As a computer science student at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Zin Khant likens the advent of artificial intelligence to the discovery of electricity — a modern Rosetta Stone that will allow future generations to unlock new inventions the current generation never knew it needed.
“Back in the days before cameras were invented, if you wanted a family picture, you had to have the money to hire somebody to paint one, which took hours,” said Khant, president and founder of the student-driven UST Nexus AI Club, which hopes to move conversations about artificial intelligence beyond ChatGPT and showcase how it can be harnessed ethically for the common good. “Once cameras were invented, family pictures became more widely available, and then available instantly to everyone.”
At a time when some Americans appear squeamish around the prospect of embracing AI, which has already eliminated certain jobs, Khant and other club members are asking up to 100 budding young creators to lean in for a healthy cause during their inaugural “Tommie Buildfest.” Starting Friday evening, the Nexus AI Club will host a free 24-hour “hackathon” where individuals or teams of creators use AI to work on new websites and software applications related to hunger, nutrition and food security.
The set-up is as much competition as brainstorming session, and prizes will be awarded Saturday evening. The Nexus AI Club is recruiting student participants from St. Thomas and beyond, ranging in age from high school through graduate school, as well as nonprofits interested in benefiting from their creativity.
The club has had at least initial conversations with Tommie Shelf, the on-campus grocery give-away, as well as Loaves and Fishes, which serves free meals throughout the Twin Cities, and The Food Group, which operates a food bank, a traveling grocery in a converted school bus and a farm-based agricultural program.
Nonprofits don’t have to attend the Buildfest to enjoy the fruits of its labor, though an optional 30-minute focus group session in advance would help the students understand each agency’s mission and needs.
“The organizations that would benefit the most from this probably have the least resources and are the least connected,” said Jonathan Keiser, associate vice president of Academic Technology and AI Enablement in the School of Education, who also is a faculty adviser for the club. “We will take participants and community partners right up until the day of.”
The goal is to create tools to reduce nutrition deficits in the community.
That could mean building an app to help families plan nutritious meals, maximize their food budget and track SNAP food benefits, or creating new internal tools for food banks and nonprofits to track inventory, predict demand and optimize distribution. It could also mean building a platform aggregating nutrition research, or some other AI-assisted solution to food insecurity.
Non-coders welcome
Khant noted that major tech companies like Reddit, the social media platform, and Stripe, the payment processor, have hosted their own tech hackathons over the years, with the goals of benefiting from a burst of competitive and creative juices blending on a compressed timeline.
The Tommie Buildfest opens at 8 p.m. Friday and moves into judging at 6 p.m. Saturday, with awards issued two hours later.
No coding experience is required, and Keiser noted that projects can combine design, business and technical skills, areas that lend themselves to folks outside the computer programming community. Working professionals can participate as mentors.
The hackathon is co-branded with Lovable, a Swedish start-up company that bills itself as a facilitator of “vibe coding,” or developing software using natural language instead of core coding skills. Lovable will provide building credits, or tokens, per participant, reducing the cost of AI computation for upper-level programming.
“I’m not a coder or developer by training,” Keiser said. “I have no background in it, and yet I’m able to build things just by natural language that work really well. It’s what AI is excellent at. AI can do this completely.”
Is that gratifying or terrifying? Keiser acknowledges that for most people, it could be a bit of both.
“I think it’s going to destabilize our society in some ways, and that’s how things happen where there’s creative destruction,” Keiser said. “I think it’s going to change our social contract. Instead of working 40 hours, in 15 years I think we’ll be working 30 or 20 hours per week, but that requires a societal conversation.”
‘It can democratize knowledge’
AI has already been blamed for eliminating some entry-level white collar jobs, as well as jobs in software development and customer service. In its “Future of Jobs” report, the World Economic Forum found last year that 40% of global employers surveyed expected to reduce hiring in certain areas as AI reshapes their job needs, and half expected to transition some workers to new roles. The vast majority of employers found they would need to “upskill” or retrain workers to meet changes in their industry.
Rather than a dystopian, jobless future controlled by merciless robots, Khant foresees a time when AI bots will read through reams of published data on underreported subjects such as women’s health to conduct its own research, filling in knowledge gaps for the betterment of mankind.
“It can democratize knowledge,” said Khant, one of eight founding members of the Nexus AI Club. “This tool can empower so many new things that we can’t even think about right now, that we can’t even imagine yet.”
The caveat, Khant said, is that everyday people need to understand the technology well enough to advocate for how it should be used ethically, rather than allowing a few interests to harness it for their own profit.
The hackathon is free to attend, with snacks and meals included, but requires registration. Individuals who register alone can join a team at the start of the Buildfest. Participants must bring a laptop, charger and any other hardware they’d like to use.
Students consider this year a bit of a trial run.
“Next year, they’re hoping to have one that goes from Friday evening to Sunday evening, so 48 hours,” Keiser said.
For more information, visit ustnexus.club/buildfest.
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