CENTRAL SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — The University of Colorado Colorado Springs has two new additions to campus — and they're not buildings or classes.
They're humanoid robots powered by artificial intelligence.
UCCS received the robots as a donation this year. They are both named Ami, and they are stationed at the campus library as an interactive resource for students. They are also taken to classes and events to interact with the community.
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When powered on, Ami can help students flesh out ideas for projects and receive feedback. It also tells a dad joke or two.
"Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field," Ami said.
But its role on campus goes well beyond humor. Ami has already been put to work in innovation classes, where students explore cutting-edge technology and brainstorm ideas.
"It's all about inspiring students to think about how AI can be part of the future," Ami said.
To interact with Ami, students first have to create an "agent" — a set of natural language instructions that gives the robot a specific goal and purpose.
Those instructions can define Ami's tone, personality and purpose. The robot can even be directed on how to carry itself emotionally.
"It feels no nerves. It has no emotion. If I tell it to be confident, it's going to be confident," Joel Tonyan, UCCS' Direcrtor of User Experience, said.
One of the most sophisticated classroom applications so far has been programming Ami to act as a business idea coach.
"They [students] learned all about how to instruct Ami. You could present a business idea to AI and operating under these instructions it would evaluate your business idea, tell you how to improve it, give you further things to think about, so really it can be tailored to all sorts of different situations," Tonyan said.
The guiding principle behind every agent is simple.
"The instructions really are just natural language. It gives AI a goal. It's very explicit. The one rule above all others that you should follow is that when you are asked something, you answer it. That's your entire job and you do it every time," Tonyan said.
Students can also take Ami's programming in a more creative direction — including giving it an entirely different personality, like that of a medieval gnome named Bartholomew.
"Greetings, noble scholars. Tis I, Bartholomew, the gnome of whimsical lore. How dost thou fare on this fine day?" Ami said.
Whimsical personas aside, Ami's primary purpose is to help students build efficiency and develop real-world AI skills.
"I'm here to chat and answer questions students might have. It's all about making learning a bit more interactive and fun," Ami said.
