IBM Helping to Build an AI-Powered Academic Adviser

A partnership between the University of Michigan and IBM could spark the next wave of artificial intelligence (AI) interfaces -- and the test bed for the work will be an academic adviser for students driven by cognitive computing. The 4.5 million, multiyear partnership, dubbed Project Sapphire, combines IBM's resources with scientists and students at the University of Michigan's Artificial Intelligence Lab, according to a news release from the University of Michigan. Scientists will feed this new AI large volumes of recorded human interactions between students and academic advisers to give the system a conversational edge, allowing it to improve upon the scripted responses of previous AI. "Natural conversations bring in so many different aspects of human intelligence -- knowledge, context, goals and emotion, for instance. In many ways, to build a versatile conversational system is a grand challenge for artificial intelligence," said Satinder Singh Baveja, professor of computer science and engineering and director of U-M's AI Lab, in the news release.