AI Lessons
Lesson 3: AI and Images - How does AI create images?

Purpose: To understand how AI generates images by predicting visual patterns from text prompts.

No. of Classes

1 - (Time : 1 hour 30 minutes, Laptops/desktops : 10, Students strength : 15 to 20).

Materials Required

Laptop / Desktop with Internet connections / Wi-Fi.

Curriculum Content

1. AI Literacy

  • 1.3 Using AI tools
  • 1.4 Prompting and prompt effectiveness
  • 1.7 Generation versus retrieval

2. AI and ML Concepts - A Simplified Overview

  • 2.2 Generative AI fundamentals
Prior knowledge
  • Browsers
  • Google search
  • Basic use of an AI chatbot (LLM)
Exercises

Exercise (1) - Unplugged activity


  • Create drawings by hand for a given prompt. Compare your drawings with others. Discuss how each one draws differently for the same prompt. Click here to open the instruction document and sample prompts for this exercise.

Exercise (2) - Image generation tool (Gemini)


  • Part 1: Use an AI image generation tool like Fotor to create images from different prompts. Observe how adding more details to the prompt changes the generated image.
  • Part 2: Generate images using Gemini and give related prompts to observe how AI retains context. Discuss how previous prompts influence the generated images.
  • Click here to open the sample prompts for this exercise.

Exercise (3) - Wild prompting


  • Use your imagination to come up with a wild prompt such as 'Dinosaur wearing a spacesuit on Mars'. Compare AI-generated images with Google search results using the same prompt for both. Discuss how AI creates new images even when search fails to look up such images. Click here to open the sample prompts for this exercise.

Solutions


Teacher's Instruction:
  1. Use Gemini or similar image generation tools for Exercise 2.
  2. Emphasise key ideas such as context, keywords and prediction.
  3. Discuss the similarities and differences between how we imagine and draw images vs how AI does.
  4. Explain that AI tools guess patterns based on the prompts / text clues / keywords and then generates the closest matching patterns.
  5. Highlight the difference between images available on the internet and AI-generated images.
  6. Help students with sample prompts linked in each exercise if they are unable to come up with their own prompts
  7. Points to Ponder:
    • Everyone was given the same prompt, but no two drawings came out the same. Why? Does AI give a different picture each time for the same reason you did?
    • Google finds a picture that already exists somewhere. AI makes one that has never existed. How do you think AI is creating images that it has never seen before?