circle";"apple";"???") - ☐4
Drag it down to B5. The green circles get ??? — nobody wrote a rule for green.
Mission 2: Watch a Learning Machine (pairs, 8 min)
- ☐5
Open Quick, Draw! (quickdraw.withgoogle.com) — no account. Take turns drawing what it asks.
- ☐6
It guesses drawings nobody ever saw before. In your Calc sheet, write one drawing it guessed and one it got wrong.
- ☐7
Talk: which machine could handle something new? Why?
No laptop today?
Play it with people. The Rule Machine gets a card: "If you see a RED card, say APPLE." The Learning Machine sees 5 cards with answers (red circle = apple, green circle = apple, yellow long = banana…). Then show both a green circle. Who says "apple"?
Now you know
- Automation follows fixed rules a person wrote — the same thing every time. A microwave, a washing-machine program, a traffic light on a timer.
- AI learns patterns from examples, so it can handle things it has never seen. A phone that knows your face, a traffic light that watches the queues.
- Automation is not bad. A timer is cheap and never surprises you. We use AI when the rules are too many to write.
- The test: would it cope with something new? If yes, it is probably AI.
- To improve them: a person rewrites the rules — or the AI gets more examples.
🕌 From our heritage
Eight hundred years ago al-Jazarī (1136–1206) was chief engineer at the Artuqid palace in Diyarbakır, in Upper Mesopotamia. In 1206 he wrote a book describing fifty machines he had built: a basin that poured water and offered soap for washing hands, and an elephant clock whose figures moved to mark the hours. Were they AI? No. They followed fixed steps and could not learn a thing — which makes them a perfect example of automation, built long before anyone had the word for it.
Source: al-Jazarī, Kitāb fī Maʿrifat al-Ḥiyal al-Handasiyya (The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices), 1206.
Debate it
The smart pump decides not to water the orchard, because it predicts rain. It is wrong, and the trees get dry.
Who is responsible: the pump, the company that made it, or Grandfather? There is no single right answer. Give a reason for yours.
Check yourself — practice, not a test
1. A machine that does exactly the same thing every time, following a rule someone wrote, is an example of AI.
- ○ True
- ○ False
2. Which one is most likely to be AI?
- ○ A fan that switches off after 1 hour
- ○ A phone that sorts your photos by who is in them
- ○ A doorbell that rings when pressed
- ○ An electric kettle that stops when the water boils
3. What is the best test to check whether something is AI?
- ○ It uses electricity
- ○ It is expensive
- ○ It can cope with something it has never seen before
- ○ It has a screen
4. Match each machine to its type:
Street light with a timer · Quick, Draw! guessing a drawing · Photo app finding "tree" pictures · Al-Jazarī's hand-washing machine
Match with: AI · Automation5. A machine that follows fixed rules written by a person is called ______.
Remember
Automation follows rules. AI learns from examples.