AI for Kids

How Kids Can Hack for Good (Middle+)

• Tennisha Martin • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Curious about how artificial intelligence shapes our daily lives? Join us as we chat with Tennisha Martin, the visionary founder of Black Girls Hack, who shares her journey from a tech-savvy childhood to leading a nonprofit that empowers underrepresented communities through cybersecurity and technology. Discover the thrill of breaking and testing software for security purposes, and learn how AI, from predictive text to smart home devices, is seamlessly woven into our routines. Tennisha explains AI concepts in ways kids can grasp, emphasizing why it's crucial to understand AI's benefits and potential risks for safety and security.

Ever wondered about the ethical implications of AI misuse? We explore these challenges, especially how AI-generated code can be exploited, and discuss Tennisha's motivations behind establishing Black Girls Hack. Learn about the organization's hands-on training and support, and get inspired by the empowering environment of cybersecurity conferences like Hack for Summer Camp and SquadCon. We wrap up with a fun game of Two Truths and a Dream, sharing personal anecdotes and practical advice for young tech enthusiasts. This episode is a treasure trove of insights and tips for anyone keen on venturing into the world of technology and cybersecurity.

Resources:
BlackGirlsHack - Our cornerstone brand advocating to increase diversity of Black girls and women within Cyber https://blackgirlshack.org/

We Got Next Cyber - 9th through 12th grade training program wegotnextcyber.com

SquadCon/ Girls Hack Village - Girls Hack Village has a cybersecurity conference that provided a gender-diverse platform for women and girls in cybersecurity squadcon.me

Hacking Events - BlackGirlsHack - Events

Resources from AiDigiTales, an AI for Kids edutainment company:

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Amber Ivey:

Welcome to the AI for Kids podcast, where playtime, learning and creating collide bit by bit. Ever wonder how your phone recognizes your face. How does a game learn to get harder as you get better? This is AI. This podcast is designed for kids like you and your human parents, making the complex world of AI easy to understand and, most importantly, fun. So are you ready to unlock the mysteries of artificial intelligence? Subscribe and join us on AI for Kids. Hi everyone, Welcome back to AI for Kids. Today we have a very special guest. Please welcome Tennisha Martin, the founder and executive director of Black Girls Hack. Hi, Hi. I know y'all are thinking wait, hacking, Amber, don't you say that's a bad thing?

Tennisha Martin:

Well, we'll get into that later, but Tennisha, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your job? Absolutely so. As you mentioned, I am the founder of a nonprofit that's called Black Girls Hack and it's open to everybody. But what we do is we help introduce careers in cybersecurity and technology to people who are interested in them and we help them to try to get into those careers, so providing them with training and resources and things of that nature. So we just are there to help people to achieve whatever their goal is or what they want to be when they grow up.

Amber Ivey:

I love that. Speaking of growing up, when you were a kid, what was your favorite subject? Did you always know you wanted to be in the space of technology and cybersecurity?

Tennisha Martin:

I did. My father was a programmer. He did coding when I was younger and he still does it to this day, but I said, you know, no matter what I'm going to do, I was like I don't want to do that. So I actually went to school and I learned coding and I actually went the opposite way, which is testing software and breaking software, which is how I ended up where I'm at today, and I find that knowing how to develop the software so that you can break it and figure out how to make it more secure was much more fun for me than actually developing the code itself.

Amber Ivey:

Breaking things. One of our other episodes that just published a couple of weeks ago was talking about breaking things and how that can actually be helpful. So I'm really excited to dig into that in the next few minutes because I think that's just something that's exciting to like break things, pull them apart, try to figure out how they work, as well as try to figure out how we can protect our society using the idea of breaking things. So I want to ask one more question before we dive into the main part of our interview. If you had one superpower?

Tennisha Martin:

what would it be and why? I want to be able to see the future so that I can prepare and know what's going to happen.

Amber Ivey:

That would be my superpower. Oh yeah, I'm with you on that, especially as we talk about topics like artificial intelligence and how it's moving so fast. That's timely. I would love to also be a part of that. So if you ever get a superpower, please share what's going to happen in the future. Absolutely Okay, let's start with AI.

