ASU Enterprise Technology hosted an AI focused exposition called AI Day at ASU, highlighting new progressions in AI within the University, including AI-focused classes and majors, new workflow processes and environmentally conscious AI tools on Sept. 3.
The expo demonstrated changes happening to the AI landscape at ASU, and hosted over 27 groups showcasing their innovations and over 360 registered attendees.
Naomi Ellis, an instructor at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, showcased her class, "AI Foundations for Fashion and Design." With a class based on utilizing AI to create fashion pieces, Ellis highlighted the importance of conscious AI use in the course.
"The course is really focused on using AI intentionally and thoughtfully, and focused on the fashion industry in particular," Ellis said.
Ellis also mentioned the benefits of AI in the classroom.
"It's just been such an asset to be able to have the support and the tools to incorporate it into a course as a strength and to increase engagement, interaction and critical thinking," Ellis said.
Faith Timoh, a member of the AI Acceleration Team, also attended the event to feature CreateAI Builder, a local AI company which focuses on custom AI bots for various consumer uses.
"CreateAI Builder is basically an in-house platform which helps ASU students and staff customize their own AI experiences," Timoh said.
Timoh offered valuable insight about the future of AI at ASU.
"ASU is investing in a lot of AI things like Codex, right now," Timoh said. "We had a new partnership with Cloud Code as well as ChatGPT and all of these major, big AI companies."
According to Timoh, the future of AI at ASU is expanding.
Srinivasan Ravichandran, a doctoral student studying human systems engineering, introduced the project AZ Waterbot, a chatbot developed to educate the public about the water situation in Arizona. The program attempts to be more ethical and environmentally conscious.
"For example, if you ask a bot the question and it gives you an answer, we do not train on that answer or the question you asked, because the question you ask is your own intellectual property," Ravichandran said. "That's the ethical use of AI."
Stephen Carradini, a professor at the School of Applied Professional Studies, who is the lead of the chatbot project, elaborated on the team's efforts.
"We've taken steps to make our AI use as few calls as possible, to use as few resources as possible, and then track our resource use," Carradini said.
Calls refers to tool calling, which is when AI models reference outside sources to increase their knowledge and functions.
While ASU professors and faculty have shed positive light on the event, Pierce Liestenfeltz, a junior studying political science, shared disappointment after attending the expo and expressed thoughts on the place of AI in academia.
"It's a little silly to be using it in an academic or professional context," Liestenfeltz said. "I don't think AI has any role in learning, and I think it only seeks to undermine the skills and real knowledge base that students are trying to generate when they go to a university."
Liestenfeltz said AI courses and majors are overinflated.
"That's like majoring in Beanie Babies in the 90s," Liestenfeltz said. "What I mean by that, is that it's a massive fad that sunk a lot of capital and social engineering into making it seem like a real phenomenon and something really worthy of our attention and fascination,"
The event was the first of the AI Days at ASU series, which will soon be followed by similar events on the Downtown Phoenix, Polytechnic and West Valley campuses.
Edited by Mia Sweador, Emilio Alvarado and Sophia Keeling.
Reach the reporter at ealong5@asu.edu.
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