AI is everywhere. As a business tool, it has gone from 0 to 60 in three short years of public release. While faculty are embracing it in teaching and research (see related article in this edition), students are also using it, and not just to help write papers. As a business tool, it has gone from 0 to 60 in three short years of public release. While faculty are embracing it in teaching and research (see related article in this edition), students are also using it, and not just to help write papers.
Senior Jake Potter is a perfect example. The General Business major from Amarillo recently created a custom GPT called Project Control Pro in his BUSI 3301 Business Professional and Leadership Development class, a new course designed to expose Business students to a wide variety of faculty guest speakers who introduce special topics and challenges.
One such challenge was to create their own GPT tool that could have a useful application. The course is taught by Dr. Robert King, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, and featured guest speakers from across the business disciplines. The custom GPT project was assigned by Dr. Sean Humpherys, Associate & Pickens Professor of Computer Information Systems.
Porter then set about putting Chat GPT on the task, first by uploading articles and other documentation to his private account, and then instructing the AI agent to create a tool that could be used in Project Management applications.
“I had an idea of the framework I wanted, but first I told ChatGPT to create instructions for how to create a custom GPT,” he says. Then he uploaded a variety of previous documents and spreadsheets he had created before, specifically for the oil and gas industry, so that his customer GPT would have a knowledge base. He also included PDFs from the Department of Energy, specifically because they require the same standards in everything they do, and have a publicly available rule book.
He made a custom domain on his computer, and introduced a large language model (LLM) called Ollama that is on its own server, and N8N, an AI workflow automation tool. Outputs included Word docs, spreadsheets, and more, each stored in dedicated folders for easy access.
His primary motivation was to test the abilities and limits of AI. “I am very interested in AI automation; it is inevitable. People who use AI are going to replace people who do not use AI,” he adds. “I think people do not utilize it enough.”
He recognizes how far AI has come in a few short years, starting first with roughly the knowledge of a five year-old kid. “Now it has the ability to be integrated into every single aspect of your life,” he says.
Porter plans to enter project controls upon graduation, and because of this project, will take with him skills that could immediately put to use building new custom GPTs. He is also considering developing courses in which he would teach others how to do what he has done.
For the future, Porter has stern advice. “You’re going to have to be AI-fluent. You will have to know how to prompt engineer. You will have to understand what AI can and cannot do. And you will have to know how to read the AI output.”
There is no doubt that Porter can check each of these boxes, thanks to an assignment in one course, along with a lot of motivation and drive.