Carnegie Mellon University announced that it will offer an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence this coming fall semester, according to The Next Web.
With this offering, the Pittsburgh-based university’s School of Computer Science will become the first in the U.S. to offer an undergraduate degree in this discipline. The university hopes this program will not only help fill the talent gap for individuals with AI-related skills, but also encourage other universities to start similar programs.
The four-year course load will focus heavily on machine learning, neural networks, robotics, and cognitive science. Additionally, only 30-35 students will be admitted to the program each year. Therefore, if you’re interested, you should apply sooner rather than later.
The director of the new AI program, Reid Simmons, elaborates, “Students will learn the fundamental theory behind these subjects, along with how to use and develop AI techniques. Many opportunities will be available for undergraduates to do research, which will further help prepare them for graduate work.”
According to VentureBeat, DialPad has acquired TalkIQ, a company that offers conversational AI services. With the acquisition, all DialPad products will include AI-powered transcription services in the near future.
Using natural language processing and speech recognition, TalkIQ is able to transcribe meeting notes and flag action items, as well as recognize sentiment, which could be useful for call centers.
DialPad CEO Craig Walker is optimistic about the future of the services. He hopes to integrate them with video and other popular platforms.
Walker shares, “You should have automated note-taking with every business call; you should be able to push into Salesforce and pull up your records or history of every support conversation you’ve ever had out of Zendesk. It’s literally just changing the power of these conversations from this one-time chat to being able to have actionable notes.”
There’s no doubt that machines will one day be smarter than humans. However, the man dubbed the “Father of AI” recently reassured us that we have no reason to fear artificial intelligence.
CNBC recently interviewed Jurgen Schmidhuber, co-founder and chief scientist of NNAISENSE, on the future of AI and machine learning:
"I've been working on [AI] for several decades, since the eighties basically, and I still believe it will be possible to witness that AIs are going to be much smarter than myself, such that I can retire."
When asked about Elon Musk’s claim that AI will become more dangerous than nuclear warfare, Schmidhuber replied, "I've talked to him for hours and I've tried to allay his fears on that, pointing out that even once AIs are smarter than we are, at some point they are just going to lose interest (in humans)."
The full interview can be found at CNBC.
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