“In particular, Purdue and Google will work together to put the most advanced AI tools in the hands of every Purdue student,” Chiang said in the release, "as all Boilermaker graduates from one of the largest top universities in the country will be ready for an AI-driven workplace no matter their choice of career fields.”
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Personally I think this is a really good idea and I was happy to read it would be across colleges and majors.
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Nice!
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My first reaction is surprise.
My second reaction is the same as other responses above. Good for them! AI is becoming increasingly important.
Also the term “artificial intelligence” plus the complexity of the field seem to mean that a lot of people are worried about it, but very few people actually know how it works or what it can do, or more importantly what it cannot do. To me it seems valuable to sprinkle the human and US population with people who actually have some clue (however limited) regarding what AI can and cannot do.
The sort of AI competency that you describe would be valuable for everyone, especially covering the limitations of AI, because lots of people seem to trust it far too much right now.
However, I’m not sure that is what Purdue is talking about… the quote “Purdue and Google will work together to put the most advanced AI tools in the hands of every Purdue student” sounds more like encouraging students to use AI a whole lot, similar to previous corporate efforts to put lots of computers in kids’ classrooms. I am not sure how good this is for students. I would like to see how it plays out in practice.
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I’m looking forward to better understanding what the competency requirements will be too. The current president has talked about teaching the ethics of AI along with understanding the tools but I’d like to see the syllabus!
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I am partway through reading a report on an aspect of AI that seems to not get discussed much (at least here), which is how harmful it can be - example certain types of cybercrime have exploded with its use. I would hope that would be part of any AI competency requirement too.
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Recognizing AI scams is now part of our yearly cybersecurity training at work.
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It’s not just scams but things like ransomware too.
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All of that is covered under our training. I thought I was pretty savvy, but I was shocked at some of the ways AI is used to gain access to information.
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