Events – AILA→ AI in the Liberal Arts

Hack the Herd 2023: Amherst’s First “Social Hackathon” (December 1st-2nd, 2023)

Do you want to make Amherst a better place? Do you have an interest in sustainability and AI technology? Want to win a $25 Amazon gift card? Then sign up for the first ever Amherst College social hackathon. Best described as an “invention marathon”, a hackathon is an intensely collaborative event where individuals or teams…
UMass EQUATE talk “Fantastic bots and how to find them” by Kai-Cheng Yang

UMass’s EQUATE initiative will host Kai-Cheng Yang, a rising star researcher, studying bots and misinformation in social media. Kaicheng will give a talk on Wednesday, November 8, at 11am in LGRC A311 (details below)…
Artificially Intelligent, Naturally Fair? — Panel Discussion on Equitable Algorithms

Join us online to learn about how research is addressing bias, discrimination, and ethical concerns in algorithm development. Our panel of experts will delve into the many challenges and opportunities, including the complexities behind the design of equitable algorithms, the biases they may unintentionally harbor, and the profound social implications they have….
The ChatGPT Café

In partnership with IT and the AI in the Liberal Arts (AILA) initiative, we are excited to bring the ChatGPT Café series to the Amherst community. In this series of informal exploratory pop-up cafés, faculty, staff, and students at Amherst College will have the opportunity to experiment with the latest paid versions of ChatGPT4 and reflect on their experiences. Come join us at…
Bolstering AI with Computational Ability & Curated Data

Academic Technology Services & AILA welcome, Andy Dorsett, a representative from Wolfram Research. He will discuss an innovative new plugin for ChatGPT, Mathematica’s built-in machine learning, and its connections with other AI systems. Wednesday 9/20 @ 4p; Paino Lecture Hall, Beneski 107 Some insight into Wolfram|Alpha’s strategy! Read more about it in the links below:writings.stephenwolfram.com Wolfram|Alpha as…
AILA T-Shirt Design Contest

Submit by October 22nd! Want to win $20 and get your design on a t-shirt? Help AILA design a t-shirt for staff members and yourself by submitting a design by October 15! Submit here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScd0YnJS9QBPxLATLUZmcIl1aJuPfhgN8zGJfIRu2rrn9lSqQ/viewform…
AILA Open House 9/14

Join Artificial Intelligence in the Liberal Arts (AILA) for Cookies and Convo Students, faculty, and staff please stop by C209 on Thursday, 9/14 from 1-3p to get know our new AILA Team! We will have AILA stickers, Insomnia Cookies, and folks ready to answer all your Artificial Intelligence related questions. All questions and levels of AI knowledge welcome. Come learn about…
AI Beyond STEM: digital skills to unleash the power of data science and AI for all

Are you curious about the digital skills required to unlock the potential of data science and artificial intelligence in non-science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields? Join us for “AI Beyond STEM: digital skills to unleash the power of data science and AI for all” hosted by The Alan Turing Institute….
Mememormee – A Dance & AI Performance (4/27/23)

April 27th, 7:00 PMThe Powerhouse Abstract: A dance-theater piece situated at the cutting edge of machine learning and art, mememormee explores the prismatic effects of the recent surge of AI-enabled artmaking that will soon confront dancers, choreographers, or anyone with a moving body. This performance uses choreography derived from one-of-a-kind AI models trained exclusively on the movements of…
AI and War: Where are we headed? (4/13/23)

This panel will address such questions as: How is AI being applied to warfare now, and how might it be applied in the future? How will this affect the conduct of war and its escalatory potential? What are the legal and ethical questions raised by the fielding of autonomous weapons systems? What steps are being…
Artificial intelligence is Social Science: Natural language Processing From and For Social Analysis (4/11/23)

April 11th, 4:30 PMCHI Think Tank, Frost Library Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) are coming to prominence with startling new advances, but their functioning and potential is poorly understood, with incredibly weak scientific grounding of every cool recent result you’ve heard of. Why? Considering the history of AI research, its major approaches…
ChatGPT and Education: Hype Versus Reality (3/24/2023 12 Noon)

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.…
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…
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…