Carnegie Mellon University will become the first U.S. college to offer an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence (AI) this fall, following careful consideration about where the fledgling field is going and how the institution can use this opportunity to promote social responsibility around AI. The Pittsburgh-based university already offers nearly two dozen courses in AI and related fields, said Reid Simmons, a Carnegie Mellon research professor who is currently on leave for the year while he works at the National Science Foundation. Simmons, who will be teaching classes in the AI degree program this fall, cited the university's existing educational and research focus on AI as the reason Carnegie Mellon has decided to offer a major in the burgeoning field. "Students have come here interested in learning more about artificial intelligence, and there really wasn't any structured way for them to do it," Simmons told EdScoop. "They could take courses here and there, they could take certain concentrations, they could do an additional major in robotics or a minor in machine learning, but the full-fledged curriculum wasn't there."

As if the point needs belaboring, but sure: The future of technology, no matter how far down the line you trace it, will inevitably run into A.I. at some point. So it's fitting -- if not overdue -- that an established, esteemed American university would offer up an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence. And that school is Carnegie Mellon University, of course. Per the MIT Tech Review, the program will be run out of the college's School of Computer Science. It'll involve the social and ethical impacts of A.I. as much as it will computational learning, along with the technical knowhow to have a decent grasp on what the future of A.I. is going to be, and maybe practical work on some of it, too (as a precursor to joining CMU's top-flight status as the graduate school for A.I.).