How the AI reads words
Why the AI sometimes gets letters wrong
How many R's are in strawberry?
Ask an AI to count some letters in a word. See what it says.
Say the word strawberry out loud. Now count the R's on your fingers. How many did you get?
Ask an AI the same question. It might say two! But if we look, there are really three.
So why does the AI get it wrong? Let's find out.
How many letter R's are in the word strawberry?
How many letter P's are in the word pineapple?
Look at what the AI said and ask:
- Did the AI get it right?
- How many R's did YOU count?
- Why do you think the AI might have got it wrong?
Write strawberry on the board in big letters. Point to each R with your finger and count them out loud. That's three R's! Now try pineapple. There are three P's. Did the AI get them right? Sometimes the AI does, but often it doesn't.
The AI sees words in chunks
When you read a word, you see each letter. S. T. R. A. W.
But the AI does not read letter by letter. It sees each word in big chunks.
Think about a slice of bread. You could tear it into tiny crumbs. Or you could tear it into just a few big bits. The AI tears words into big bits, not tiny letters.
Show the class a picture of a slice of bread. Ask: how could we tear this up? Some children will say tiny crumbs. Some will say a few big pieces. Both are ways to tear it. Then tell the class: the AI tears words up the same way, into a few big pieces, not into tiny letters.
That's why counting is tricky
So here is the funny part. Ask the AI: how many R's are in strawberry? It might say two.
But we know there are three! Look: stRawbeRRy.
The AI isn't being silly. It just doesn't see each little letter. It sees the word in chunks. So it counts the R's it can see in those chunks, and it can miss some.
Write these words on the board: banana, butterfly, kangaroo. Ask the class to count a letter in each one. Banana: how many A's? (Three.) Butterfly: how many T's? (Two.) Kangaroo: how many O's? (Two.) Now ask the AI the same three questions. Did the AI get them right? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
What we can do
So what do we do if we really want to count letters?
We do it ourselves! Point to each letter with your finger. Say them out loud. A grown-up can help too.
The AI is great for lots of things, like drawing pictures and telling stories. But for counting little letters, our own eyes are best.
Give each child a word card with their name, or a fruit, or an animal. Ask them to pick one letter to hunt for. They point at it every time they see it in the word, and count out loud. This is the trick the AI cannot always do.