UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Presentations, panels and workshops fostered conversations among faculty, staff and students about artificial intelligence’s (AI's) impact in academia and across the world during Penn State’s inaugural AI Week.
“Thanks to hard work and collaboration from individuals and organizations at all Penn State campuses, the first-ever Penn State AI Week was a solid success,” said David Hunter, AI Hub director and professor of statistics.
A poster session with 70 presentations encouraged discussions on the science of AI. Undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs, along with their advisers, prepared the posters for the event, which was followed by two speakers, Scott Morris from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Milind Tambe from Harvard University, and concluded with AI awards for societal impact, doctoral dissertation work, undergraduate thesis/senior project and best posters.
The Center of Science and the Schools (CSATS) helped organize communities who were interested in learning about the use of AI in teaching K-12 education.
Conversations about the use of AI in teaching have been going on for months, according to Hunter. Teaching Learning Technologies (TLT) has gathered a community of faculty and staff across the commonwealth at Penn State to develop a deeper understanding of what it means to use AI technologies in classrooms, including possible implications and integrity of such systems. The group mostly focuses on how AI can enhance how they teach in the classroom.
Throughout AI Week, there were several special “TLT Horizons” events. Among these special Horizons events was an introduction to AI 4 Afrika, an initiative to drive Afrikan inclusion in AI, along with a follow-up event on the Hosted in Africa (HiA) servers later in the week.
“One goal of these workshops was to introduce the Penn State community to organizations like AI 4 Afrika and HiA. They promote technology based in Africa and also a way of thinking about AI. For example, I was struck by the suggestion of the HiA founder, Femi Omere, that ‘artificial intelligence’ ought to be rebranded as ‘complementary intelligence,” Hunter said.
Multiple corporations were also involved with AI Week. Lockheed Martin co-hosted an event with the Penn State Nittany AI Alliance (NAIA) for students to learn about various AI career opportunities. Workshops offered from Microsoft, Intel and Nvidia provided insight to tools available for use by faculty and staff members.
“Faculty who came in and attended [the workshops] said ‘this is so helpful,’” said Gretta Kellogg, director of strategic initiatives for Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) and one of the event's organizers.
Students across Penn State campuses participated in challenges and competitions using generative AI. Penn State Center for Socially Responsible AI (CSRAI) held a weeklong "Fake-A-Thon.' The challenge tasked participants with using AI to build and submit fake news stories alongside real stories. Participants assessed the stories in an attempt to determine which were real or fake.
Penn State ICDS and the Center for Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Industry (AIMI) sponsored the second-annual Generative AI Programming contest which took place in person at Penn State Harrisburg, Abington and University Park campuses as well as virtually via the World Campus, Penn State Berks and Penn State Behrend.
The contest had teams of students work together to use generative AI systems like ChatGPT to attempt to solve a problem that the system itself could not fully solve. This encouraged students to use the system to help them find a solution to the problem given.
“AI Week was the perfect venue to integrate [the contest] into as it is a Penn State-wide event around the education and research happening at Penn State,” said Jeremy Blum, chair, computer science and mathematics and associate professor of computer science at Penn State Harrisburg. “The feedback was extremely positive. Both last year and this year, students said they want to see more of these types of events. ... It’s exciting to have these kinds of events (AI Week) to learn about the faculty across campuses, what they are doing, as well as any efforts that are made to get students involved."
Kellogg was in agreement.
“[AI Week] allowed each of the organizations across Penn State that either touch on AI or groups that use AI every day to host outreach events and have conversations,” Kellogg said. “It brought awareness to all those groups’ efforts. We wanted something really inclusive across the campuses.”
Betsy Campbell, coordinator and presenter for AI Dance: The Algo, talked about participants who created poses in reaction to various aspects of AI and then how they were interpreted both by people and AI, Hunter said.
“These are connections that would not have happened if it weren’t for AI week. It’s almost like we had our own conference; while part of what you get out of a conference is what’s on the program, an important additional part of it is the conversations you have in the hallways, and I think a lot of those conversations took place. We will see where that goes in the future.”