Tucson Standard

Sixty University of Arizona students utilized advanced artificial intelligence over the summer to address real-world problems for various clients. The projects included creating specialized chatbots, virtual reality experiences, and new applications in shopping, tourism, language learning, and healthcare.

These students were part of the inaugural AI Core + Design Lab Summer Internship. Partnering with local employers, the program provided a startup environment where students learned to use AI tools that are reshaping modern work practices.

"The internship is an intense but super-fun experiential learning program that rapidly introduces University of Arizona students to AI technologies. We're building solutions for our researchers and commercial partners using technology that is evolving right before our eyes," said Ash Black, director of the university's AI Core. "It's all learning by doing in a fast-paced, startup environment. It's pretty hard work, but the maturation comes fast, and the students are more than capable of getting the job done."

The results of their work will be showcased on Aug. 9 during the AI Core + Design Lab Summer Internship Showcase at Room 605 of the Health Sciences Innovation Building.

The internship is a collaboration between several university departments including the Institute for Computation and Data-Enabled Insight and Student Engagement and Career Development. It also received support from the University Center for Assessment, Teaching and Technology and the College of Health Sciences.

"We're really excited and proud to be showcasing what can happen at this university when a lot of us pull together," Black added. "There is tremendous creativity and talent that surfaces in a collaboration like this."

AI Core will continue into the next academic year supporting innovative projects for faculty and partners. Design Lab offers paid internships immersing interdisciplinary teams in creative problem-solving tasks for real clients.

The interns worked on 12 projects throughout the summer, developing chatbots with domain-specific RAG databases providing company-specific insights. They created an AI resume matcher pairing job seekers with opportunities based on their profiles and personalities. Another project involved deploying a chatbot aiding delayed-learning toddlers with language acquisition across multiple languages. Other notable projects included medical simulations powered by lifelike human avatars using ChatGPT.

"The work between AI Core and Design Lab has proven to be very insightful this summer," said Patrick Halvorsen, a senior student mentor with Student Engagement and Career Development. "Our interns worked very hard to learn about design thinking, coding, AI, and other technological experiences."

The public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 made generative AI tools more accessible bringing both opportunities and challenges.

"I think we all understand at this point that AI is an extremely transformative technology," Black stated. "We are keeping up by empowering our youth... producing a new kind of workforce."

Clients included Pima Community College, City of Tucson, Pima County Visitors Center among others while university clients ranged from CATalyst Studios to Eller College of Management.

Starting June 3rd with four weeks of training on custom GPTs focusing on prompt engineering – inputting correct information into an AI tool like ChatGPT – interns also learned essential skills such as API development honing their coding abilities along with generative AI graphic design techniques.

Jackson Grove helped lead the program working as an AI engineer since fall 2023 plans continuing until graduation: "There aren't many places where you get to work with technologies so new... every week they change completely."

Jay Sampson from Norton School highlighted intern contributions towards creating digital twin representation enhancing retail lab optimization: "Their efforts have been nothing short remarkable... offering virtual environment analyzing visualizing store activity running simulations testing scenarios around merchandising store design optimization."