Introduction to Emerging Technologies
Primary 6 · Science and Elementary Technology
Introduction to Emerging Technologies
Lesson 3 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
Umutoni's uncle grows cassava. One morning he notices yellow patches on some leaves. He takes a photo with his phone, and an app tells him the leaves may have a common cassava disease and suggests he asks the agronomist. Later, Umutoni speaks a sentence in Kinyarwanda into another app, and it is translated into English.
How can a phone "recognise" a sick leaf or "understand" speech? It uses artificial intelligence, often called AI.
Artificial intelligence is a computer program or machine that can learn from data and copy some parts of human thinking, such as recognising pictures, understanding speech, making suggestions and solving problems. The name "artificial intelligence" was invented by the scientist John McCarthy in 1956.
An ordinary program only follows fixed rules that a person wrote. A calculator, for example, always does exactly the same steps. An AI program is different: it looks at many examples and finds patterns by itself, then uses those patterns on new things it has never seen.
| Characteristic of emerging technology | Does AI fit? |
|---|---|
| New and fast-changing | Yes. AI programs have improved enormously in just a few years. |
| Could have a big effect | Yes, on health, farming, schools, jobs and more. |
| Not used by everyone yet | Yes. Many people have never used an AI tool. |
| Risks still being learned | Yes. Countries are still writing laws about AI; the European Union made the first big AI law in 2024. |
AI has no feelings and no common sense. It only knows what it learned from its data, and it can be confidently wrong. In 2025, a town council in Norway wrote a report partly with AI. The report listed books by professors that did not exist: the AI had made them up. When people found out, the plan in the report had to be stopped. The lesson: always check what an AI tells you.
Ethics means knowing what is right and fair. Here are five rules for using AI well:
And never use AI to make fake photos, voices or messages that hurt or trick other people.
Tip
Before you trust AI, CHECK:
Check the facts. Hide your private information. Explain honestly when AI helped you. Care about fairness to everyone. Keep a person in charge.
Answers
What you learned today
Sources and credits
The exercises (Try it yourself and the practice questions) are written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Quick check
AI is always right, because it has learned from a lot of data.
