Willamette introduces engineering AI and understanding AI as minors
Starting this semester, two new interdisciplinary minors are introduced at the Salem campus, combining engineering and ethics surrounding artificial intelligence. These minors include engineering AI, with the described curriculum including Python, data science, machine learning and neural networks, and understanding AI, taught through courses in math, philosophy, psychology, anthropology and music. Both minors were announced this summer by Willamette University.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science Calvin Deutschbein, the professor of AI-101-01 “Understanding AI,” explained that the engineering AI minor “was meant to solve the problem of computer science students graduating being nervous about their job prospects.”
Deutschbein discussed the growing concern with tech companies spending money on AI chips instead of spending money on new hires, and how the engineering AI minor could help address these concerns.
“What do you do about this? Well, someone made the AI chip, so you would do classes on how you can make the AI chips. And then someone is programming all of the chips; so you can teach the software development,” Deutschbein said.
According to the “Understanding AI” syllabus’ course description, image recognition and textual prediction algorithms will be used to develop models similar to existing AI systems. “With this shared experience, we will be able to reflect more thoughtfully on the implications of artificial intelligence of the self, culture and society.”
The “Understanding AI” course will be structured through lectures with guests across multiple disciplines, including philosophy and neuroscience. “I have a mix of technical and historical cultural content,” Deutschbein said. “If you look at the final… It pulls on non-technical topics, specifically questions about ethics, water supply; and then hiring and firing trends in tech.”
These questions surrounding AI usage, specifically with the concerns of its impact on the environment and economy, have become increasingly prevalent amid the current “AI boom.”
The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health reports that by 2030, the associated water footprint of data-centers is equivalent to 9.3 trillion liters, the annual water needs for nearly 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
While discussing the creation of the “Understanding Minor” at Willamette, Deutschbein acknowledged the potential issues of the minor, including its name. “It was not going to be called ‘Understanding AI’. It was going to be called the AI minor,” they said.“It was the first minor I started working on with my colleagues… and it became clear that we probably shouldn’t only talk about AI for 14 weeks to a student interested in that and it probably shouldn’t come from one perspective.”
Deutschbein added that they went to the philosophy, psychology and global cultural studies departments, alongside professors with a background in anthropology, to discuss different AI perspectives. “These people have been talking about AI longer than I have. We should consider them experts on the subject and we should try to find a way to put a curriculum together to represent what Willamette University can say about artificial intelligence.”
Assistant Professor of Computer Science Fred Agbo, the professor of AI-380-01 “Human AI Interaction,” further discussed the topic of AI and Willamette. His course focuses on the human-computer interactions within computer science, in which students will design and build AI-powered solutions with human problems in mind.
Elaborating further, Agbo said, “Students will conduct a usability study, they’ll observe real users interacting with the systems they’ve built and collect feedback to refine their designs.”
In response to the academic integrity concerns regarding AI usage in this course, he explained that “AI is intentionally introduced into the class to make students… interrogate the models and frameworks they will be using. In the case of education, we are making sure students have access to the models to look at them from the perspective of how to solve problems.”
“The [students] are not investigating how [AI] supports learning or not.” Agbo continued.
Agbo added, “This course isn’t an introductory course, so I’m not worried about students copying code or offloading their work onto AI. What I care about is whether they can investigate and interrogate how the AI behaves and use those insights to, for example, build a system that genuinely helps learners instead of circumventing learning.”
Agbo ultimately emphasized his goals for this new AI-based course. “As a computer scientist, and as someone who champions technology within a learning community, my approach is to investigate carefully first then take a more human-centered path, one that's genuinely useful to people.”
Both minor programs require 20 semester hours, with the engineering AI minor comprising of 12 semester hours of core courses and 8 semester hours of electives. Understanding AI requires students to take at least 5 courses, one from each specific discipline.
Willamette University opens these minors to first-year, transfer and international students. Additional opportunities to learn about AI are offered through TechBytes, a biweekly event that offers opportunities to discuss computing-related topics.
Alongside that sentiment, Deutschbein said they hope students are able to develop their own perspective on AI through Willamette’s new programs; both positive and negative.
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