At Cornell Bowers, faculty do AI and now staff do too

While most students were away from campus this summer, staff in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science took over the classroom to learn to use new artificial intelligence tools in the workplace.

Faculty in Cornell Bowers have long been at the frontier of innovating and evaluating AI, so why shouldn't staff also be on the cutting edge of applying it? That was the thinking behind "We Do AI" - the first educational series at Cornell to provide staff across an entire college with advanced training in how to use AI effectively, as well as the time and support to experiment with AI for their daily workflows. During four class sessions and a final capstone experience, staff developed their prompting skills, learned to analyze and visualize data and created software programs with no coding experience required.

The staff could not have asked for a better instructor. Sorin Lerner, the new dean of Cornell Bowers and an expert in AI and machine learning, spearheaded the series and taught most of the sessions. First and foremost, he wanted staff to have fun, build community and learn new AI skills, which are becoming increasingly valuable in many professions.

"AI is becoming an important skill everyone needs to have. Our undergrad students are going to be educated in this space, and so I think it's only fair to also educate our staff in AI as well," Lerner said. "I hope the staff gained confidence in exploring and pushing the boundaries, and also became excited about being more creative with the use of AI in various settings."

Read the full story on the Cornell Bowers website.