AI and Language Technology
How can AI summarize and translate text more accurately? What makes chatbots and voice assistants feel more or less human? How do people actually produce spoken and signed language—and how do AI algorithms account for different dialects? How can we make AI accessible for users of any language? If you’ve been thinking about these types of questions about language and technology—and you want to use AI to help people communicate more effectively—keep reading about this unique major.
What will I learn?
You’ll start by studying the relationship between AI and society, as well as the basics of AI technologies, which will enable you to build AI tools designed by society, for society. After these classes—as well as some technical courses in calculus and computer science—you’ll explore how language works, how languages differ from each other, how computers process and generate language, and how AI systems can be designed to support language users of all kinds. The program culminates with a capstone course involving a real-world challenge where you can apply the skills that you have learned as part of a team of students.
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 Language Technology degree?
With expertise in language as well as AI technologies, you can explore a variety of career paths, including (but certainly not limited to):
- AI product manager or analyst.
- Chatbot developer.
- Language data scientist.
- Language engineer.
- Language resource creator and evaluator.
- Large language model (LLM) analyst.
- Natural language processing (NLP) specialist.
- Text-to-speech developer.
- Voice assistant developer.
These types of jobs are available at many different types of organizations, including research institutes, start-up companies, global corporations, universities, governments and more. And because this is one of the fastest-growing fields, you’ll likely find even more careers evolving during your time at UB.
While many of these jobs will likely continue to be in high demand, you can also choose to get an advanced degree if you want to keep learning.