TALAMANA · THE AI LITERACY MAP FOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN · Foundations · AGE 11—15 · FACTUAL · DURABLE

Chance, and how to name it

A number between 0 and 1 names chance, and machines run on it.

The idea

Roll a die twice and you may get different numbers, or the same one. You cannot know the next roll. That is chance. Chance is not a mystery. You can name it with a number between 0 and 1. Zero means never. One means always. A coin landing heads is 0.5. Naming chance with numbers is how machines handle everything they are not sure about.

Why it matters

The AI tools on this map run on chance, not certainty. If you can name chance, you can understand them.

See it in the studio

"Will it rain on the site visit?" is a chance question. So is "will this tool give me the same image twice?" The answer to the second one is: almost never. Soon you will know why.

Watch for this

Thinking "random" means "anything can happen." A die never rolls a seven. Chance always works inside limits.

Try it

Roll one die twenty times and tally the results. Then predict: if you rolled it six hundred times, roughly how many times would 4 appear?

Prove it

Explain to a friend, with one example, what a chance of 0.5 means, and why a chance of 0 and a chance of 1 are not really chance at all.

How it works

The proper name for this is probability, and you will study it in maths class. On this map it sits under one big idea: every answer a generative machine gives is one draw from many possible answers.

What this idea builds on

What this idea opens up

Sources

Open this idea on the map · The complete map · Logika · RBDS AI Lab, India · revised every edition.

Age grows from 11 at the centre to 22 at the edge, and six sectors show the learning strands. Tab into the map and the arrow keys step from idea to idea, following the links where there is one. Enter opens the idea under the cursor, and E reads out its links and the reason recorded on each. Press slash for Search, question mark for the full key list, and Escape to leave. Open Ideas for the complete readable list, including what each idea builds on and what it opens up.

LOGIKA · RBDS AI LAB INDIA
ON-RAMP · AGE 11 · FIRST ENCOUNTERS, NOT GATES — IDEAS · — DEPENDENCIES
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