LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — The University of Kentucky has announced the state's first Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence, a 120-credit degree program housed in the Department of Computer Science that aims to prepare students for the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
From healthcare to finance to manufacturing, AI is changing how things operate, and the University of Kentucky wants to make sure students are ready to lead that change.
"It gives you the foundations of AI, gives you modern approaches to AI. It teaches you how to use it, when to use it importantly, as well as how to be a responsible user of AI," said Dr. Brent Harrison, AI director of undergraduate studies.
Harrison said the program doesn't replace computer science but builds on it.
"It is still at its core a computing degree, so we're still teaching students to be responsible and effective software engineers. We're teaching them how to program. So everything you would get out of a computer science degree, you're still getting out of the AI degree," Dr. Harrison said.
The difference is focus. While computer science covers a wide range of topics, the AI major allows students to specialize, preparing them for careers like AI engineer, data analyst or financial analyst.
"Pretty much any job a CS major could've gotten, you can get with the AI degree. We didn't want to sacrifice anything by creating this new program. But this also opens up possibilities," Harrison said.
Harrison said demand for AI is higher than ever, and ethics play a key role in the curriculum.
"It's not something you want to throw at every problem without consideration for the impacts with the environmental, ethical. And so we're really trying to train a cohort of responsible, ethical AI users," Harrison said.
The program officially welcomed students this spring, and interest has been building for years.
"Our AI classes, our machine learning classes, have always been some of our most popular," Harrison said. "This was maybe two years ago, that our department chair, Dr. Zongming Fei made the call. He was like okay, I think this would be the best way to serve our students. And I agreed. So we spent the last two years developing it, and here we are."
