Where I think AI is being used

I’ve seen firsthand the extensive use of AI in CSCE. It is used almost everywhere, from asking it questions to clarify how something should be done to follow the standard, to asking it to writing full code. I think one of the ways AI is most used is for interacting with documentation. In computer engineering, we often use many new technologies that we are not yet familiar with, so using LLMs helps to interact directly with their documentation for specific details, rather than reading the whole document. I think AI is also very useful in testing code. There are many automated-testing tools that utilize AI in order to check various aspects of a project. It is also used in many other aspects, like AI-driven protocols for cybersecurity or code efficiency. I have also seen it used in the corporate part of the field, whether it be responding to emails or for completing quick tasks.

Where Gemini says AI is being used (Access my chat with gemini here)

According to my chat with Gemini, AI is being used in all major parts of the field. It’s used in Software engineering mostly for coding assistance, automated testing, and bug detection. I have personally used AI for these tasks, so it does not surprise me that it is being used in the field. However, I did not expect AI to be a big part of computer architecture and hardware design. Gemini claims that it is being used for chip design, power management, and neural processing units. I would expect that it can be used for optimization tasks, like optimizing chip design, but it is interesting to see it be used in more complex tasks that I have studied, like power management. It can also be used in cybersecurity as it can perform threat analysis and detecting vulnerabilities much faster and more efficiently than any human can. It is also used in databases as expected, since they store all the data that AI uses, however there are specialized databases that make AI more efficient. AI has become a core part of the computer engineering field, taking over many tasks in all possible places it can.

Interviews

I was unable to interview a professor due to how busy the end of the semester was for both me and the professors, so I have conducted short interviews with 2 professionals in my field.

The first interview was with my cousin, who is an account manager at a cybersecurity company. She told me that AI is very important to her job. It is mostly used to improve communication with clients by helping write emails. However, as a cybersecurity professional, she explained the main issue with using LLMs in her field: security. Information given to LLMs like ChatGPT is not private, it can be used at any time by the company that owns it. This means that no sensitive or personal data can be used in a prompt as it could pose a significant security threat to her clients. She also told me that she has a coworker who uses ChatGPT to respond to emails, but provides it with personal and identifying information, which will get her in trouble at work.

My second interview was with someone from the databases department at a company I was an intern at. This interview was very interesting. Working in the tech department of a company that is not in the technology field means that what he creates has to be usable by anyone who does not understand the details of his tools. He showed me what he was working on, which was internal tools to allow workers of the company to interact with artificial intelligence more securely and tailoring those tools to their needs. He gave me a glimpse at a web application he is creating which acts as an AI assistant for company documents, without compromising security. He masks any data that is sent to LLMs, while also providing them with customized data sets in order to make sure that they have the information that someone in the company may be asking about. This was very interesting because it showed a possible solution to the security issues that can be posed by LLMs.

Reflection

AI has become an integral part of the computer science and engineering field. It is interesting to have gotten a glimpse on how AI is being used, mostly as a tool to improve the work. It has endless applications in the field which I am looking forward to exploring in the future. My second interview was very interesting because it gave me a first-hand look at the new possibilities that AI has created, while Gemini gave me a good understanding of how AI is being used to improve all aspects of the field, from simple tasks like responding to emails, to being left to analyze security threats.