Tennisha Martin:

So I want you to explain AI in a way that kids can understand. So artificial intelligence the way it is today, I think is a way to assist you, so you can think about it like a helper or an assistant. You can ask it questions and then it can answer those questions. And then you can say things like pretend that you're this role or pretend that you're this person how would you respond to this? And it'll provide you with answers. So it is a way for you to find out information and to engage in a way that will allow you to take advantage of the technology and then also find information.

Amber Ivey:

I love that. What are some of the everyday examples of AI that kids might use or see in their lives If?

Tennisha Martin:

you text on your phone and like, for example, your phone will predict what they think that your next word is going to be. That's an example of like auto predicting. I'd say Siri and Alexa are kind of a type of artificial intelligence in that they provide information. And then I'd say, as you're writing a paper in Microsoft Word, or if you're creating something in like Adobe, it'll be like you know hey, do you want to do this? Or it tries to figure out what it is that you're trying to do, so anything where it attempts to predict what you're going to say, based on history or things that you've typed before. I think those are examples of some of the use cases for AI today.

Amber Ivey:

So it sounds like AI is everywhere, so why is it important for kids to know about AI and how it works?

Tennisha Martin:

I think AI is absolutely everywhere and I think at some point in the future it's going to be in everything that we do. Right now, some folks have a smart kitchen which may have, like, a smart refrigerator that tells you how many gallons of milk you've got left or how many slices of bread. I think that at some point it's 100% going to be everywhere, and I think it's important for people to know what it is, because you want to make sure that you're keeping yourself secure and safe as you're engaging with the technologies. I think that AI, like anything technology, has risks and it has potential vulnerabilities and the opportunity to be exploited in a way that's not necessarily positive, right? So it's important that you understand the technology so that you know how to keep yourself safe and you know some of the ways that people might try to take advantage of you.

Amber Ivey:

That's a good point. I was at work the other day and the guy who does information technology at my office sent me a message and he said the new PCs have the co-pilot button on them. I also know that Mac and Apple products now have chat GPT in them as part of a feature, so it's like already these things are getting pretty much added into some of our tools that we're using for school or work and productivity. I imagine that more than ever, we're going to have to think about safety, and I know you've worked a lot in education and safety and you started to hit on that. How does AI help keep people safe?

Tennisha Martin:

especially online. I think that it can be used for many different purposes, and ways that it can keep you safe are like if you pull up something in Google search, for example, something that you click on may be malicious, you know there's a layer of safety, I'd say, when you use ChatGPT, because it's just a text interface, you don't have to worry about somebody putting malicious code into your thing based on whatever question that you've asked, right? The other thing is because it's ingrained everywhere. You know we have the ability to find out so much information and then also share, so that makes it easier to do things. Like you're writing a paper. It can say you know, hey, provide some suggestions on how do you make the paper better. And as far as, like, keeping people safe, it can 100% provide tips and tricks and things of that nature on how to keep you safe.

Tennisha Martin:

Also, it has the potential to do so many other things in terms of identifying when you get an email that has bad links in it. Before you get the email, maybe it doesn't come to your inbox. You're staying safe. That might be one particular application. Or if you're on a website, one it has AI integrated it may say, hey, this thing that you're about to click on is not safe. You shouldn't do it. So there's a lot of potential ways that it can be implemented. It's just a matter of how much creativity you have and what are the use cases that you would think of in terms of how it can improve. You know your day to day technological life.

Amber Ivey:

That's very interesting in that some of those things I didn't even think about are a form of AI. When you get a message and even a text sometimes or a call where it's like likely spam or likely this, or don't click on this because it likely is a phishing attack Like there's so many things in place to help us identify different patterns and some of the things that we are getting to let us know that, hey, ai is here to also help us. We're going to talk about how AI can be potentially bad in a few minutes, but it's always great to hear about some of the cool things and good things that can happen with this tool. One of the other things that I'm interested in just because of your background, again in education and safety what are some of the things AI can do to help prevent things like online bullying or harmful content?

