USC has a new Center for Generative Artificial Intelligence and Society. Its aim is to fund research, create an assembly place for experts and launch new educational programs.
The research center is funded with $10 million in initial seed funding. Its leadership includes faculty from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Rossier School of Education, School of Cinematic Arts, Iovine and Young Academy and the Viterbi School of Engineering.
“AI is poised to redefine how we communicate, create content and contemplate our world and its truths,” USC Annenberg Dean Willow Bay said. “We have an imperative to unite journalists, media makers, artists and storytellers to design new investigative methods and technical tools that interrogate AI’s transformative power.”
Generative AI is different from traditional AI because it’s designed to create new content. While traditional AI uses algorithms to identify patterns or make predictions, generative AI takes in a prompt or data and then produces original content, such as text, a video or audio.
The $10 million will be distributed over the coming month to fund research and other ventures. The center’s co-directors are Holly Willis, professor and chair at the School of Cinematic Arts, and Bill Swartout, a computer science research professor at the Viterbi School of Engineering and chief technology officer for Viterbi’s Institute for Creative Technologies.
USC’s Academic Senate Committee on Information Services recently updated its guidelines surrounding AI. Generative AI use is permitted, but teachers are advised to make a distinction within their own classrooms. USC instructors should choose to either “embrace and enhance” their curriculum with generative AI, or “discourage and deflect” AI tools.
AI tools can facilitate plagiarism in a university setting, according to analysts. Platforms such as ChatGPT, an AI chatbot popular among college students, can be used to fabricate assignments or generate AI-written essays.
“Our students are going to use this technology and we need to teach them how to use it responsibly,” Ishwar Puri, senior vice president of research and innovation at USC, said in a statement. “We want to harness the power of AI for the public good.”
AI research centers and educational tracks exist at other local universities. UCLA collaborated with Amazon to establish the Science Hub for Humanity and Artificial Intelligence in 2021. UCLA and USC, along with the California State University, Los Angeles, and California State University, Northridge, offer courses on AI.
