Dr. Ben Schafer is a professor of computer science at the University of Northern Iowa.  He has historically worked in the domain of recommender system technology which lies at the intersection of data mining, artificial intelligence, and human computer interaction. 

Most recently, he has worked exclusively with pre-service and in-service educators, preparing them to become endorsed computer science teachers.  

In addition to leading the CS Education program at UNI he serves in leadership roles in multiple state and national teacher education organizations.  When not teaching you will often find Ben kayaking or tying flies.

Description

Artificial intelligence (AI) describes computers performing tasks that usually need human thinking, like spotting patterns and making predictions. Companies use AI to save time and make faster, more confident decisions.

AI performs these tasks using a handful of core capabilities, including:

• Machine learning (ML) → where systems improve performance by example data rather than explicit programming

•  Deep learning → a type of ML using many-layered neural networks suited for complex patterns such as image and speech recognition 

• Natural language processing (NLP) → which lets machines understand, interpret, or generate human language

• Computer vision → which lets computers interpret images or video (such as recognizing objects or people) 

• Generative AI → which can create new outputs — like text, images, audio — based on what it has learned