Tennisha Martin:

Depending on how it's implemented.

Tennisha Martin:

If you're in a chat room, you're watching a YouTube video and there's people who are typing things that may not be necessarily appropriate A lot of social media sites today like YouTube and Twitch and those types of things they will basically put asterisks in the words so that it'll basically block you from seeing it.

Tennisha Martin:

Or if there's harmful content, depending on your age, what social media is that you're on? It'll not display certain content if it's not age appropriate, for example, right. So filtering and just trying to prevent you from engaging with things that are not necessarily for you, I think, are one of the ways. I think that you know, like if someone's saying something and it's not okay, then you know it has the potential to basically block that out and then letting you know if something is harmful as well, it can do the job of being a moderator and you know saying like, hey, this looks like it might be aggressive based on the way that it's written. You know it can look at it for patterns of behavior and figure out what is the intent of this, what is the likely intent tech.

Amber Ivey:

Yeah, that's a good point, because on social media, there are times where if I post something in more than one place, it'll immediately stop me and say hey, what are you doing, or this is something you shouldn't be doing here. But also for people who are writing bad things, you can either report them or the tool has already learned enough to basically reject those comments, which is cool. So I'm really looking forward to see, as AI and these tools continue to evolve, how those protections also continue to evolve. There's going to be a world of users who are using it for bad, and then there's going to be folks using it for good, like any other technology. So it's going to be interesting to see how this stuff plays out no-transcript.

Amber Ivey:

Thank you for calling it out, and you're even already getting into like the hacking side of this. But before we get there, we have a game that we like to call tech trivia. I'll ask you a few fun questions about technology and AI, and you have to try to answer as quickly as possible. Are you ready? All right?

Tennisha Martin:

Yes, I am ready.

Amber Ivey:

Kids at home. Make sure you're playing along too and seeing how many of these questions you can get right. The first one is I think I started with an easy one, but we'll see what are the two digits used in binary code?

Tennisha Martin:

Zero and one.

Amber Ivey:

Yes, can you also explain to the kids what is binary code?

Tennisha Martin:

Absolutely so. Computers basically understand binary code. That's the basic language that they communicate in, and if you're thinking about like a signal or maybe even a light switch, it's either on and it's off, and that's basically what binary is so like. If it's on, then let's say it's a one, and then if it's off, it's a zero. What that means is that you're communicating like letters or words or sentences or pictures. Even all of those things are transmitted across the wires from house to house. You send an email to your grandparents, you know that's sent in zeros and ones. So that's why that's important, because that's the language that the computers speak in, and when we type into a computer it gets translated into those zeros and ones so that it can be transmitted through the live.

Amber Ivey:

I love that definition. I will borrow that and use it. So thank you, that was great and so easy to understand Awesome, all right, are you ready for question number two? I am. Which website broke the record for the number of users in a short period of time? I feel like it might be like YouTube or Twitch. The answer is chat GPT. Oh really, they broke the record by doing over a hundred million in less than three months, so they were the record breaker.

Tennisha Martin:

Wow, I did not know that.

Amber Ivey:

For me it was like that many people got on. I don't think that many people stay on it and use it actively, but they did have the most amount of users, which is wild to me that that many people across the world got on to something that quickly. Yeah, it's crazy.

Tennisha Martin:

Yeah, I was about to say when you're thinking about technology adoption, to get that many people over that short of time, it's super impressive, Like that's why I was culture Twitch or something like that. Like you know, I see them breaking records all the time with so many people.

Amber Ivey:

People knew about open AI, but it wasn't mainstream. So for folks to be able to identify something that big and then put the email in a website and then start typing their personal thoughts and information into yeah, it's wild to me. And then I have one last question Are you ready?

Tennisha Martin:

Oh, my gosh.

