TCNJ

34 The College of New Jersey Magazine OVER TIME WE DISCOVERED THAT WHILE A MACHINE CAN BEAT THE BEST PLAYER ON THE PLANET, THE BEST PLAYER ON THE PLANET, COUPLED WITH A MACHINE, IS ACTUALLY BETTER THAN THE MACHINE." — Kevin Michels " a new section on cheating by using AI," Provost Jeffrey Osborn says. "The opportunity for the college is to determine how we can leverage this technology in both an educational and operational context. It is incumbent on us to design course experiences and methods to evaluate student learning with the knowledge that ChatGPT and other forms of AI are here to stay." A broadly representative task force is forming to look at the larger ques- tions — about how to assess student work; to expand and enhance teaching strategies; and to ensure the integrity of faculty research. "Higher education is much more than just content," says Osborn. "It's much more than produc- ing X number of papers or products or deliverables. It's about learning how to think critically. It's about learning how to synthesize, how to experience different perspectives, and reach a new level of understanding as a result of that." Kevin Michels / Images: Prequel B ut AI is moving so fast it may be hard to keep up — a pace that has surprised even Professor Yoon in the computer science depart- ment, whose work in the field started 15 years ago, when he was a gradu- ate student helping AI applications better identify malignant tumors on mammograms. "Previously, we could imagine what's possible and what's not possible on, say, a three-year or five- year horizon," he says. "But now, at the speed of development these days, even a six-month or one-year horizon would be really challenging to predict." The hardware and the vast expansion of computing power has made this possible. It is also, as Yoon emphasizes, the theoretical foundations and algorithms that increasingly work more like the human brain. "The dystopian 'Termi- nator' — that's not going to happen," he says. "But the potential problem is with the humans who are using them." To illustrate this story, we asked John Kuiphoff '04, professor of design and creative technology, to produce portraits of the subjects using artificial intelligence applications. We provided him with several photos of each person, shot against a white background in various poses and angles. He explains what he did here: APPS USED FaceApp, Facetune, and Prequel HOW'S IT WORK? You upload 10–20 photos to the app and the software generates a collection of avatars. Facetune and Prequel generate random backgrounds and features like hair color. You can choose from theme categories such as mythical creatures, gothic, and soft glam. The software isn't sophisticated enough yet to add user controls. THE PROCESS AGED YOU My image (page 35) was created with FaceApp. On that app you can alter features such as age, glasses, and beard length. ONE NOT LIKE THE OTHERS Sejong Yoon, computer science professor, was adamant that he did not want photos of himself put through an AI tool. THE LIMITATIONS I generated about 600 photos of each person; most were not very good. Many look distorted and weird. I got one or two good avatars out of every 100 images generated. ALTERED IMAGES

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