“Meet alt+Sam.” A GenAI Exercise in Civic Literacy
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By Samantha Serrano
Note: This blog is cross posted with permission from Dr. Serrano’s Medium article.
“Meet alt+Sam.” That was my opening line for my first lesson in Civics this year.
As social studies teachers, we try our best to integrate timely topics; topics that are bound to have a profound impact on our personal lives and society as a whole. And because I am determined to be a better civics teacher this year, I came out of the gates swinging and chose to address Generative AI. 🤖
As it was the first week of school, this lesson aimed to engage students on multiple fronts: building classroom community, introducing digital and civic literacy, reflecting on the ethics of emerging technologies, and thinking about why it is important to have our voices heard.
Since bringing in a guest speaker these days is as easy as registering for Global Entry, and the person at the top of my list is tied up with damage control after ChatGPT5’s blundered rollout, I resorted to the next best option and crafted “alt+Sam,” a custom GPT in the likeness of Samuel Altman whose lower-case name is no mistake.
The activity began with trivial debate prompts: “Which is better: apples or bananas?” “Beyonce or Taylor?” “iPhones or Androids?” “Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts?” “Target or Walmart?” Students were asked to migrate to one side of the room based on a binary preference (much like a large language model sorts your query). I gave the teams 60 seconds to formulate an argument supporting their choices, where everyone had to provide SOMETHING in support of their choice. Each group then selected one representative to verbally present their case in the middle of the classroom.
Enter alt+Sam. On my iPad, I cued up my custom GPT, which was projected to the front screen, and propped it up on my old projector cart. I over-dramatically pushed my cart to the center of the classroom, where alt+Sam rolled into place. Then, after I asked for silence, I summoned “it”.
“alt+Sam?! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
**I just had a dejavu moment from the first time I typed in an AOL chatroom 30 years ago… “CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?”**
alt+Sam: “Yes, I am ready to listen to team A’s response.”🤖
The looks on the kids’ faces were priceless.
Prior to class, I configured alt+Sam to respond in voice mode, and prompted it to evaluate each team’s verbal response on a scale from 1 to 10 based on rhetorical skills and use of evidence. Since my time is valuable, I didn’t spend too long crafting the GPT. After all, I am promised by the evangelicals that AI will “speed things up” and “make it better.”
We all looked upward to the sky, staring at the projector mounted to the ceiling, waiting for the AI deity to respond. In true robotic fashion, alt+Sam delivered us its critique and ratings in a seemingly arbitrary, haphazard, awkward, and glitched-out voice.
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While the mini-debates were lighthearted, the purpose of the exercise introduced students to the more serious implications of machine evaluation and decision-making.
Follow the Herd
But even before the alt+Sam was engaged, the class let me observe some important dynamics. Some students selected their side not based on genuine preference, but instead following their peers, a point I made during our debrief on groupthink and herd mentality. When asked to nominate a spokesperson, some groups hesitated, reflecting patterns in society where the belief is that eventually, “someone else will step up.” Others refrained from speaking at all, even within the “safety” of their die-hard tribal Dunkin' Donut group. These observed behaviors provided an easy segue into discussions of civic disengagement and the importance of an individual’s voice in democratic systems.
When the AI Got It Wrong, and Why it Matters
The exercise reached a critical moment when team “A” (a group of 15 students) sent no one to the middle of the room to present, and alt+Sam scored them higher than team “B”, who made a clear effort. The exercise played out perfectly. Students immediately questioned the credibility of alt+Sam’s evaluation, and their reactions toward robot Sam were cynical. But rather than dismiss these errors as technical failures, I used it to show them something deeper, that GenAI cannot interpret the nuances of humanity, nor can it be trusted to “get it right.”
The consequences of not speaking up, having their voice heard, and handing over decision-making to a machine are the pieces that I hoped students would see.
A Teachable Moment in Digital Ethics
As we reflected, I polled my 60 students’ opinions about the exercise, with a majority admitting that it was “cool” but that it was “odd” talking to a machine and “totally unfair.” I had also observed that some students appeared uncomfortable with me discussing ChatGPT, perhaps rooted in a generational divide and their assumptions about who should control the narrative. I’ll make sure to keep talking about it.
I pushed my lecture even further when I suggested that GenAI can have implications for other critical institutions: their healthcare, their hiring, their college admissions, and even their loan applications. One student expressed indifference, saying that “since it did not directly affect me, it isn’t my problem.” I can always expect at least one of these cavaliers in every class. This indifference is exactly why civic literacy must include digital ethics.
I concluded with the challenges of regulating rapidly evolving technologies and the civic implications of an uninformed society. To illustrate the power of youth voice, I shared the story of eighth-grade students in Ohio who expressed concerns about their AI-scored state exams. They argued that automated evaluations failed to account for creativity and capture their authentic voice, resulting in a focus on learning how to write to appease a machine. Their advocacy reached state lawmakers.
Civic Engagement in the Age of Algorithms
Despite their critiques of alt+Sam, many students wrote that they enjoyed the exercise. I had them moving between cautiously curious and agitated. Somewhere within that novelty and unease, I think I pulled off a solid, albeit risky, lesson plan for the first week of school with a bunch of mini-lessons concerning civic engagement.
In an era where alt+Sams increasingly influence our lives, civic literacy requires more than understanding the three branches of government. It demands that students learn to critically evaluate who, and what, is listening to their voices, and how those voices are evaluated.
The core takeaways for my civics students: be informed, speak up, and that there is a price to pay when systems go unchecked. I tried to show them that civic literacy is essential, even if the debate begins with apples vs. bananas.
*Training data was turned off during this exercise.