Editor's note: This expert Q&A is part of our “AI is everywhere ... now what?” special project exploring the potential (and potential pitfalls) of artificial intelligence in our lives. Explore more topics and takes on the project page.
When Ayat Sweid saw that Arizona State University's Enterprise Technology was putting together an AI Acceleration team — with the opportunity to work with the power, potential and capability of transformational AI technology — she immediately wanted in.
So, in January, when the opportunity to join as a program manager presented itself, she jumped on it.
"The approach that the AI Acceleration team takes aligns with the vision and responsible methodology I believe in," Sweid said. "Innovating with AI requires relentless learning, bold experimentation and rigorous impact evaluations.”
Sweid, who previously worked at Amazon, has a passion for guiding the creation of software experiences and considers it a responsibility that these AI-powered experiences add meaningful value for real humans using them.
Her role is to understand the AI users at ASU and how they can harness the power of AI to achieve their teaching and learning, research and work goals. She explores how to turn AI technologies into real benefits for students, faculty and the community at large. Critical to this work are external and internal partnerships with various industry, nonprofit and education groups.
“I make sure we always start by considering how responsible and beneficial AI is for these users,” she said.
Sweid talks about her journey as a member of the AI Acceleration team and her work with MyAI Builder and the AI Innovation Challenge.
Question: What is the focus of your work to advance AI at ASU?
Answer: We work with diverse audiences who may be experts in their fields of study but do not have the advanced skill sets current AI capabilities require. My team and I work closely with them to understand their current goals, constraints and data. We have built various self-service tools, toolkits, training and content to help them through the AI product development processes — from experimentation to launching their own AI experiences for their own audiences.
We also work with users who are more familiar and advanced in their knowledge of AI, and often we have similar discussions and co-develop custom AI experiences using API layers and a shared, secure infrastructure.
Working as part of this team provides engagement in continuous learning of new technologies and products. We’re responsible for answering questions like “What’s new, what’s possible, what tools can we leverage?”
Q: Can you describe a specific challenge you faced in developing user-friendly and safe AI tools for ASU faculty to leverage in the classroom, and how you addressed it?
A: Creating AI experiences is still a highly technical process, requiring an expansive skill set. Let me use the example of MyAI Builder. Through AI tools our team has released, we've learned that there are basic foundational elements needed to make a valuable AI experience. For example, AI builders need to have access control, security features, integrations with our learning management systems and other platform features our community of AI builders has requested.
We built MyAI Builder to help our ASU community explore what it takes to use AI to improve learning experiences for students, streamline university operations and do more research that changes lives. Users can do it without needing to come to our team or software engineers for customized solutions; they can now do it themselves in the way they think is most effective. As we learn more from faculty and students about what’s needed universally, we continue to add to our MyAI Builder platform.
As another example, we have developed the Ethical AI Engine as part of our CreateAI platform. This engine provides multifaceted evaluations to screen AI output for bias, accuracy and ethical integrity, including fairness and resistance to disinformation. By implementing this tool, we can help faculty overcome a primary barrier: ensuring the safe use of AI in the learning environment. We realized this feature was essential for faculty.
Q: The AI Innovation Challenge and ASU-OpenAI partnership started right after you joined the AI Acceleration team. What was that experience like?
A: This was my first significant achievement at ASU. I relied heavily on the insights from other teams, such as the AI Acceleration team, Ethics Committee on AI Technology and university leaders to bring ChatGPT Enterprise to the ASU community in an equitable and responsible way.
We started with trust and transparency. Once that was established, it was easier to approach the AI Innovation Challenge and build the structure, experience and mechanisms to keep learning. We made it simple for anyone in our ASU community to get started and ensured we were on the right path with frequent customer feedback loops. We’ve been proud of the responses we’ve seen and the project variety and impact that we are beginning to measure.
Q: What opportunities related to AI in higher education most excite you?
A: With traditional approaches to teaching and learning, providing quality education to everyone everywhere is challenging. How do we ensure no students are left behind? How do we provide all of them access to quality education? I am excited about the promise AI holds to personalize education on an individual basis. This way, we can reach all these people and provide them with the quality education they need.
AI is everywhere ... now what?
Artificial intelligence isn't just handy for creating images like the above — it has implications in an increasingly broad range of fields, from health to education to saving the planet.
Explore the ways in which ASU professors are thinking about and using AI in their research on our special project page.
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