VCU news

By Brian McNeill

An artificial intelligence bot named “Little Leonardo” is answering questions this semester via text message about the da Vinci Center — Virginia Commonwealth University’s hub of student entrepreneurship and innovation — as well as general questions about VCU and campus life.

Little Leonardo was designed by Silicon Valley startup NumberAI that develops AI technology for small businesses to respond immediately to customers’ questions via text, Facebook or voicemail. A version of the company’s AI is being field-tested this fall at VCU, answering questions sent from students, faculty, staff and the general public.

“In the early stages, the AI is designed to answer basic questions about the center, such as where we are located and directions to our offices, hours of operation, degree programs, center faculty and staff, and key dates for upcoming events,” said Garret Westlake, Ph.D., executive director of the da Vinci Center, a collaboration of VCU’s schools of the Arts, Business, Engineering and College of Humanities and Sciences that advances student innovation and entrepreneurship.

“In the future we hope that the AI will be able to offer tailored messages based on the identity of users,” he said. “For example, Little Leonardo might respond differently to prospective and current students who ask the same question.”

Little Leonardo, also known as LL, is meant to serve as a fun way for people to engage with the da Vinci Center and to learn more about its real-world and hands-on educational offerings.

“LL provides an opportunity for more real-time communication with the da Vinci Center and is a repository for up-to-date information on academic programs and experiential learning opportunities and events,” Westlake said. “It is also a way for the center to communicate with students through a medium, texting, that they are drawn to as a primary source of communication.”

The da Vinci Center was selected to get early access to NumberAI’s technology in order to test it out and generate feedback.

“We approached the da Vinci Center over the summer about our interest in piloting this technology because we knew about the innovative work that they do there and their support for entrepreneurs,” said NumberAI co-founder Joel Grossman. “The da Vinci Center’s use of the product will help us refine our AI and we are looking for feedback on the product from students and staff alike.”

This is not the first time a university has experimented with ways that artificial intelligence can better serve students. Last year, a Georgia Tech professor used an AI named “Jill” as a “virtual TA” that answered students’ questions and provided feedback on the course’s discussion forum.

VCU’s experiment, however, is not limited to the traditional online environment. Little Leonardo is combining AI and texting to provide VCU with exceptional customer service, Westlake said.

“This is in line with the da Vinci Center’s focus on human-centered design and end users,” he said. “Additionally, the possibility that AI could allow us to engage with individuals differently based on their connection to the center is an intriguing form of personalization. Most importantly, we believe that as an innovation center we should be exposing students to new technologies and new paradigms that inform their learning and ‘Make it Real’ at VCU.”

The AI was tested within the da Vinci Center earlier this semester, giving it the chance to learn from a smaller group of students, faculty and staff. Now, the bot is being rolled out publicly and can interact with anyone.

“We expect LL to be a good student and hope that after some time with our faculty and students he will be ready to show the world what he has learned,” Westlake said. “That said, we plan to have some of our student innovators keeping tabs on LL so he won’t be left all on his own.”

Two students in da Vinci’s Master of Product Innovation program, Matthew Halpern and Matthew Sozio, are overseeing implementation of Little Leonardo this semester. Halpern is focused on teaching the AI as much as possible and overseeing its content, while Sozio is managing a group of undergraduate VCU students who are working on the project through the federal work-study program.

For now, the students must approve everything Little Leonardo says, as the AI is still learning.

“Think of it as a baby. A baby doesn't know any words or anything when it’s first born, but as it matures and learns more and more, it starts to develop its understanding of the world,” Sozio said.

Little Leonardo learned quickly how to answer factual questions, such as “Where is the library?” or “What programs does the da Vinci Center offer?”

“This is the future of the FAQ page,” Halpern said.

Trickier, however, are questions that require more than a simple factual answer.

“We don’t want a chat bot to come up with its own qualitative answers right off the bat. For nonfactual questions, those are content pieces that we have to generate ourselves,” Halpern said. “If someone asks: ‘Why should I apply to da Vinci?’ ‘What makes da Vinci so great?’ ‘What's the difference between two programs that you offer?’ Those are things that we have a very specific message for in our marketing and our branding. So that’s stuff that we have to teach it, but once it knows it, it can autoreply.”

While Little Leonardo is still learning, the AI will eventually be able to respond to just about any query almost instantly.

“The goal is that absolutely anybody who wants to come to VCU will have no problem getting the information they need on the go,” Sozio said. “It’s so much easier to text a question than trying to Google an answer.”

The plan is for Little Leonardo to start with providing information primarily about the da Vinci Center’s innovation and entrepreneurship programs, and to eventually expand to include much more about VCU.

“Like everything we do at the da Vinci Center, this is iterative and incremental,” Halpern said. “We will be revising and editing and making sure that this is done properly for da Vinci and then we will expand to all of VCU.”

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