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Many universities are requiring ethics courses as part of the curriculum. Above, the USC Viterbi School of Engineering at USC.<\/p>\n
(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
In Westwood, UCLA is taking a different approach, opening what officials describe as the nation\u2019s first freestanding Department of Digital Humanities<\/a>. A new bachelor\u2019s degree in digital humanities will teach students how to integrate AI and digital tools into disciplines including sociology, archaeology, history, and the study of race and gender. <\/p>\n These powerhouse Los Angeles institutions join a growing cohort of universities in California and nationwide responding quickly to a technology most undergraduates first encountered in chat bots or social media feeds in middle and high school.<\/p>\n Some campuses \u2014 including the new programs at USC and University of San Francisco \u2014 are teaching students to build the systems. Others are showing them how to study, and improve upon, what the technology can do for society. Nearly all are requiring ethics courses along the way \u2014 as educators continue to grapple with cheating<\/a> and with fears that heavy AI use will erode critical thinking.<\/p>\n UC Santa Barbara<\/a> is also launching an AI major this fall. San Diego State<\/a> started a bachelor\u2019s degree in artificial intelligence and human responsibility last year, the first of its kind in the California State University<\/a> system, pairing computer science with courses on AI ethics and on technology and the body.<\/p>\n Not every campus is creating a major. Neither Stanford nor UC Berkeley, the state\u2019s two biggest computer science powers, has created an undergraduate AI degree. <\/p>\n This month, Berkeley<\/a> announced a new master of artificial intelligence and machine learning two-semester professional degree. Stanford<\/a> offers artificial intelligence as one of 10 tracks inside its computer science major. Caltech is taking an integrated approach: Rather than create an AI major or minor, the university says it trains students to understand AI and machine learning at a fundamental level so they can apply the tools across many fields.<\/p>\n Three of the nation\u2019s most selective private schools also grant an undergraduate AI degree: Carnegie Mellon, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania. Northwestern\u2019s degree begins in fall.<\/p>\n Digital humanities is scarcer. No Ivy League school, and no flagship public such as the universities of Michigan or Virginia, grants a digital humanities degree or houses a department. The University of Pennsylvania offers a minor. Princeton and Johns Hopkins run digital humanities research centers.<\/p>\n Students watch a video in USC Viterbi\u2019s Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall.<\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Delivering what students and employers want<\/p>\n Michael Horn<\/a>, a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who studies education trends, said the campuses are trying to meet the changing demands of their students and future employers.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re meeting market demand,\u201d<\/a> Horn said. Universities are getting \u201ca signal from both students and families\u201d that what students learn needs to be relevant, he said.<\/p>\n The two kinds of programs make for different pitches to attract diverse students. At engineering schools, Horn said, an AI major is \u201csignaling, \u2018Hey, this isn\u2019t just coding.\u2019\u201d On the humanities side, he said, the idea is broader. \u201cLiberal arts has never been more important in this era of AI \u2014 figuring out who are we and what are we meant to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether new degrees in AI or digital humanities pay off, or result in concrete careers<\/a>, is unsettled. Horn said the real risk is that any new educational program now will age badly. By the time a course is written and approved through a typically slow academic review, the teaching could be \u201cout of date or in a different direction from the field,\u201d Horn said.<\/p>\n Bill Kao, left, and Duncan Deng discuss artificial intelligence during a welcome at USC\u2019s Viterbi school.<\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Learning to build the models<\/p>\n Duncan Deng, a robotics competitor from Beijing, is an incoming AI major at USC. He had planned to study mechanical engineering, but quickly realized that algorithms, not the hardware, decide how robots behave.<\/p>\n Deng conducted an experiment in China applying image recognition to strawberry pollination, work he said could theoretically cut the labor the crop demands. Some indoor farms do not have bees, and growers pay workers to pollinate flowers by hand. AI software can identify each open blossom and direct a robotic arm \u2014 or a worker \u2014 to release pollen with the precision needed to avoid deformed fruit.<\/p>\n Deng wants to put AI to work on farms and start his own company.<\/p>\n Erik Johnson<\/a>, Viterbi\u2019s vice dean for academic programs, said USC\u2019s work on AI degrees began with a joint program with the business school. The university \u201cstarted looking at that about six or seven years ago, well before ChatGPT popped on the scene,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In that program, students split their coursework roughly half and half between the two schools, Johnson said. The new degree is different, meant to teach students not just to use AI systems but to design and build them.<\/p>\n Johnson said he expects an eventual cohort of about 50 new students each year, and 200 students enrolled in the major at a time.<\/p>\n Teaching the ethics of AI is \u201cabsolutely essential,\u201d Johnson said, describing how every student must take a semester-long course on ethics, which is also folded into other major courses.<\/p>\n According to the course syllabus, students examine questions such as: Who is responsible when a self-driving car injures someone or damages property? How does bias enter algorithms used in policing? What is the hidden human labor behind tech systems advertised as automated?<\/p>\n Murali Annavaram<\/a>, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, likened AI to a calculator. It frees a student from memorizing all formulas, such as pi to the fourth decimal, but not from knowing whether an answer is right, he said. When data come out of a model, students have to ask, \u201cdoes it make sense? Is this validated?\u201d Employers want engineers who can use AI to move faster while also checking what it produces, Annavaram said.<\/p>\n UCLA assistant professor Cindy Anh Nguyen \u2014 who works in the new Digital Humanities department as well as the Department of Information Sciences \u2014 uses a Meta virtual reality headset.<\/p>\n (Ronaldo Bola\u00f1os \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Bridging AI and humanities at UCLA<\/p>\n At UCLA, the new department is an outgrowth of a longstanding minor. The digital humanities minor launched in 2011, built to handle about 25 students a year. It has since grown into one of the most popular minors at the university with more than 200 students.<\/p>\n Launching a new department is a bigger commitment than the earlier program. Professors are shifting a share of their appointments \u2014 not just time but funding \u2014 into the major.<\/p>\n Alexandra Minna Stern<\/a>, dean of the UCLA Humanities Division, said growing demand justified the new department especially in Los Angeles, a hub where media, tech and the arts meet. She expects the major to eventually enroll 150 to 300 students.<\/p>\n She said the point is not to sell or condemn AI. It is not \u201cwoohoo, let\u2019s all learn AI,\u201d she said. Nor is it \u201coh no … AI is the new dreaded tool.\u201d <\/p>\n The course work can include classes that take a critical and historical approach to AI, said Todd Presner<\/a>, a professor of European languages and transcultural studies who examines how Holocaust history is presented online. Presner said his classes will show students that AI has a past students are rarely taught.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t just get large language models in 2022 out of nowhere,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was about seven decades of work that had to happen,\u201d he said, tracing the origins to the late 1940s and early 1950s and studies on the statistics of language.<\/p>\n One of Presner\u2019s class exercises has students use language models to build historical narratives, then manipulate them. The exercise exposes \u201ctremendous possibilities for misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, distortion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787829380_232_.jpeg\")
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