Driverless cars were solidly in the realm of science fiction as recently as a few decades ago. Now they are increasingly becoming a part of our reality, thanks in large part to artificial intelligence advancements. That has massive implications for how people live their everyday lives.
“If a car could reliably drive itself, the idea of owning one wouldn’t be nearly as prevalent and there would be lots of space in our cities that we could open up for other things,” says Dr. April Song.
As an assistant professor of information systems and analytics and the inaugural WIPFLI Fellow in Artificial Intelligence, Song spends much of her day thinking about how an AI-shaped future will look and the role that her students will play in shaping it.
Song has been published in leading industry journals such as the Journal for the Association of Information Systems. She won a Best Paper in Track award at the International Conference on Information Systems, one of the profession’s biggest academic gatherings. Song obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2024.
TRANSFORMING MOBILITY
Car dependency has been a fact of American life for generations. Millions of Americans live in places where cars are a necessity to get to work, school and other essential locations. Owning those cars represents a massive budgetary burden, while lack of either ownership or the ability to drive is a significant inhibitor to personal freedom.
However, this is beginning to change. Autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo are using AI to power the sensors and mapping functions that make their technologies work. Song sees the industry’s current course as potentially transformative for society.
“In this new world, people who are now too young or too old to drive will be able to move around freely in a way that they can only attain through car ownership or relying on others now,” Song says.
While basic self-driving technology such as cruise control has been ubiquitous for years, Song says recent AI-driven developments have been revolutionary.
“What I’m seeing today looks a lot more promising than what I was seeing five to 10 years ago,” Song says.
WHAT HAPPENS TO CODING?
Companies who work on these disruptive technologies have traditionally competed for gifted computer programmers. However, artificial intelligence has changed the employment landscape. Large language models can now generate code in many programming languages, bypassing a traditional barrier to entry in the computer science field.
Even so, the employers that Song talks to all say they still value graduates with experience in coding.
“Artificial intelligence is not 100 percent accurate,” Song says. “If you do not have a solid understanding of how to code, you won’t be able to tell whether the answer that an AI gives you is true or not. Plus, you’re not just learning a programming language when you study coding; you’re learning problem-solving skills.”
Marquette’s educational philosophy supports the development of critical thinking and ethical discernment, skills that will need to be used in combination with technical knowledge to achieve professional success.
PRESERVING THE LEARNING PROCESS
Song singled out an important truth about artificial intelligence to defend this educational approach: the AI itself does not actually think. While these programs can sift through immense amounts of data and detect patterns, its output is only an estimation of what would come next in that pattern; there is always going to be a gap between estimations and facts.
“If you have a complicated problem, ChatGPT may not be able to get it right,” Song says.
That’s why Song has taken extensive steps to safeguard the learning process in her classes. Exams are on pen and paper. Any code written with artificial intelligence must have student comments about why they generated it. There is a plagiarism algorithm to detect any unethical activity.
Using these guardrails in combination with AI can maximize the classroom experience and prepare students for the future.
“Students should be using and exploring these artificial intelligence tools, but they shouldn’t get dependent on them,” Song says.
To learn more about how the College of Business Administration is using artificial intelligence, go to our website.