Amber Ivey:

So I want to see how you answer this one. So I want to see how you answer this one what year was the first cyber attack? Like the very, very first one in the history of man, considering all types of technology? So I'll give that as a hint. I want to say maybe in the maybe 60s or 70s. I had to guess. So the answer is, which actually shocked me 1834. Let me explain. It was the telegraph system to basically hacker stole financial information using the French telegraph system. So that was technically the first cyber attack.

Tennisha Martin:

Wow, that's amazing.

Amber Ivey:

You're right in that other cyber attacks that were related to computers are closer to the time frame you said. But I went back to the very first one. Right before we started our tech trivia, we were talking a little bit about how AI can also create problems. Can you explain how that might happen?

Tennisha Martin:

Absolutely. I am a ethical hacker. People give me software, they give me code and then they say, hey, can you figure out how somebody who is a bad guy and wanted to get into the system could do that? So I want to say that so that you guys just understand what it is. That I'm my perspective of where I'm coming from. The way that I think AI could be used in a way that's malicious is, for example, you can develop code using AI, so that code could be good or that code could also be bad.

Tennisha Martin:

If you're using a system like ChatGPT, they have guardrails or, let's say, like school monitors in the system which prevents you from doing things that you're not supposed to do. So if you say, hey, you know chat TPT, can you give me a code on how to bring down the TV channel or whatever, bring down my school's networks? I don't have to take my test, right? It'll say, hey, I don't think I should be doing that because I have to act ethically, right, right, but you can tell it to assume different contexts or tell it to assume different perspectives and basically kind of trick it into doing what it is that you want it to do, and the same way that you have people who are using it for good purposes to do amazing things. You also have people who have the ability to basically convince it to do things outside of what maybe it was intended to do, outside of what maybe it was intended to do. So, for example, the same way that you don't want to click on malicious links in your email because someone might try to steal your username and password, those types of attacks, the code that is used to do those things, can be developed by ChatGPT.

Tennisha Martin:

Also, all of the attacks if you've ever heard of. There's a thing called the OWASP top 10, which is, when we're talking about security, the most common vulnerabilities that we see on mobile apps. There's a web version of it. Chatgpt has its own version of that as well, because there are vulnerabilities for it. There's a lot of different things that you can do, both positive and maliciously. It's open for everybody to use however they see fit, and there are guardrails. There are those hall monitors, but if, for example, one of the hall monitors is in the bathroom or is not looking or is distracted, then it's possible for other things to be possible as well.

Amber Ivey:

So how can we make sure, considering that there are hall monitors in AI to help us ensure that the bad activity isn't happening in the halls of these tools? How can we make sure that AI is used for good and not bad?

Tennisha Martin:

I don't know that we necessarily can, just because of the nature of the tool.

Tennisha Martin:

The same way that I don't think that we can have applications that don't have vulnerabilities or websites that don't have potential vulnerabilities. I think anything that's technological that's developed has the possibility to be used for a way that it was not intended right. That's why software testers exist. That's why ethical hackers exist, because people don't always use things the way that they are supposed to be. Say, for example, a basketball.

Tennisha Martin:

If you're just bouncing the basketball and you're shooting in the hoop, you're using it as it is intended. But if you take the basketball and try to throw it at somebody, then it's a weapon and it's being used in a way that it could hurt somebody, right? And when they design the basketball they don't say, hey, you can only use this, as long as you're not throwing it to try to hurt somebody. You assume that people are going to use it for the intended purpose. I think that's the way that developers kind of approach, like web applications and phones and computers and all of the things is that they assume people are going to use it the way that it's intended. I don't think that you can prevent. You know, for example, with the basketball, I don't think you can prevent kids from throwing it at somebody who's not looking.

Amber Ivey:

You just kind of say, hey, you shouldn't throw the ball at people, and you hope that that's going to be enough. That's a very good point. Either way, even with the greatest intentions, you're still going to have bad happening in these systems, and I know that may be part of the reason why you actually created Black Girls Hack. Can you talk to us about Black Girls Hack and what inspired you to start it?

Tennisha Martin:

Absolutely so.

