Below is the transcript of our conversation with Ben Andera, CMU’s Special Advisor for Artificial Intelligence
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. One acronym, two letters, a multitude of reactions, AI. Whichever side you're on or if you call yourself neutral, it is here. The uses are many. The opportunities for misuse are many. The balance can be difficult to reach. We now have our first ever special advisor for artificial intelligence. His name is Ben Andre. And when he joined me in our studios, our first focus was the extraordinary time of COVID-19…
Did you know at the time or can you think that there might have been signs that at least some of the practices that we had to take on were maybe trends that would have eventually come along in terms of how we would have been blending in some of the reliance on technology as a complement to, in some cases, replacement for the one-on-one interaction in a classroom?
Ben Andera:
I kind of joke about the pandemic being a time where we've been pushing technology and change of technology, trying to promote it and promote the use of it pre-pandemic to a time where the pandemic hit everyone needed it. And so, we were well prepared for it. We were working with our vendors and scaling out and getting access to licensing that we were able to burst our technology capabilities and really pivot that spring semester and switch completely to online. That was unprecedented, but we were ready. We had all of the tools, the technology, the capabilities at CMU, and it was really just about adopting them fully. And it's hard to adopt technology. It's a change of what individuals have to do and learn. But I was so proud of the faculty, the staff, all the areas of CMU for quickly just realizing there was no other options in adopting it. So I'm really lucky to have such a perfect size school. You know, it's the Goldilocks size school where not too big, not too small. We have great working relationships across all areas and just fabulous people here at CMU that were able to change quickly and adapt in this evolving world and then quickly switch to a model of High Flex. How do we teach both online and face-to-face at the same time? And that was the next big lift.
DN:
What do you see as some of, the very primary positive uses? Let's start there.
BA:
Well, in the higher ed landscape, I think it's personalized learning is just an amazing opportunity to meet with the students where they're at with the style of learning that they need to be adaptable to each student is something that higher ed's never been able to have before. And this AI tool has a lot of opportunity to help make that a reality. The other one that I'm super excited about is just the research breakthroughs, the ability to accelerate science. AI has the ability to take very large data sets in the science areas and help us find patterns and to accelerate the science that we're trying to do anyways, which will have profound impacts on the future.
DN:
Does it replace traditional jobs in the workplace? And I'm guessing that's one of the main, one of the primary concerns you've heard people expressing is, well, this thing comes in and it's (it's) another robot machine that's going to put X number of people out of work.
BA:
Change is hard for all of us. I mean, that's natural. I think with opportunity also comes the focus on responsibility. And I'm really proud that CMU is taking a stance of being very thoughtful in our approach to AI. We're not just promoting AI for AI's sake. We are trying to do it very thoughtfully, very responsibly, and to find where it has real opportunity, but also where does it have a real risk? And how do we just enable our students to understand? Higher ed is all about creating new knowledge and helping people understand change that's happening. AI is going to be in our world, and I think it's more important that we have students, alumni, community members that think critically.
DN:
Next time, more on the impact of AI at CMU. I hope you'll join me.
