At Howard University, faculty members are making classroom material more relevant as they look toward a future where artificial intelligence is increasingly prevalent.

“We’re launching a fundamentals of AI certificate for our students this fall. It’s degree granting, it’s like a half a minor for all students,” said Talitha Washington, executive director for Howard’s Center for Applied Data Science and Analytics.

Washington is looking forward to new options for students interested in the rapidly evolving world of AI.

“We’ll also be building and expanding our curriculum at the graduate level,” she said.

The courses will range from an introduction to AI to discussions about ethics and bias.

“One is the introduction to AI tools and technologies. It’s an applied approach to understand what are the different types of AI, what are the different types of technology, and what are the different types of tools that are being used,” she said.

Another course being offered focuses on ethical and responsible AI.

“Where we look at governance frameworks across different sectors, be it industry, government, higher education, and look at how the different sectors are creating these, we’ll say, ethical and responsible AI structures as they develop and produce their products, goods and services,” Washington said.

Students have also been using AI to experiment with other researchers, such as Howard professor Gloria Washington.

“What they did was they took voice data from different Black communities to create their own large language models, so that it would understand the different dialects, tonalities, words and so on,” Talitha Washington said.

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