Upcoming Events
AILA’s Spring Learning & Discussion Series
Beyond the Page: Unraveling the Complexities of AI, Scaled Reading, and Accessible Learning
A conversation with Ethan Pierce, Founder of Adaptive Reader | Thursday, April 25th, 12 – 1p; Fayerweather 117
As part of AILA’s Spring Learning & Discussion Series, AILA presents an engaging conversation between Jaya Kannan (Director of Technology for Curriculum and Research), Kristina Reardon (Director of the Intensive Writing Program and Lecturer in English), and Ethan Pierce (Founder of Adaptive Reader) on Artificial Intelligence (AI), scaled reading, and making literature accessible to all readers.
This conversation will focus on the realm of teaching and learning and be of most value to members of the Five Colleges community (faculty, staff, and advanced students) who work or aspire to work in an instructional capacity. RSVP here to let us know you’re coming and submit questions for our panelists!
God Human Animal Machine: AI and the Big Questions | A Conversation with Meghan O’Gieblyn & Lee Spector
April 30th @ 6:00p in Cole Assembly Room, Amherst College, MA
On Tuesday, April 30, 2024, AI in the Liberal Arts is pleased to welcome author, essayist, and deep-thinker, Meghan O’Gieblyn. She will be joined in conversation by AILA’s founder, Lee Spector, in an evening of conversation about some of the big questions raised in her book: God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning.
The event is open to the public and will be held in the Cole Assembly Room in Converse Hall at Amherst College on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 @6pm. We can’t wait to see you there!
More from AILA’s Tools & Mentorship Team
AI for Qualitative Scientists
Over the course of the semester AILA’s Tools & Mentorship Team has been rolling out learning resources to help our community get a better grasp on all things AI. These tutorials, discussions, and demos will be available on the AILA YouTube Channel alongside recordings of our virtual and in-person events this semester.
Today, we are featuring a video on AI for Qualitative Scientists brought to you by Andrew Ni, a member of our AI in the Liberal Arts Tools Team.
Featured AI News
It’s hard to keep up with all the AI-related News these days, but here are a couple stories that have us thinking and discussing. Let us know what AI News stories have you riveted!
Boston Dynamics Debuts New Humanoid Robot
| Boston Dynamics plans to begin pilot testing the electric Atlas at Hyundai facilities next year, signaling a move toward commercialization. The new Atlas aims to tackle complex tasks in real-world scenarios, leveraging its strength, perception, and mobility. While the robot’s introduction video showcased its uncanny abilities and potential, it also left some viewers unsettled. As the humanoid robotics market heats up, Boston Dynamics continues to innovate and push boundaries with its latest creation. Read more at the links above, and watch the video here! |
| Boston Dynamics plans to begin pilot testing the electric Atlas at Hyundai facilities next year, signaling a move towards commercialization. The new Atlas aims to tackle complex tasks in real-world scenarios, leveraging its strength, perception, and mobility. While the robot’s introduction video showcased its uncanny abilities and potential, it also left some viewers unsettled. As the humanoid robotics market heats up, Boston Dynamics continues to innovate and push boundaries with its latest creation. Read more at the links above, and watch the video here! |
Meta Releases New Open-Source LLM, Llama 3
Meta has released Llama 3, a new series of open-source large language models, and is integrating its AI assistant, Meta AI, across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Llama 3 models come in 8 billion and 70 billion parameter versions, with even larger models of over 400 billion parameters planned for the future. The models boast improved performance, accuracy, and capabilities compared to the previous Llama 2 series.
Meta AI, powered by Llama 3, is now accessible through a dedicated website and is being rolled out to several additional countries. The AI assistant has been enhanced with faster image generation and the ability to summarize links. Meta is also partnering with various cloud platforms and hardware providers to make Llama 3 widely available to developers. The release of Llama 3 and the expansion of Meta AI demonstrate Meta’s commitment to advancing AI technology and making it more accessible to users and developers alike. Try out the new model here, and read more about the release here!
Don’t forget to check out some of our latest blog posts and leave your comments and reflections to keep the conversation going!
AILA Recommended Reads
Engaging an interdisciplinary community of participants in discussions and activities about AI requires we stay in the know. Check out some of the books our AILA Team is reading and discussing together.
How Perfectly Can Reality Be Simulated?
Anna Wiener | The New Yorker, April 15, 2024
| A recent article from The New Yorker discusses how video game engines have evolved beyond their original purpose of gaming and are now being used in various industries to create realistic simulations. Video game engines have become increasingly sophisticated, capable of rendering near-photorealistic graphics and mimicking real-world physics. |
| These engines are now used in the film industry, architecture, military simulations, and even the metaverse. Companies like Epic Games, which owns Unreal Engine, are at the forefront of this technology, with their headquarters featuring game-like elements. As technology continues to advance, particularly with AI, the line between the virtual and the real will continue to blur, and the potential applications for these powerful tools are virtually limitless. |
Featured AI Tool
Our AI Mentorship and Tools team is always exploring new applications of AI. Here we feature some of our favorites. Please explore these tools freely with your personal account, but be mindful of bias, accuracy, content ownership, and use of personally identifiable information with these tools. Institutions are evaluating the use and configuration of AI-based tools, so please check with your IT department before using these tools with college or institutional systems or data.
| Tabnine is an AI coding assistant that serves to assist the development workflow of any programmer. It works for any programming language and is integrated with a vast array of IDEs, such as VSCode, Eclipse, and IntelliJ. Tabnine boosts code quality and speeds up the coding process by automating the coding workflow through various AI tools, accelerating and improving the development of any program you create. |
| Tannin has more than 1 million monthly users and typically automates about 30-50% of code creation for each developer! Some useful functions are automated code explanation, AI-driven code completion, and unit test generation. If you are a programmer who is focused on software development or large-scale coding projects, Tabnine is an essential coding tool that will improve your development experience. Tabnine, as a paid service, collects personal information for various purposes. They are committed to the security and confidentiality of personal information, frequently testing safeguards used to protect information. Additionally, Tabnine is dedicated to code privacy; It never retains any code written, and will never use your code to train its model nor share it with third parties. Try it out here! |
Security & Privacy Rating: 🔐🔐🔐
The Artificial Intelligence in the Liberal Arts initiative at Amherst College aims to engage a broad, interdisciplinary community of participants in discussions and activities related to artificial intelligence, exploring and facilitating multi-way interactions between work in artificial intelligence and work across the liberal arts. Our newsletter contains the latest AI-related events, tools, scholarship, and news in AI.