MICHIGAN, (WPBN/WGTU) — In today’s world, artificial intelligence is no longer science fiction; it’s a powerful tool and it’s transforming everything.
But do we really know what it is or how it’s making a mark here in northern Michigan?
UpNorthLive News spoke with a Central Michigan University professor who not only teaches AI, but develops it.
“If you’re looking at the daily life, it’s everywhere. Sometimes you’re just not aware it’s there,” said Dr. Qi Liao, a computer science professor at CMU.
AI is used every day all over the world and it can even mimic someone’s voice.
But it can also do much more.
“So, from marketing to content creation, to portraiture, to editing, all of these things, pretty much everything, has some version of AI built into it,” said Michael Kent, a photographer and education content creator in Traverse City.
Using AI, Kent can enhance his photos.
He also creates educational content online for technology and small businesses.
“And I am good at email marketing, but I’m not an expert at it,” Kent said.
Enter Chat GPT, an AI chatbox.
“I can give it the information of ‘here’s the course I’ve built.’ ‘Can you help me write the headlines for them? The subjects, for all of those emails?” Kent said.
And within a few seconds…
“It dumped out a series of six emails,” Kent said.
“All of a sudden, I go from, ‘I need to create an email campaign,’ to ‘I have a pretty good idea how I can start marketing this to my audience,” Kent said.
Kent uses AI to help his business.
“In that space, my work has gotten a lot easier,” Kent said.
But how else can AI be used in northern Michigan?
Let’s take a look.
“We are not just focused on using AI. We are actually teaching the artificial intelligence; we offer several courses in artificial intelligence,” Dr. Qi said. “And I also heard of some professors using AI for adaptive learning and personalized learning.”
“In agriculture, we have lots of land, farms. So you can use AI to monitor the soil, to monitor the crop health and pest control,” Dr. Qi said.
“There’s a potential way to use it in tourism, you know like a recommendation system for development,” Dr. Qi said.
“You can see doctor online or even do some automatic diagnoses, right. The computer, the AI, can, based on your lab image or symptoms, they can decide what is your disease is and how to treat it,” Dr. Qi said.
Okay, let’s back up a minute.
We now know a couple ways AI is used in northern Michigan, but how exactly does it work?
“Including algorithms and statistical models so computer programs can learn from a large amount of data and improve their performance on certain tasks,” Dr. Qi said.
Essentially, AI collects data from us humans, processes the data, learns from it and uses that knowledge to make decisions and solve problems.
“That’s a superpower,” Kent said.
And while AI has a number of benefits.
“Accuracy. Efficiency. It’s consistent. Scalability. Adaptability,” Dr. Qi said.
It also has its fair share of concerns.
“The security of AI. the privacy of AI. The job insecurity. Human safety, we kind of, as humans, we fear what if we lose the control of AI?” Dr. Qi said.
However, Dr. Qi said like any new technology, there is bound to be some resistance at first.
He says we should not fear it, but embrace it.
“If it’s under control it could be a great helper for humans,” Dr. Qi said.
The Michigan House of Representatives recently passed a package of bills aimed at regulating political content generated with AI.
The legislation would require a disclaimer on the ad if AI is used.
The bills now move to the Senate Committe on Elections and Ethics for further consideration.