Unit 2 Interactive: From Turing to Transformers

Welcome to a cinematic, hands-on walkthrough of AI history. You are going to test, flip, tune, and animate the key ideas that shaped the field. Each section includes a DOK 2 prompt so you can apply, explain, and connect concepts like a real historian of computing.

DOK 2 Focus
Animation Required
Canvas LMS Ready

🎬 Scene 1 — Turing’s Question

Turing’s 1950 question wasn’t “Are machines alive?” It was: Can a machine imitate a human well enough to convince another human? Click play to simulate a rapid Turing Test exchange.

Human Judge: Can machines think?

Watch for how fast the response appears—speed and fluency matter.

DOK 2 Prompt: Explain why speed and context make the Turing Test harder to fake today than in 1950.

🔌 Scene 2 — Logic Gates in Action

Logic gates are the building blocks of every decision in a computer. Toggle the inputs and watch the outputs animate. Then connect each gate to a real-life rule.

AND

0

OR

0

NOT A

0

XOR

0

DOK 2 Prompt: Pick one gate above and write a real-life rule that matches its output.

🧠 Scene 3 — Rosenblatt’s Perceptron

A perceptron is a trainable logic gate. Change the weights, set the threshold, and see if it fires. Then hit “Train AND” to watch it learn a simple rule.

Inputs: A = 1, B = 1

Weighted sum: 0.80

Output: 1

Goal: Fire only when both inputs are 1 (AND).

DOK 2 Prompt: Explain why the perceptron can learn AND but fails on XOR with a single layer.

💻 Scene 4 — How Computers Execute

Every program becomes a loop: fetch → decode → execute. Step through the CPU cycle or hit play for an animated loop.

1. Fetch

Grab instruction from memory.

2. Decode

Interpret what the instruction means.

3. Execute

Carry out the operation.

DOK 2 Prompt: Use the cycle to explain why CPUs are fast but still sequential.

🏁 Scene 5 — The Timeline (Hope → Winter → Revival)

Follow the rapid timeline to see the cycles of hype, collapse, and comeback.

1950: Turing Test
1956: Dartmouth Workshop
1958: Perceptron Hype
1969: AI Winter 1
1986: Backprop Breakthrough
1990s: AI Winter 2
2012: ImageNet
2017: Transformers
2022: ChatGPT
DOK 2 Prompt: Pick one winter and explain the specific technical or hardware limit that caused it.