HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is introducing an artificial intelligence minor to its list of degree offerings beginning this fall.
Many believe AI will continue to become a part of everyday life as it advances at a rate that Kevin Kirby, dean of the College of Informatics at NKU, said he has never seen before.
“I’ve never seen anything change so fast,” Kirby said. “It's very important to keep our subject matter fresh, and we know students are coming to NKU right now with lots of experience in AI.”
NKU created the new AI minor through the College of Informatics. The university said according to the Wall Street Journal, AI expertise adds value to a wide variety of careers, which is why it created the minor to pair with nearly any major.
“When students come here, we want them not to be just users of AI," Kirby said. "We want them to be, maybe, power users. We want them to understand ... this is how it works, this is why it consumes so much data and so much power."
"AI is not just tech; it’s not just computer science. It’s about communicating with a new form of intelligence in some way. How do you talk to AI? How do you bend AI to your will?”
The opposite happening is one of the major concerns some have expressed about AI. It's a topic Robert Greenleaf Brice said he plans to address in his “philosophy of mind” class.
"There are issues about consciousness ... and of course, that falls right into the full wheelhouse of, 'What is AI?'" Greenleaf Brice said. "Is it alive in the sense it has consciousness? Or is it just what some philosophers call weak AI, which is just kind of a tool?"
“My concern is less that there’s a doomsday scenario, the ‘Terminator’ effect, where it will rise and have this consciousness. I’m less concerned about that. My concern is mostly about what it is that we’re putting into these programs. What sort of moral, ethical decision-making process is going into these programs?”
NKU said the AI minor will provide students with a basic foundation in computing, machine learning and prompt engineering, along with societal, ethical and legal implications.
"There are some things to be afraid of with AI, but we want the fear to be informed,” Kirby said. “You are going to be thrown into a world where you’re using AI; your colleagues (and) your students are going to be using AI, so we want to empower you with the ability to deal with that.”