DULUTH, Minn. (Northern News Now) – A panel gathered at UMD’s Weber Music Hall Friday to discuss the future of higher education.

The conversation touched on heavy topics like artificial intelligence, rising tuition costs, and how to provide the best education possible for students.

Almost 100 people listened to conversations on the current climate of college campuses, including UMD Associate Dean of the Swenson College of Engineering and Science Erin Sheets.

“We’re in a unique and challenging time, with respect to the federal landscape and state landscape,” said Sheets.

The three panelists addressed current national changes, including rising tuition costs and budget cuts.

“That is going to be a structural shift we really are going to have to pay attention to, if we want to continue to commit for all students to have the opportunity to attend college,” said panelist and Managing Director of Waverly Foundation Lande Ajose.

Last year alone, the University of Minnesota system was hit with a 3% budget cut on top of a loss of $22 million in federal grants. This resulted in a 6.5% tuition increase for students.

Even with changing resources, the panel emphasized helping students prepare for the future, which they said includes the integration of AI.

“As students graduate, if they are not AI fluent, they are not competitive for jobs,” said panelist and University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham.

Research shows that the use of AI in the workplace has doubled in the last two years to 40%.

While AI continues to grow every day, both students and faculty are learning to use it and integrate it into their curriculum.

“These are tools, they are not a substitute for a human being. You still need the critical thinking, you need the ethical guidelines, even more so,” said Sheets.

Following the panel, UMD hosted a campus-wide celebration to mark the inauguration of Chancellor Charles Nies.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – While artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming our world, a troubling trend shows scammers using it to steal from seniors, specifically grandparents.

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘seeing is believing’ your whole life. But in an age of artificial intelligence, the turn of phrase doesn’t exactly stand the test of time. When it’s in the wrong hands, this new technology can make our senior citizens, who didn’t grow up in the digital age, a vulnerable population.

“One of the ways we see that being done is with what’s known as the grandparent scam,” Jamie Harding, AARP of Alabama Communications director, said. “The grandparent scam is basically, it usually happens late at night, they’re asleep, and someone calls them purporting to be their grandchild, they’re in trouble, they need money immediately.”

However, it isn’t actually their grandchild on the other end of the phone. Scammers have used AI technology to replicate the sound of their grandchild’s voice to try to take money.

“These are very sophisticated international crime rings, and they have access to a lot of very sophisticated technology,” Harding said.

To protect your family from these scams, Harding suggests having a code word that every member of your family knows so you can be sure it’s actually your loved one calling.

She also advises you not to answer phone calls from unknown numbers and to keep your personal information off the internet.

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AUSTIN, Texas — In the brave new world of artificial intelligence, talent is the new gold, and companies are in a frantic race to find it. While universities work to churn out computer science graduates, a new kind of school has emerged in Austin to meet the insatiable demand: Gauntlet AI.

Gauntlet AI bills itself as an elite training program. It’s a high-stakes, high-reward process designed to forge “AI-first” engineers and builders in a matter of weeks.

“We’re closer to Navy SEAL bootcamp training than a school,” said Ash Tilawat, Head of Product and Learning. “We take the smartest people in the world. We bring them into the same place for a 1000 hours over ten weeks and we make them go all in with building with AI.”

Austen Allred, the co-founder and CEO of Gauntlet AI, says when they claim to be looking for the smartest engineers in the world, it’s no exaggeration. The selection process is intensely rigorous.

“We accept around 2 percent of the applicants,” Allred explained. “We accept 98th percentile and above of raw intelligence, 95th percentile of coding ability, and then you start on The Gauntlet.”

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The price of admission isn’t paid in dollars—there are no tuition fees. Instead, the cost is a student’s absolute, undivided attention.

“It is pretty grueling, but it’s invigorating and I love doing this,” said Nataly Smith, one of the “Gauntlet Challengers.”

Smith, whose passions lie in biotech and space, recently channeled her love for bioscience to complete one of the program’s challenges. Her team was tasked with building a project called “Geno.”

“It’s a tool where a person can upload their genomic data and get a statistical analysis of how likely they are to have different kinds of cancers,” Smith described.

Incredibly, her team built the AI-powered tool in just one week.

The ultimate prize waiting at the end of the grueling 10-week gauntlet is a guaranteed job offer with a starting salary of at least $200,000 a year. And hiring partners are already lining up to recruit challengers like Nataly.

“We very intentionally chose to partner with everything from seed-stage startups all the way to publicly traded companies,” said Brett Johnson, Gauntlet’s COO. “So Carvana is a hiring partner. Here in Austin, we have folks like Function Health. We have the Trilogy organization; we have Capital Factory just around the corner. We’re big into the Austin tech community and looking to double down on that.”

In a world desperate for skilled engineers, Gauntlet AI isn’t just training people; it’s manufacturing the very talent pipeline it believes will power the next wave of technological innovation.