SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Zoe Marks-Rowe, 31, thought her studying days were behind her, but the buzz around artificial intelligence and its potential has seen her enroll in a newly created AI course at Sacramento State University.
“I’m basically trying to learn as much as I can about AI,” Marks Rowe said. “For the workplace, educationally, all the different areas that it can be incorporated into critical thinking.”
Marks-Rowe is one of more than 60 students taking the newly developed course the university said is designed to introduce the practical applications of AI in academic and professional settings.
Marks-Rowe said she hopes having an AI skill set will open new career doors.
“I think it’s something that would open up more fields for me,” Marks-Rowe said. “I work two jobs and I like both of them, but I’d like to work one job that pays better and allows me more creativity in what I’m doing.”
Goldman Sachs reports around 4% of all U.S. firms have adopted generative AI, but that’s expected to rise to 7% over the next six months.
Independent research firm Forrester estimates generative AI will reshape more than 11 million jobs by 2030.
Sac State’s Chief AI officer and former dean of education, Sasha Sidorkin, said the reach of AI to reshape many jobs is part of the impetus for the new course he created.
“If you look at the employer surveys, the absolute majority of them want to have some skills with AI,” Sidorkin said. “Even though sometimes those employers don’t really understand what they mean by that.”
Sidorkin said AI has different applications for different jobs, and can seem daunting.
But understanding how to apply AI’s various skills is like selecting the right tool for the job and part of the course.
“Like, for example, the use of AI to find information to read up on a certain field and educate yourself is very different than going through Google, for example,” Sidorkin said. “That’s one skill. And then if you want to use AI to brainstorm, generate ideas for your project, that’s a different use.”
All these new possible tools to use, an exciting prospect said Marks-Rowe who already works in the tech industry and says she can see where things are headed.
“Future proofing, I would say, is a factor for me,” she said.
A future she hopes is as full of possibilities as the use of AI.