AI and Geospatial Analytics
Do you want to use AI to save lives after an earthquake, increase crop yields, improve public health and discover more ways to help society? If so, you’re in the right place. This unique major combines AI with the science of analyzing locations, and is perfect for people who want to study maps and use geospatial data from diverse sources such as drones, social media, satellites and weather observations to solve problems anywhere in the world. Keep reading about this exciting field of geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) and see how AI and geospatial analytics can be integrated to help address important challenges facing our society, such as those related to sustainable cities, disaster management, environmental health and ecosystem conservation.
What will I learn?
To understand how AI tools can be built by society and for society, you’ll start with an overview of different types of AI, the ethical issues involved, and how AI disrupts the environment and other parts of our lives. You’ll take a few math and statistics courses and learn about probability, machine learning and computational skills. In your geography classes, you’ll study our planet and the Earth system, the impacts of globalization on cities, human-environment interactions, geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis. You’ll learn how to acquire, synthesize and critically use spatial data, as well as how to integrate AI and GIS to support disaster management, improve global health, protect communities and conserve important ecosystems. Finally, you’ll have a capstone course where you can bring together everything you’ve learned to develop potential solutions to real-world problems.
UB: A Leader in AI
- Home to Empire AI, a statewide hub for addressing societal challenges through AI.
- Home to National AI Institute funded by the National Science Foundation.
- More than 400 researchers involved with AI.
- Multiple institutes and centers focused on AI applications.
- Other degree programs like this one create a community of students focused on the study of AI for the social good.
What can I do with an AI and Responsible Communication degree?
When you combine strong communication skills with a thorough understanding of AI, you give yourself more choices—including new types of jobs that might not even exist yet. Your career path might include:
- Making a company’s AI more human-friendly.
- Teaching the public how to tell what content is real.
- Creating better conversational flows for AI models.
- Designing voice assistants.
- Implementing AI-driven marketing campaigns.
- Developing AI ethics policies for government agencies.
- Working with researchers on natural language processing tools.
- Finding ways to integrate AI into traditional communication platforms.
Because communication skills are valued in nearly any organization, you might find yourself working for an advertising agency, law firm, health care provider or elected official. And if you want to go to graduate school, this major provides a solid foundation.