Tennisha Martin:

When I was trying to get into cybersecurity and get a job as an ethical hacker, I was finding it extremely difficult.

Tennisha Martin:

And I've got a bunch of degrees and I've been in school a very long time and I've got certifications, but I did not have the hands on skills that they wanted me to have for this particular job.

Tennisha Martin:

So I realized that there are probably other people who are just like me who are trying to get into cybersecurity or trying to get a technology and maybe don't have the hands on skills that they need to be able to get into those types of careers. So, you know, I started the organization to help train people to be able to get started in careers so that they have a support system. They have people who are doing something that you know is interesting and they can commune with and talk to and converse with. I think that that's important, that networking, that community piece is very important. So we help people who are trying to get extra skills, whether that's to go get their next job or to go to school or whatever the case may be. We help them to be able to get those things without having to spend a whole bunch of money, so that there's nothing preventing them from getting their best job and doing their best work.

Amber Ivey:

I love that and you said earlier it's called Black Girls Hack, but anybody can come. How can kids get involved or support your organization?

Tennisha Martin:

So we've got a lot of different branches underneath our organization.

Tennisha Martin:

So the Umbrella Foundation is called BGH Foundation and we've got Black Girls Hack, but then we've also got my Squad Hacks and we've got Next Cyber, which is our ninth through 12th grade program, and then we've got a Black Kids Hack, which is for kids, and we have another one that we haven't released yet, but the organization is open to everybody.

Tennisha Martin:

The only line in the sand that we draw is that you can't be a jerk, which means, basically, you can't be mean, because we want it to be a supportive environment. We want people to feel like, comfortable, to come and learn something new. It might be a little bit hard for some people If this is not the way that you've been taught to think about things, because everybody thinks differently. So we want everybody to be able to learn inclusive environment. We've got a lot of different brands, including, like we Got Next Cyber and check out our website that we got next cyber dot com. My ninth through 12th grade program for kids helps you get your security plus before you graduate from high school. And then, rolling out next year, we have our program for the K through eight year, we have our program for the K through eight, which will be to provide exposure and representation to careers in cybersecurity, including ethical hacking.

Amber Ivey:

Wow, that's amazing and you all have a lot of just really cool stuff you're working on. Are there any other projects that you want to share that you're excited about? Those sound like some amazing projects right there. I didn't realize you're working on a lot of that stuff. I know you all have an event coming up right.

Tennisha Martin:

We do.

Tennisha Martin:

We have our conference, which is going to be in August.

Tennisha Martin:

It's during a week that's called Hack for Summer Camp and what that is is like there are maybe about five or six really big cybersecurity and technology conferences that are held during the same time during this week in August in Las Vegas, and last year at our conference when we had it, our youngest attendee was five years old, which was absolutely amazing, because when you look at our graph of like how old were the people who came to the conference, it was like five years old to like 60s, which was absolutely amazing to me, because I think once you know the types of careers that are out there, you see other women that are in the space, you see the supportive environment that it's welcoming, and then it takes away some of the anxiety from feeling like, hey, maybe I'm not smart enough, or maybe I'm not good enough, or maybe I don't know all the things I need to know.

Tennisha Martin:

And that's one of the things I love about our community is that you don't have to know everything. You don't have to know anything. You can just say, hey, this is something that's important to me, that I want to do.

Amber Ivey:

And that's all you need. That is just amazing, and if I'm a kid listening to this podcast, I want to go get involved right now. What am I doing next? Am I going to your website, or what should I do?

Tennisha Martin:

Our website is blackgirlshackorg, the conference is squadconme, so that's S-Q-U-A-D-C-O-NM-E, and we have a lot of different programs. So, like, if nothing else, you just go to the website and then you can email us using the email address that's on the website and we'll be happy to tell you what programs we have that you might be interested in, what we have open, what the options are, because we're super supportive of people who are trying to get in and most of the things that we offer are free to low cost, so not like high financial barriers to entry. We've got scholarships for the people who can't afford even the low cost, because we've realized everybody's situation is different.

