In a few short months, many of us have heard of or tried ChatGPT, the large language model (LLM) that generates coherent texts on demand in a broadly accessible chat interface. Many opinions have been voiced about ChatGPT and other natural language intelligence systems, and crucially, how they may affect education and teaching in practice. Are LLMs an unstoppable force for cheating, a powerful tool for learning, or all or none of the above?…
Category: Events
Mind the Bot? How Close are Chatbots to Having Minds (Like Ours)? (3/22/23)
The remarkable performances of chatbots like ChatGPT have arguably made the classic Turing Test for machine intelligence obsolete; ChatGPT’s ability to participate in convincing human-like conversations is uncanny. But are we any closer to artificial general intelligence? To AIs with minds ? In this talk, I will explore some of the ways that generative language models like ChatGPT do and do not behave like human minds and what they would need to get closer to being truly minded….
Making Technology Talk: Conversation And/As Artificial Intelligence
March 2, 2023 Abstract: As an early metric for what he called “machine intelligence,” Alan Turing proposed an “imitation game.” In this game, a human would converse via a text-only interface with two partners–one human and one machine–then would guess which one was which. Turing thus reduced the question of machine intelligence to the question of…
ChatGPT in Education: Boon, Bane, and Beyond
On February 20th 2023 at 6pm in the CHI Think Tank (Frost Library) Professors Chris Grobe, Lee Spector, and Kristina Reardon engaged in a discussion exploring the complex web of variables that ChatGPT touches upon, including ethics, justice, motivation, and innovation as well as strategies for navigating generative AI technology in the classroom. An article…
AI Tools & Mentorship Program
Hi all, We will be having our Tools showcase and Mentorship Program Wednesday (12/7) from 6-7 pm in Frost Library. Please feel free to come by to explore AI tools and talk about using AI with us!…
Discussing DALL-E: The Impact of AI on Art
DALL-E is an AI system that can create realistic images and art when given a prompt. For example, this poster was generated when DALL-E was asked to produce an ‘oil painting of a sad robot who is forced to create art for humans’. The AILA initiative, led by Professor Lee Spector, has created Amherst College’s…
At UMass: Laure Thompson on “Computational Humanities & Human-Centered Machine Learning”
Laure Thompson, who gave an AILA talk in 2021 1, is giving a Computational Social Science Institute talk on “Computational Humanities & Human-Centered Machine Learning” in the Computer Science Building at UMass on Friday, Nov. 4, 12-1:30pm, with lunch provided….
AI Tools Showcase and Hiring Info
May 12, 2022 Artificial Intelligence in the Liberal Arts (AILA) will exhibit AI tools, including some that can be used by anyone, regardless of experience. AILA job openings for the fall will also be discussed. Tools to be presented include the Amherst cluster computer, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Rekognition, Google Vision, and Artbreeder. Food from Black…
Dancing with Myself: Interdisciplinary Machine Learning Methods for Choreography (feat. Mariel Pettee)
A recording of the event can be found here: Kaltura, Youtube DATE & TIME: Monday, April 18, 5:00 – 6:00 PMLOCATION: Paino Lecture Hall In these years marked by physical distance, Dr. Pettee’s primary dance partner has been a machine learning (ML) model. Inspired by her applications of ML in the domain of high-energy particle physics during her PhD,…
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Feat. Melanie Mitchell)
Artificial intelligence has been described as “the new electricity”, poised to revolutionize human life and benefit society as much or more than electricity did 100 years ago. AI has also been described as “our biggest existential threat”, a technology that could “spell the end of the human race”. Should we welcome intelligent machines or fear them? Or perhaps question whether they are actually intelligent at all? In this talk, I will describe the current state of artificial intelligence, highlighting the field’s recent stunning achievements as well as its surprising failures. I will consider the ethical issues surrounding the increasing deployment of AI systems in all aspects of our society, and closely examine the prospects for imbuing computers with humanlike qualities….