New U.Md. program hopes to make AI ‘good for everyone’

Artificial intelligence is the future of technology, but the capabilities, and a lack of trust when it comes to Big Tech companies and their goals, means lots of people are wary. Will it take away our jobs? Will it be designed in ways that benefit people? Will it even consider the human impact?

But with a recognition that the technology is moving ahead, and has the capacity for good, the University of Maryland has announced its new Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM).

The program is housed in the Department of Computer Science for now, but a long list of new classes will be open to underclassmen in all academic disciplines. In fact, a new artificial intelligence major will be offered on two tracks — one as a Bachelor of Science degree and one as a Bachelor of Arts degree.

“One of the things we really want to do is make sure there’s a sort of ‘path to AI’ for any students,” said Hal Daumé, the program’s inaugural director. “Regardless of what your major is, we want to make sure that within your first year, or maybe two years of being a student here, you are sufficiently up to speed on modern AI technology. That you can use it for doing whatever career path you have, and whatever educational path you have.”

Whether students go on the B.A. track or the B.S. track, a lot of the skills they learn will be the same, since it’s important to have that common base of knowledge about the subject.

“But the B.A. will go much, much deeper on the humanistic side and the social science side of things, whereas the Bachelor of Science will go much, much deeper on the mathematical, algorithmic side of things,” Daumé told WTOP.

The program will launch with an understanding that a significant portion of the public has concerns about the future of AI and doesn’t trust technology companies to do what’s best for society.

“I think part of what we need to do is both help people see the positives that come out, and structure future AI development and research, and so on, toward those positives, but also give people a realistic sense of what can go wrong,” he said.

The goal is making sure the implications of their work is well understood before it goes too far in the wrong direction. Daumé said he believes having students and faculty from the arts and humanities side of things can help shape that thinking.

“I think the lack of having other voices in the room who understand people and understand people’s values and understand society, and how the world works, and so on, has led us to technologies that people are sort of rightfully wary of, because they’re not designed from the perspective of what’s good for society or what’s good for people,” Daumé said.

“Universities, broadly speaking, are incredibly well positioned to do this type of work because we have humanists, we have social scientists. We have all of the people we need to talk to in order to really develop AI that’s kind of good for everyone,” he added.

Students who major in something that isn’t related to STEM (or technology at all) will also be able to minor in artificial intelligence. He said the program has buy-in from all 12 deans across the university, since they understand how much of an impact this technology will have.

“It really touches more or less every major on campus, if for no other reason than the nature of jobs might change,” Daumé said. “What it means to be a journalist today might be different from what it means to be a journalist in five years. What it means to be an artist today might be different from what it means to be an artist in five years. Even what it means to be a computer scientist or a professor today is going to be different from what it means in five or 10 years.”

It’s expected that students will be able to start majoring in artificial intelligence soon — if not this fall, then the following academic year. The new AIM program will have more than 100 faculty on its staff.

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