Edmonton has been doing AI for a long time ... here's why
City a hotbed 'back before AI was cool,' says CEO of Amii
A new artificial intelligence pilot program is launching in Edmonton-area schools this fall. It's just the latest community collaboration from researchers at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii).
Teachers with 20 high schools in the Elk Island Public Schools and Edmonton Public Schools systems, along with the charter school STEM Collegiate, are providing feedback on digital learning kits created by Amii.
AI is trending on a whole lot of fronts, from the pros and cons of the essay-generating ChatGPT, to applications in everything from medicine to movies.
"We need to talk about how AI needs to be used ethically," says Sean Bradley, a teacher at McNally High School in Edmonton.
Bradley says he jumped at the chance to be a part of the conversation — how AI could be used in the classroom now, and what it might offer his students down the road, in their careers.
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"This will obviously be an emerging technology that continues to grow so for our kids, who are keen on being involved in that, we need to give them the skill sets they need," says Bradley.
"It's going to be difficult for everyone," says Fenton Cooper, a Grade 11 student at McNally. "You can't let it be a crutch. You have to just use it for what it is and not let it control too much."
Cooper is already thinking about a career in engineering. He's seen how AI could help improve the designs of things like furniture and cars and admits that in the future, we will be using it in ways "we can't even imagine yet."
WATCH | Learn more about the new AI pilot project happening in Edmonton-area schools:
You can see more from the downtown headquarters of Amii on this week's edition of Our Edmonton on Saturday at 10 a.m., Sunday at noon and 11 a.m. Monday on CBC TV and CBC Gem.
Predicting those possibilities is part of Amii CEO Cam Linke's job. The non-profit organization, established in 2002, partners with companies across industries to drive innovation and provide advice and training.
"Back before AI was cool and was the thing that everybody was talking about, the province of Alberta and the University of Alberta invested in machine learning," says Linke.
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Linke says that allowed Edmonton to attract top talent and train the next generation of researchers in what he calls a "hotbed" of AI. Amii provides research funding to established AI researchers under its Amii Fellows program.
"What started as a group of four is now a group of 37 [fellows] with over 300 grad students," says Linke. The institute has a goal to growing that number to 60 fellows and about 500 students in the next couple of years.
Amii is one of Canada's three national centres of AI excellence under the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy. The others are Mila in Montreal and the Vector Institute in Toronto.
In 2018, Amii moved into an 18,000-square-foot open-concept collaborative space at 10065 Jasper Ave.
Last month the institute launched a free introductory course for all University of Alberta undergraduate students called Artificial Intelligence Everywhere.
The online offering will be part of an AI certification which Amii says will be the first in Canada when it launches in January.
Linke says it's about increasing AI literacy and "thinking critically about things and the best way to use it."
Saturday, the organization is hosting two events, the Student Developer Conference (DevCon) and a TechAid where participants will put their skills to use for the Stollery Children's Hospital and Boyle Street Community Services.
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