"Do they act the way they look?": Examining portrayals of intelligent technology in narrative media from an educational perspective

Portrayals of intelligent technologies and smart devices are becoming increasingly common in narrative media, such as novels, video games, and movies, targeted at children and teenagers. This media can shape children's understanding of technology and potentially inform how interact in a society increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). In this work we seek to understand the potential benefits and limitations of these depictions by examining narrative media that portray intelligent technologies through an educational lens. We crafted systematic summaries of 64 examples of such media and used them as the basis for an interdisciplinary workshop involving nine subject matter experts from varying fields of education and technology. The workshop yielded insights regarding the qualities of these depictions; in particular our findings allowed us to draw important implications about how narrative depictions of intelligent technologies could be applied in K-12 education in ML and AI.