From improvements in computer security to a better quality of public health data, Cal Poly students are using artificial intelligence to solve real-world problems.
Students of the Digital Transformation Hub at Cal Poly are using generative AI, a branch of AI that generates new content, such as images, text, or music.
“I think in the last three or four years especially, we've seen an explosion of new uses for AI because of generative AI," explained Daniel Story, Cal Poly Assistant Professor of Philosophy.
At Cal Poly, students like the president of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Club, Leo Horwitz, are being exposed to the applications of generative AI at various different points in their education.
“They are setting up spaces on campus and enabling spaces on campus for students to do that, like our club, like DxHub and the computer science program in general,” Horwitz said.
The DxHub is one of the student outlets applying generative artificial intelligence in collaboration with the oldest and largest fact-checking site online, Snopes.com.
After partnering with Snopes, they were able to deliver in 10 weeks an efficient way for users of the site to extract information.
“This will summarize the high-quality data, give it back to me, and then give me links so that I can still go to those underlying sources. I can find the original information if I would like to,” explained Ryan Matteson, DxHub's Director of Technology and Training.
Over the past year, DxHub has worked on five different projects with their students that have utilized artificial intelligence to solve a real-world problem.
“Increasingly, AI can be one of the big tools that we use," Matteson said. "It's a very powerful tool.”
It's a tool that students like Horwitz use in the academic setting as well as with applications like ChatGPT.
“For the students, it comes down to it being a tool that we can use to achieve what we want to work on while we're at college.”
“In my opinion, generally, [AI] can be used as a creative tool to enhance student creativity or to enhance anyone's creativity,” Story added.
According to Matteson, DxHub has 30-40 students they work with directly and typically finish projects within ten weeks or an academic quarter.
