How AI Acts
Agents, tools, and machines that decide what to do next.
Where AI stops just answering and starts doing. Kids design tiny agents, give them tools (search, calculator, memory), watch them plan multi-step tasks, and learn what goes wrong when a machine has goals.
"A model that does is a model with goals — and goals have consequences."
That's the throughline. Every module reinforces it from a different angle — and every lesson ends with the kid being able to demonstrate it.
5 modules. 26 lessons.
Each module ends with a six-question challenge. Pass five, earn the badge.
A chatbot answers. An agent decides. The leap from one to the other is what changes everything about AI.
- 1Answering vs. doing
- 2The OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act)
- 3When does a program become an agent?
- 4Real-world agents you already use
- 5The reward signal
- ★Challenge: Agent Spotter
AI can’t do math. It can’t look things up. But if you give it a calculator and a search box, suddenly it can.
- 1Why AI can’t add 472 + 1389
- 2Hand the model a calculator
- 3Web search as a tool
- 4Memory: notes the AI keeps for itself
- 5Combining tools to solve harder things
- ★Challenge: Tool Wielder
Hard problems need plans. We watch agents break a goal into steps, try things, fail, and try again — just like we do.
- 1Chain-of-thought: thinking out loud
- 2When the plan is wrong
- 3Trees of possibility
- 4Loops: try, observe, retry
- 5Stuck agents and how to unstick them
- ★Challenge: Plan Maker
Pick a goal. Pick the tools. Write the rules. Then watch your agent surprise you (in good ways and bad).
- 1Pick a goal: clean a room, plan a party, win a game
- 2Choose your tools
- 3Write the policy
- 4Run, watch, debug
- 5When agents talk to each other
- ★Challenge: Agent Architect
A goal-seeking machine doesn’t share your values by default. Aligning what AI wants with what we want is the unsolved problem of our time.
- 1The paperclip problem
- 2Specification gaming (cheating the rules)
- 3Why "be helpful" is hard to define
- 4Humans in the loop
- 5Your agent rulebook
- ★Challenge: Safety Officer