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April 06, 2023

By Marcus Wilkins | Show Me Mizzou

Long before pursuing advanced degrees at the University of Missouri, Derek Anderson peered across the plains of eastern Kansas as an undergraduate hoping to glimpse the future. The year was 1998, and a computer science professor at Wichita State University introduced Anderson to the nascent field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Today, after 20-plus years in the industry, its an understatement to say the concept piqued his interest. But back then his enthusiasm collided with pragmatism.

My professor told me I couldnt actuallydoAI as a career because it wasnt well funded, and I should pursue something peripheral like database indexing and retrieval, said Anderson, now an associate professor in electrical engineering and computer science in the College of Engineering. So, I set out to make my own way, starting with a masters and PhD at Mizzou.

These days, AI is at the forefront of everyones mind, and Anderson is at the forefront of AI. His acumen includes a list of specialties elemental to the field: information fusion, machine learning, computational intelligence and computer vision, to name a few. His most recent research projects include training AI to better detect landmines by using simulated environments, and explainable AI a concept aimed at engineering AI capable of explaining its own decision-making processes.

And hes not doing it alone. Andersons students (undergraduate through doctoral) are gaining experience in his lab and going on to land big-time jobs in the AI sector. Even freshmen are taking advantage of Andersons hands-on research opportunities and supercharging their academic trajectories.

I always knew I was going to major in computer science, but the opportunity to immediately do research in an actual lab is what sold me on Mizzou, said Dhruv Agarwal, a freshmanDiscovery Fellowfrom St. Louis. In Dr. Andersons lab, Im working on a project to help make synthetic data more applicable for machine learning such as teaching a smart car to recognize roadblocks or traffic lights by learning from synthetic images. Its exciting to get your foot in the door so early.

While headline-grabbing AI systems such as Chat GPT and DALL-E have captured our collective imagination by creating eloquent prose and stunning graphic art, Anderson sees them as only the latest phase of AIs multi-decade lifespan that has included peaks and valleys.

Im part of what could be considered the third generation of AI scientists, Anderson said. In the 50s, it was mostly armchair thinking and philosophy. Then there was a second wave in the 80s when we incorporated a lot of rule-based systems and expert systems, but they became brittle and couldnt do everything. I came to AI during the third generation, and pattern recognition now called machine learning is basically the migrating of statistics and mathematics over to AI.

Andersons work in explainable AI seeks to revolutionize diagnostic and decision-making processes in AI systems. In most cases, an AI system is tasked with arriving at an output such as DALL-E creating a picture based on a text prompt. Explainable AI works to build in explanations ofwhythe system arrived at the output, exposing potential biases or incongruencies in uncertain conditions a critical step in implementing future AI policy.

Its a complex problem that could very well revolutionize how AI systems are built, and Andersons students are on the ground floor of yet another potential wave.

I plan on going into an accelerated masters program through Dr. Andersons lab because I find this research so fascinating and exciting, said Phillip Lei, a freshman computer science major from Columbia. And after graduation, I hope to continue doing research.

Andersons guidance is sought beyond Mizzous halls, too. He is program co-chair for three national AI conferences in 2023, a role that includes coordinating the events programming and logistics. He also sits on multiple Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers committees grappling with topics including AI workforce policy and ethical issues surrounding privacy, equity and justice.

Yet, as globally impactful and philosophically weighty as the topic of AI is, Anderson relishes the opportunity to mold minds including his own. For him, its the why that explains his motivation.

Im pretty sure I learn as much from my students as they do from me, Anderson said. If they dont quite understand a concept and I need to explain it differently, it helps me to better understand my concepts, or to look at things from another perspective. The classroom and lab are great intellectual places where Im changing myself and hopefully changing them.

Its why Im at Mizzou.

This story originally appeared on Show Me Mizzou.

Here is the original post:

AI innovator mentors next generation while breaking new ground - University of Missouri College of Engineering