If anything is clear from this time, it is that if we are going to ride the wave of automation and applied artificial intelligence we have to prepare. And if the machines need training, so do we if we want to work with them. Along this path, the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) expands its training offer in AI with a series of free courses promoted by the Applied Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (LIAA), which depends on the Department of Computing of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences.
This initiative is aimed at both the academic community and the general public, and Registration is now open until May 15. It is about training for scientific, professional and academic use of AIcoordinated by the LIAA, the Secretariat of Science and Technology of the UBA and the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences. The courses will be aimed at specific groups, such as researchers, UBA graduates, entrepreneurs, teachers and civil organizations.
In one Next phase they will add courses for SMEs and EBTS (technology-based companies) that will have a cost. The program content covers different areas, such as operational automation, predictive analysis, process optimization, knowledge management, maintenance and operations.
The LIAA is not a new actor: it was founded in 2012 and today it brings together more than 50 members including researchers, postdocs, doctoral students and undergraduate students. It’s unot from the main AI research centers in the region. It operates in the Cero + Infinito building, inaugurated in Ciudad Universitaria in October 2021. It is a pavilion of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, designed and intended to strengthen research and teaching, with capacity for 3,000 students and scientists.
According to each audience, the offer will be different. For example, the courses aimed at administrative staff from the UBA will be focused on the incorporation of AI in everyday tasks. One of the programs is called “How to talk to AI?” and proposes andTrain users in prompt design professionals using coSTAR methodology, which is used to optimize communication with AIs. Will work on specific applications for email writing, report analysis and integration with tools like Google Workspace or Microsoft Copilot.
The Researcher-oriented courses will have a more technical focus. The “Generative AI in the research cycle” program will address the use of LLMs and probabilistic reasoning engines. It will include advanced techniques such as Few-Shot Prompting, Chain of Thought (CoT) and the use of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, which allow connecting AI with specific knowledge bases to improve the quality of results.
The Training aimed at the productive sector (especially SMEs) will have a hybrid formatwith in-person classes, recorded content and virtual meetings. And furthermore, through the UBA in Action program (a community action program dependent on the University Extension Secretariat) the initiative foresees the development of an open MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) style course, with an estimated duration of between 20 and 30 hours, accessible to any interested person, regardless of their previous training.
“Fighting technological obscurantism is not just learning to use a tool, but understanding the logic that governs it to prevent it from becoming an invisible dogma,” Diego Slezak, director of the LIAA, tells LA NACIÓN.
Slezak insists on the idea that We cannot be simple spectators of this technology or simple users.. “We have to have a critical outlook, rise to the occasion, and we cannot let the UBA not step firmly in this evangelization of critical information about this technology, the uses, the advantages, and also the dangers, contradictions and care that must be taken,” he points out.
“I think we are in a time that makes us return to our adolescence – he reflects -. At 14 years old when we played with the computer, with all the awakening of digitalization and now, suddenly, after decades of getting used to these technologies, a new one appears that comes to break everything: AI and in particular the world of agents. On the one hand, there is joy and a very powerful intellectual awakening. On the other hand, there is fear, or critical thinking because the power of this technology goes far beyond what we had until now. “This technology has the power of mass destruction, like an atomic bomb or even more.”
