More than 100 American universities now offer a bachelor's degree in artificial intelligence, almost twice as many as a year ago

In Massachusetts, Bentley, MIT, WPI or Northeastern are multiplying undergraduate AI courses with different approaches and concerns.

According to Northeastern's Center for Inclusive Computing, more than 100 U.S. institutions now offer an AI major in their computer science department, nearly double the number from last year. WBUR radio has toured campuses in Massachusetts: at Bentley University, the course launched in the fall of 2024 with a handful of students has nearly 100 this fall; at MIT, the "AI and Decision Making" major, opened in 2022, has 354 students and ranks second on campus in popularity.

The programs combine programming, machine learning, data science, mathematics, language processing and sometimes philosophy. WPI, which welcomes its first students this fall, requires an ethics course, as do more than a third of the 66 institutions studied. Suffolk University and Endicott College will open their own courses next year.

Designing AI or knowing how to use it

The managers interviewed are not all aiming for the same thing: MIT and Northeastern want to train those who will build and modify the systems, WPI insists on discernment about when AI is reliable, while a Georgetown researcher argues for spreading AI in all disciplines rather than isolating it in one field. In the background, students' anxiety in the face of a disrupted job market and the shortage of qualified profiles denounced by employers.