On an early visit to the University of South Carolina, Amit Sheth was surprised when
10 deans showed up for a meeting with him about artificial intelligence.
Sheth — the incoming director of the university’s Artificial Intelligence Institute
at the time — thought he would need to sell the deans on the idea. Instead, it was
them pitching the importance of artificial intelligence to him.
“All of them were telling me why they are interested in AI, rather than me telling
them why they should be interested in AI,” Sheth said in a 2020 interview with the
university’s Breakthrough research magazine. “The awareness of AI was already there and the desire to incorporate
AI into the activities that their faculty and students do was already on the campus.”
Since the university announced the institute in 2019, that interest has only grown.
There are now dozens of researchers throughout campus exploring how artificial intelligence
and machine learning can be used to advance fields from health care and education
to manufacturing and transportation. On Oct. 6, faculty will gather at the Darla Moore
School of Business for a panel discussion on artificial intelligence led by Julius Fridriksson, vice president for research.
South Carolina’s efforts stand out in several ways: the collaborative nature of research,
which involves researchers from many different colleges and schools; a commitment
to harnessing the power of AI in an ethical way; and the university’s commitment to
projects that will have a direct, real-world impact.
This week, as the Southeastern Conference marks AI in the SEC Day, we look at some
of the remarkable efforts of South Carolina researchers in the area of artificial
intelligence.
