UO instructor Ed Madison, co-founder and executive director of Journalistic Learning Initiative, has developed a number of AI coaches, several of which are designed to assist with journalism and writing. His most recent is Sassy, a chatbot designed to help students in Oregon find potential careers.
The tool was created in partnership with Playlab Education, Inc., a company that creates AI tools for education.
“People ask me how long (Sassy) took to develop, and my answer is 40 years, because that’s about how long I’ve been doing career advising and mentoring,” Madison said.
JLI is a nonprofit aimed to “benefit students and teachers through thoughtful research, dynamic programming and useful tools,” according to its website.
Murrow, a chatbot designed to assist both student and professional journalists with news writing, was named after American journalist Edward R. Murrow. Madison said that all of the journalism-focused AI tools were named after “a diverse list of famous journalists.”
“(Sassy) is fun. It’s a Northwest icon. We had a graphic artist come up with this image that we called Sassy. And so we just basically took that name and applied it to the chatbot because we knew that it would be fun for kids,” Madison said.
According to Madison, the tool is geared at helping Oregon students who may not live in a large city like Eugene or Portland to explore their career options.
“(Sassy) allows a kid who might be growing up in Roseburg to explore any kind of career that they could be interested in, but the thing that’s unique about this tool that sets it apart from other AI tools, or ChatGPT, is that it’s been informed or programmed to reference Oregon resources,” Madison said.
Sassy is accessed through a web portal called Career Connect Oregon, which JLI is a partner of.
Damian Radcliffe, another SOJC professor, said an understanding of AI tools will be crucial for students entering the workforce.
“Students will need to graduate with a critical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these tools, and when and where to use them, as employers will increasingly expect this to be part of the skillset you graduate with,” Radcliffe said. “The key point here is that these tools should be used to enhance and augment critical thinking and creative work, not to replace it.”
Juliet Wallach, a UO senior and advertising major, said it was “cool” that AI was being used as a tool, despite concerns about it.
“We don’t know a lot about (AI), but I think professors and students should be willing to learn about it because I think it’s going to be brought up more and more in our lives and it will be super helpful in the future if we can figure out what it really does to enhance our learning and our work,” Wallach said.
