An advisory committee of administrators and a student convened on Wednesday to discuss artificial intelligence at UT. Together, they will discuss the future of AI use and tools offered to the campus community. 

Mario Guerra, associate vice president of AI Platforms and Innovation for UT Enterprise Technology, coordinates the UT.AI Advisory Committee, which has 15 members. The committee includes faculty from different colleges, an undergraduate student and officials in the provost’s and other University offices. Guerra said the committee will tackle issues like UT’s AI platforms and student privacy.

“This technology is touching every single aspect of the University,” Guerra said. “It will impact every single corner of (this) campus, so we need input from all of those folks, all of those fields.”

The committee is first evaluating what the University’s AI platform will be next school year. Currently, UT Spark is offered as a free AI service for students, but Guerra said the committee will help UT.AI make decisions on whether to keep the service or move to a new platform.

UT.AI also wants to work on a privacy statement for their platforms, so students understand the University cannot access things like their chat history, Guerra said. 

“We recognize that students are concerned about using University-supplied AI tools for privacy reasons, and we want to be transparent about the use of their data in these systems,” Guerra said.

Freshman chemical engineering major Jonathan Chao is the only student member of the committee, but they may add a graduate student in the future. The Senate of College Councils recently conducted a survey looking for student opinions on AI usage. Chao, a member of the Senate, said it was important to understand the “overall sentiment” of students’ feelings on AI as the sole student representative on the committee. 

“It’s not just my opinions, but it’s the opinion of the campus,” Chao said. 

Guerra said the University offering tools and resources that meet student and faculty needs is the committee’s goal. If the campus is satisfied with the systems and tools UT.AI is offering, then the informational “channels” between students, faculty and administrators are working, Guerra said. 

“If AI is making a positive impact on this campus, and people are noticing it, the committee is doing a good job,” Guerra said.