Researchers at the University of Texas-Arlington are working on new ways to use artificial intelligence to help make companies more efficient.
UTA’s Learning Innovation and Networked Knowledge, or LINK, Research lab received a grant from Boeing to study new learning environments and how AI can play a role.
"It's behind the scenes and it touches everything," LINK executive director, Professor George Siemens, said of the new technology.
It’s the same technology that allows people to interact with Siri on their iPhones or Alexa on their Amazon device. Just last month, Google unveiled a service that can call a restaurant to make a reservation -- and sound just like a human.
Siemens looks into the future and sees AI doing more of the things people now do – but better and more efficiently.
In his latest project, he's helping Boeing understand how an AI “agent” might be used to help make planes.
"And that agent will help you do your job better, will direct you to resources that you need, will reduce your error rate and help you produce better products,” he said.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Specifically, Siemens measured how students' interactions online relate to their performance on tests and came up with a simple conclusion.
"If you're a student very active socially and involved in conversations with other students, you're going to do better,” he said.
But now, he said, he’s taking it to the next level.
"The current project we're engaging in with Boeing is can we start to bring in AI models to replace some of these human nodes?" he said. "I would say the future in most work environments will be humans and machines working together."
Siemens speaks about AI and attends conferences around the world.
In five or ten years, he predicts it will be used in ways even experts can’t predict now.
LINK has done work for other major companies, including Microsoft.
