May 2023
Guest Editor Letter
The End of This Semester is Different
By: Badri Roysam, University of Houston
Dear Colleagues,
As the semester (thankfully) draws to a close, and the grade appeals are being resolved (hopefully, amicably), it comes to mind that the Spring 2023 semester is perhaps a little different, primarily because the Fall 2023 semester may turn out to be, shall we say, “interesting”. With increasingly capable ChatGPT versions being released at an accelerating clip, and various other AI tools competing for the future of the “knowledge business” we may well be at a turning point in the education business. This topic is intertwined with the problem of student under-preparedness caused by the pandemic, and the problem of eroding academic integrity. What this means is that in the Summer of 2023, we need to do some learning and planning.
In this issue of the ECEDHA Source, we are delighted to again spotlight Mark McKinney at the Citadel, now as the newly elected ECEDHA Secretary. If you recall, Mark penned a thought-provoking article on The Honor Code and the Engineering Code of Ethics as taught at The Citadel – the military college of South Carolina. Granted, the typical ECE department is not so tightly connected with military culture, but there is much that we can learn from his experience. This article is presented as a video interview conducted by Barry Sullivan. We are also delighted to feature an article by our colleagues at West Virginia University about understanding the impact of ChatGPT and figuring out the path forward. We have always admired pioneers – people and institutions that chart entirely new paths with original ideas and approaches. In this context, we are delighted to feature an article by Melanie Lenart describing Navajo Tech's first Ph.D. program offered by a tribal college.
Dealing with Contemporary AI: Focus on the Humans and Values
The recent article in Scientific American (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-ai-knows-things-no-one-told-it/ ) discussed something that most of us have wondered about but did not write about for a broad audience. It seems to have abilities that exceed that of a “stochastic parrot”. Most of us probably have a basic understanding of how ChatGPT works, at least the original version of it (https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt ), and concluded that ChatGPT and similar generative AI models are largely parroting, in a probabilistic manner, content across the internet from which it has learned basic word succession patterns. However, these systems seem to respond in ways that go beyond such a mundane description. Frustratingly though, as with deep neural networks broadly, researchers do not have a mechanistic understanding of these so-called “emergent behaviors and properties” that were not incorporated into these models. We know that complex systems can have emergent properties, but we are dealing with systems with unprecedented complexity that are not amenable to mathematical analysis.
It is clear that students are keenly aware of new AI tools, and adept at employing them, often more than their course instructors. The genie is definitely out of the box and it cannot be contained. As we discussed on various earlier occasions (https://www.ecedha.org/ECE-Resources/ECE-Source-eNewsletter/April-2023/Guest-Editor-Letter-April-2023 ) (https://www.ecedha.org/ECE-Resources/ECE-Source-eNewsletter/February-2023/Guest-Editor-Letter-February-2023 ), this is the time to focus on people and work to strengthen basic engineering values.
Do you have interesting initiatives in progress at your department? We would love to feature your efforts in the nextECE Source newsletter. Increasingly, our articles are in the form of the ECE Conversations video podcast. It is friendly, authentic, personal, and natural.
Here are some of the topics of current interest for future ECE Conversations:
- The impacts of AI on ECE education and research;
- Strategies and Experiences in meeting the semiconductor re-shoring challenge;
- The growing footprint of healthcare-related research in ECE departments;
- Growing the workforce for the future electronics-intensive defense industry;
- The new ECE Chair experience, the ups, and the downs;
- Teaching engineering values; and
- Strategies and best practices for developing future ECE faculty.
As always, we welcome short articles from ECE department heads & faculty on topics of broad interest to our community.
Wishing you a happy end-of-semester season,
Badri Roysam, D.Sc., Fellow IEEE, Fellow AIMBE
Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor
Chair, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department
University of Houston
Houston, Texas 77204-4005
Phone: 713-743-1773
Email: broysam@uh.edu