By Jerry Gibbs, Currier Times Faculty Advisor///

Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, has made quite a splash in the last couple of years.  In a partnership with Microsoft, Curry College is now hosting a series of community events for the public to learn more.

The first in this series was held on February 5th, and a packed audience turned out at Keith Auditorium to hear from Microsoft’s own AI team.

Curry president, Jay Gonzalez, kicked off the evening asking how should we be using AI for the teaching we are doing?

“Many of us want to know more about what AI is and where it is going,” said Gonzelez. “This is a hot topic.”

Surprising many in the crowd, Microsoft’s Sadid Hasan, who works on Co-Pilot and other AI initiatives at the company, said AI has been around a long time, mentioning even the invention of moveable type by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440, could be considered a form of AI.

More recently, experts point to 1956 as the computational start with different types of “learning” milestones along the way, culminating in the current “Generative AI” that debuted in 2021.

“Generative AI is transforming how we approach work, creativity and collaboration,” said Hasan.

In a nutshell, Generative AI was described as “deep learning” that generates text, images and video based on data that they can feed into the models.  Nearly two-thousand models exist today.

“Every few days there’s a new model coming up,” said Hasan.

The goal, he said, is to make machines that can “act rationally,” using the data that’s being inputted.

Already more than 75% of Americans are using AI at work, according to Microsoft.  And 46% of Americans started using AI just six months ago.

Timothy Baggs, the principal architect in Applied AI at Microsoft, said making AI more people-focused is key.

“You want to use something that is friendly and interacts like a human,” said Baggs.

Some asked if AI is just the latest “hype” to sell more computers or phones.  Nagendra Mishr, a cloud solution architect at Microsoft, said this truly is the dawn of a new age.

“The Industrial Revolution [of the 1800s] changed things too,” said Mishr.

Juan Pablo Garcia Gonzalez, principal AI Solution Architect Lead, agreed, saying we are immersed in AI right now.

“Many people don’t even know they have used AI in the past week,” said Garcia Gonzalez. “That’s why a revolution is going on.”

The experts said ethical concerns are part of the overall AI discussion.  “Open Source” AI is one way to remain ethical, because anyone can build their own AI models.

“It’s on us to create the guardrails to keep our society safe,” said Mishr.

Garcia Gonzalez added, “The consumer needs to do their homework on who made the AI model, to make sure it is reputable.”

With AI now being used in medical, automotive,  finance, travel, business and education—just to name a few industries—it is up to all of us to remain vigilant on who receives our information.

“You need to be a student of your data,” said Baggs. “And be a student of the apps you control. And make decisions on sites you visit and who gets your data.  And a lot of people don’t.”

The next Microsoft AI discussion is scheduled for April 2^nd, called  “How Will AI Transform Massachusetts Industries and Empower the Future” and will be held from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. in Keith Auditorium.