I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

I've only been to a play (staged reading) at the new one but, in general, I'm not sure how interested most adults are in interactivity. I've been to the Exploratorium for an event and it was fun. (Having those sort of distractions are nice when you're tired of feeling like you need to speak to people at an event.) But not sure I'd have made a trip there otherwise.

> the year 7 comp sci classes they teach in our local high school have what on their curriculum? Yep, that's right, you guessed it: AI. Because that's apparently the absolute basic CS that every student should start with these days.

I think, if you went back to the origin of the term "AI" and tried to teach an introduction to the very fundamentals, this could actually be a fun and inspiring class - one that might not even need a lot of computer knowledge.

There are a number of board games with "self-playing" antagonists that are governed through clever sets of game rules.

There is also the historical predecessor of computer science, cybernetics, that dealt with self-governing analogous control systems, like thermostats.

Finally, there are the classical pathfinding algorithms (Depth-First/Breadth-First, Dijkstra, A*) which I still think are some of the most "bang for the buck" algorithms in terms of "intelligent-looking" behavior vs simplicity of the algorithm.

All that stuff could be engaging for high school students in the author's "hands-on" way.

All that of course if the "AI" class is really about giving a broad introduction to the field, and not just "we have to put ChatGPT into the curriculum somehow".

> After all, flashing screen surely release more endorphins than non-interactive physical exhibits

The irony is that this might not even be true. In the article, the author observed that the physical exhibits were much more interesting to the kids than the screens.

I feel like half the products the tech industry comes out with aren't really useful, but they exist because of this performative trend-following. Competitor has a mobile app, we have to have a mobile app. Harvard business review says blockchain is big, we need to have blockchain. Our CEO's investor buddy said AI is the next big thing, we need to jam AI in or product.

Probably a combination of factors:

* Fewer adults interested in science than children. Children are learning new things. Magnets! Pulleys! Not many adults (outside HN) are going to get excited about a pulley.

* The people making the museums don't have sufficient scientific knowledge to do science for grown ups.

* Exhibits for children are much easier to make robust, and probably cheaper to make.

That said I do think it would be really cool if there was a science museum for adults. There's all sorts of things you could show.

Vindication! I’ve spent over a decade of my life putting physical interactives into museums. I have preached (sold) many museums on the stance that they should put unique experiences into museums that can’t happen on an iPad at home, to varying degrees of success. The museums that have listened are the ones that continue to be wildly successful to this day.

They are hard to do right though. I used to compete in combat robotics and the stresses put on museum exhibits is higher. I tell my new engineers that if their exhibit can be dropped into a gorilla enclosure and survive, they are about half way strong enough. Little makes up for raw experience in the art of building bomb proof exhibits, and many companies have failed before getting good. The amateur hour exhibits from the low bid newcomers that inevitably fail and/or need a lot of expensive maintenance has left a sour taste in a lot of museum’s mouths. A lot of those museums have knee jerk reactioned the opposite direction to touchscreen exhibits, only to see their ticket sales slowly drop. Thankfully, i’m seeing the pendulum of the industry swinging back towards physical interactives again.