Two Kentucky universities have launched degrees in artificial intelligence for the fall semester, responding to workforce changes and student interest as AI becomes more widely used across many sectors.
The University of Kentucky and Murray State University are adding the degrees to their selection of computer science education.
Brent Harrison, professor of computer science and the director of undergraduate studies for computer science and AI at UK, said the degree is about understanding the effects of AI and when it’s appropriate to use it.
“If we didn't do this, things keep going the way they're going,” Harrison said. “There's too much money, and the people that are making the decisions, like quite frankly, they don't know how the systems work, and so they make decisions, maybe optimizing for the wrong thing, and so through this degree, what I'm hoping is that again we can try we can by educating the populace, you enable them to make better decisions, put AI on a on a good path.”
UK’s program has about 30 students enrolled this fall, but Harrison hopes it grows to about 200.
Murray State’s program has a couple of students, but Matthew Tennyson, professor and department chair for computer science and information systems, said he also expects more interest.
“Hopefully, we'll be attracting lots of new students to Murray State University who wouldn't necessarily come to Murray State, but we're also going to be pulling students from our existing computer science program,” Tennyson said. “They'll choose AI rather than computer science.”
The addition of the degree programs at the two public Kentucky universities comes as businesses and individuals widely adopt AI, though critics have raised concern over the impact of energy use and infrastructure needed to keep large-scale learning models operating.
Neither degree is accredited by a field-specific organization, like ABET, but they’re under accreditations by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
Harrison described UK’s program as “still a computing degree” that’ll cover AI ethics, the foundations of the field and older and more modern versions. The courses focus on logic and reasoning, as well as the math behind computing.
“One of the things that I hear sometimes is, ‘Is this just a degree on how to use ChatGPT?’" Harrison said. “It's like, no. This is really understanding the ins and outs of AI from both a foundational perspective, as well as an application perspective.”
The department launched new classes in the College of Engineering that focus more on AI and less on general computer science. Students will still take the same first year classes, however.
“We didn't want people that graduated with this degree to not be able to get classic computer science jobs,” Harrison said. “We wanted to make sure it gelled with other engineering majors, so you could easily transfer in and out, and we wanted to make sure that again there was this foundation in computing, but this application towards AI.”
The advantage to the AI degree over the computer science degree is an advanced knowledge of application, Harrison said.
At Murray State, Tennyson said the university didn’t want to overload its resources when planning the degree, but the key difference that sets it apart from general computer science is an emphasis on language.
“In the AI degree, you have to take classes that are specific to AI, so there's an intro to AI class, an intro to machine learning class,” Tennyson said. “There's a deep learning class, and then we had to create some advanced electives in AI, as well.”
Murray State has had an undergraduate certificate program and a minor in AI, as well a data science and AI track in the computer science major.
“Because we already had all of that AI curriculum created, it was pretty easy, or relatively easy, to create a new major,” Tennyson said.
