Artificial intelligence (AI) permeates everyday aspects of our lives. Faculty at UNC Greensboro want students to be prepared to use these tools.
As the use of AI grows, the demand for workers with AI-related skills is growing at an alarming rate. More companies may soon require their employees to use her AI. Information systems professor Dr. Hamid Nemati says companies are waking up to the potential of AI, but they don’t always know what they want. It influences the skills you look for in new hires.
“According to Labor Department statistics, eight of the top 20 fastest growing occupations between 2021 and 2031 will be IT and/or data related,” says Nemati. “But for most of these jobs, the most important skills aren’t computer skills or AI skills.
It will be up to UNCG professors like Mr. Nemati from the Bryan School of Business and Economics and his colleagues in the computer science program at the College of Humanities and Sciences to teach students not only how to communicate with AI, but how to turn it into a useful tool. . for any job.
lay the foundation
Artificial intelligence emerged around 1958 with Cornell University Professor Frank Rosenblatt’s groundbreaking work on neural networks. Dr. Shan Stahalan, director of UNCG’s computer science graduate program and a leading researcher in big data and machine learning, said development largely has to wait until further advances are made in technology, technology and flexibility with humans. He said he had to.
He answers the question many are concerned about: whether AI will replace human workers.
“We need to use AI to help and enhance human capabilities,” he says. “To live a better life, we need to know how to use it productively.”
To teach students how to work with AI, I also teach them how humans process information. They learn about “neuro-fuzzy logic,” a process that combines two of her human abilities: approximate reasoning and complex pattern recognition.
“We are basically training computing devices to approach how humans think,” he explains.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science Chunjiang Zhu teaches AI Fundamentals courses, including Computer Science Fundamentals II, at UNCG. “It has several logical components,” he says. “I have the task of converting English sentences of your interest into logical form. If A, then B.”
He works with students on commonly used AI systems and techniques. They spend time conversing with conversational AI. This AI is similar to the recently announced much-talked-about ChatGPT, but is more robotic in nature.
“Conversational AI teaches students important modules such as speech-to-text conversion,” Zhu says. “How do we turn speech input into sentences? So how do we turn sentences into syntactic structures? So how do we make sense of it? meaning sentence? ”
From theory to practice
Other AI conversations are taking place at UNCG’s Bryan School of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management.
The number of students enrolled in Nemati’s AI courses has increased. “Usually there are about 40 students in my undergraduate class,” he says. “Last semester, 57 students enrolled in the Master of Science in IT (Master of IT) course, which is a very large class for a graduate level. There were about 40 students in the Master of Business Administration program.”
Nemati’s classes equip students with the AI skills they need to support employers’ needs and expectations. Master’s degree students in IT consider how they account for biases and mistakes in data collection. “Data used to be just numbers. Now it’s text,” says Nemati. “And they may contain misspellings, misspellings, and incorrect data.”
In another exercise for postdoc students, Verizon shared data from defective cell phones returned by customers. Students used it to research an AI that could suggest which phones could be repaired and which should be scrapped.
Some UNCG students have experimented with ChatGPT in other research areas. Rachel Mills, a genetic counseling researcher and Capston coordinator, said at least one student asked her to help draft her thesis.
“She still had to go back and make significant edits to make sure it was written in her own voice, rechecked the data and made sure the information was up to date.” says Mills.
Experts now see AI as a tool for collecting research and customizing teaching materials for patients, she said. This saves time and reduces the workload for each case. “They might ask you to write a text about hereditary breast cancer at a fifth-grade reading level,” she says. “This is a form of resource utilization management.”
Genetic counselors still have concerns about AI, Mills said. First, if the AI cite outdated or fictitious research, it may provide misinformation. His second concern for them is the privacy associated with uploading information to third-party his programs using publicly viewable open source software. In May 2023, Samsung banned the use of certain AIs after an employee uploaded privileged content to his ChatGPT.
“There were caveats about using AI to create patient letters and resources,” says Mills. “You should refrain from entering personally identifiable information or specific medical history. More than a generalized resource.”
Catch the wave of AI evolution
Professors are watching closely how AI evolves further. Stahalan is conducting research on “explainable AI,” which will be published in August.
“That means you can ask the AI to explain why it is doing something, and the AI will learn more from that experience,” he says.
Zhu agrees that “self-explaining” AI is essential for AI to be useful in industries such as banking and healthcare. “AI can achieve good predictive performance in these areas, but it often lacks the ability to explain its decisions.”
Whatever AI does in the future, companies will be interested in how it can meet their goals of productivity, quality, safety, privacy and security, and the ability to learn from experience and adapt. Stahalan says it will.
He predicts that future AI developments will go by leaps and bounds. “We don’t know what tomorrow’s workplace will look like, but today’s workplace is essentially defined as a data-driven, collaborative workplace.”
Nemati says today’s students must be ready to work with AI in all fields. “AI or AI-enabled applications are expected to become more prevalent. Chemistry, Sociology, or Psychology majors should include an AI competency. Your job depends on it.”
Article by Janet Imric, University Public Relations Department
Photo: David Lee Row, University Press
Additional photos courtesy of Adobe Stock
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