Amber Ivey:

I absolutely love that and we'll make sure to drop those links in the show notes, kids, to make sure you work with your parents to go to those different links. Tennisha, I do want to talk to you a bit about your bio, but we have a game here that allows us to talk about your bio through something called Two Truths and a dream. You'll basically tell us two interesting facts about your career or you in general, and then one dream job that you had when you were a kid. I'll try to guess which one is a dream, and the kids at home will try to do it alongside me. Are you ready?

Tennisha Martin:

I am.

Amber Ivey:

Okay, also, try not to choose things that are in your bio or that I may know. If I do know them, I'll still play along, and kids you can play along at home. If I do know the answer, okay, let's go.

Tennisha Martin:

All right. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a doctor Okay. I am the oldest of six siblings Okay, and I love pets Okay.

Amber Ivey:

Man, these are actually hard, okay. So first one is when you were younger, you wanted to be a doctor. You're the oldest of six siblings. And then you love pets. So I'm trying to just think about our interview today and see if I have any context clues to help me answer these. So you wanted to be a doctor I don't know about that one, because earlier we were talking about the technology piece your dad being a programmer. I know you wanted to go away from that world, so you may for a moment want to be a doctor. So I'm going to hold that one to the side. Oldest of six kids this one I'm the oldest of four of us. I'm the oldest of four. I don't know if you're the oldest. I'm debating if that could be the dream. And then you like pets. I feel like most people like pets, so that has to be true, so I'm gonna go with you're the oldest of six kids.

Tennisha Martin:

I am actually the oldest of six kids. I am actually afraid of pets.

Amber Ivey:

Yeah, forget my logic, use your own.

Tennisha Martin:

You had great logic. It was very rational. I don't think it's rational that I'm afraid of animals, but I mean, it is what it is.

Amber Ivey:

There are people who have fears of like dogs and things like that. I got it wrong, kids, I hope y'all got it right at home and your context clues and problem solving work better than mine. Tennisha, before we go, do you have any advice for kids who are interested in learning more about cybersecurity, ai and how it can be used to help people?

Tennisha Martin:

I would recommend, for anybody that is interested in technology or cybersecurity, that you find a group people, find a community of people, and the reason why I say that is for a very long time I thought that I could take over the world and be what I wanted to be when I grew up, all by myself and I didn't need anybody else, right? But what I found is that if you're going to take over the world, if you're going to dream big dreams, is that there's other people in the world too and you kind of need them to be on board if you're going to, you know, live your best life. So I say that to say find friends who are interested in being a technology, find teachers that can teach you new things, find different groups that are doing different amazing things in the space, and don't marry anything right now. Don't feel like you have to pick one thing like this is what I want to do when I grow up and that's the end. All be all.

Tennisha Martin:

Talk to people, find out what it is that they do, try to learn as much and just be open to new ideas, because you never know. You know where your passion may be or what you might be interested in Because the thing that I wanted to be when I was younger, like I mentioned at some point, it was computer engineering and, you know, be a software tester. And at some point I was like, hey, I want to be a doctor and help save the world in that way. But I didn't get into medical school. I said, hey, I had to go and join the real world. I say all that to say be open to change of direction, because you may never know what you might be interested in and as you get older, that tends to change as you change.

Amber Ivey:

I mean, that was some great life advice for kids as well as us adults who are also listening. Is there anything else you would like to share that I may not have asked or that you want to get out to the listeners?

Tennisha Martin:

Just that you're taking an excellent step for your future by listening to this podcast. I think it's absolutely amazing that you're learning new things and that you're being willing to find out things and expand your horizon. So keep doing that. Keep your curiosity alive, and the sky's the limit in the world of shorts.

Amber Ivey:

Thank you so much for joining us today, Tennisha, and thank you to all the listeners for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to AI for Kids and stay curious. Thank you for joining us as we explore the fascinating world of artificial intelligence. Don't keep this adventure to yourself. Download it, share it with your friends and let everyone else in on the fun. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. See you next time on AI for

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