The State of Artificial Intelligence and Tips for Incorporating AI Into Our Daily Lives
Newhouse School faculty member Adam Peruta ’00, G’04 shares helpful tips for using Artificial Intelligence in our daily lives and explains what sets the University apart as a higher education leader in AI.
In his research and teaching, Adam Peruta explores issues around AI, including how AI that creates content will impact the future of media and how people working in media and communications must adapt to new technologies. (Photo by Angela Ryan)
Over the past 25 years, the world has witnessed the birth of the World Wide Web, the explosion of social media and the transformation of phones from push-button landlines to pocket-sized computers.
The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to be the most transformative technological advancement yet, says Adam Peruta ’00, G’04, associate professor of magazine, news and digital journalism and program director of the Advanced Media Management master’s program in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
“I think AI is underhyped,” Peruta says. “What we’re going through right now is maybe even more important and going to have more of an impact than the World Wide Web, social media and mobile phones.”
In his research and teaching, Peruta explores issues around AI, including how AI that creates content will impact the future of media and how people working in media and communications must adapt to new technologies.
Peruta stopped by the “‘Cuse Conversations” podcast to discuss the state of AI, share helpful tips for using AI into our daily lives and explains what sets the University apart as a higher education leader in AI.
Check out episode 181 of the “’Cuse Conversations” podcast featuring Peruta. A transcript [PDF] is also available.
The term was coined in the 1950s, but the reason why we’re all hyped up right now is because of what happened on Nov. 30, 2022: the introduction of ChatGPT for public use. That brought attention to the concept of generative AI, the ability to create content that didn’t exist before, but the transformer architecture that powers platforms like ChatGPT was created by Google in 2017.
AI in media and communications is nothing new. Your Netflix recommendation algorithm or your Amazon product recommendations are all powered by AI. The magic wand tool in Photoshop is a form of AI. Ads that follow you from one website to the next and to your social media platform of choice, that algorithm is all AI.
Since ChatGPT’s launch, everyone has been using the term ‘AI’ generically, which causes confusion. It’s important to understand that generative AI is just one type of AI under the larger umbrella.
Agentic AI is an evolution of AI. In simple terms, agentic AI refers to an AI system that operates autonomously without human input. Right now, most of us go to ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude and input a very specific prompt to get an output. With agentic AI, you’re giving AI a goal to accomplish and then it figures out the steps needed to accomplish that goal and then it executes those steps without human intervention. While there’s a lot happening in that space, it’s not very mature yet and we’re still trying to figure out useful applications.
The University and the individual schools and colleges are providing resources to not only learn more about AI but to start using it for real-world use case applications. Step one is making sure people have access to quality tools. Syracuse recently announced campuswide AI access to Anthropic’s Claude for Education, the cutting-edge AI platform. Information Technology Services has an AI newsletter where they send out helpful tips and tricks, and we’re adopting AI tools for faculty to use, whether that’s for course development or course content delivery.
Step two is the training. At Newhouse, we have two new courses that specifically focus on AI. We also hold internal workshops and training for faculty and staff on the teaching, creative and research side. We have an emerging media day that the Office of Research and Creative Activity holds where faculty members at Newhouse can share how they’ve integrated AI into their classroom.
Adam Peruta encourages every member of the University campus community to play around with Artificial Intelligence to figure out how to best incorporate AI into their daily lives.
