Starting this fall, Penn State students will be able to major in artificial intelligence, focusing on the development, application and ethical considerations of AI.
Vasant Honavar, a professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, said with the wider applications of AI across industries, it is important for students to understand the societal implications of the technology.
“I think it's really critical for the next generation of students that are going to be professionals in a few years to be ready for that world which is coming,” Honavar said.
One area of focus for social responsibility will be the development of predictive modeling using data. While AI helps professionals to forecast and find new methods for processes, Honavar said any biases in the data sets AI systems are trained on can have negative impacts on society.
“There have been examples in predictive policing in terms of hiring and various other scenarios where those historical data sets that have inherent biases that are used to train these models that can lead to bad consequences,” Honavar said.
With data being a core factor in training AI, fellow Penn State IST Professor John Yen said the current data science program has helped set the stage for the new program. Due to the crossover, he said the capstone courses will likely build off of the data science ones.
“As the faculty of data science discuss the curriculum and the advancement of related technology, it is very natural to connect and start thinking about an undergrad major and AI,” Yen said. “The two intersect a little bit, but they also have different focuses.”
Another goal in the college is to make AI education available to students across majors. Last fall, Honavar taught the first introductory AI course to more than 30 students. The class did not have any prerequisite requirements as a general elective and was open to students across class standings.
Honavar said this class focused on giving students a broad view of how to apply AI as a tool in their lives and in different contexts.
“This is really about becoming an informed citizen, about AI in a world that they are going to be in,” Honavar said. “It is being transformed by it and everybody has to know something about it, all the way from someone that may be sitting in a position in a company making some decision about ethical use of AI within that organization to someone that is on the staff of a legislature or advising them about some regulation around AI.”
With the interest from students, the class is being offered again in the fall. Even before this class was created, Honavar said he saw students leverage AI skills they learned at Penn State within their careers.
“I have a former student that now leads a drug discovery group at a major pharmaceutical company that at the time just received training in a couple of courses,” Honavar said. “But now she leads the whole AI effort at the pharmaceutical company.”
Moving forward, Honavar said in addition to the new AI major he and other AI professors at Penn State hope to develop minor programs in different colleges that are more tailored to specific majors and career paths.