A notable takeaway focused on how a user’s language is phrased when asking AI to provide an answer. Known as prompts, a user interacts with AI via language. Precise vocabulary matters.  

“This hands-on introduction to how Extension professionals may start utilizing AI will pay efficiency dividends for many in the future,” said Erik Ervin, interim director of UD Cooperative Extension. As a professor, Ervin uses ChatGPT, a popular AI model, in his classroom to see how his students might be utilizing AI for classes and research. 

Ervin appreciated AI’s short and long-term potential for staff. “An immediate, big impact could be increased efficiency in updating factsheets or creating new ones,” he said. “Long term, I see AI being very useful for suggesting approaches to youth and adult hands-on learning exercises.”

The key to obtaining useful results is understanding that AI platforms continuously learn from human language and how results evolve accordingly.

Joe Naccarato, UD educational software developer, demonstrated how a request for “a low-sugar chocolate cake recipe” improved with careful wording. He said users should assign a persona to the AI model, such as a ‘registered dietician’ so that the recipes offered by AI reflect that particular expertise.  

“It is not like a Google search where you ask a question. You have to explain to it what you want,” Naccarato said. Assigning a persona helps AI models selectively sift through an overwhelming amount of data and information available on the Internet. 

Jevonia Harris, team lead of Educational Software Engineering in UD IT Academic Technology Services, exposed how prompts with coded words can expose biases from information that AI scours from the Internet. The sources AI uses can be indiscriminate – AI tools grab the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Harris focused on the concerns of information bias. “The more of an expert you are in a subject, the better you can use AI,” Harris said. “We need to be aware of where this information comes from.”

“The bias in the data is those keywords,” Harris explained. “You have to be very thoughtful, very intentional and very critical every time you prompt.” We have to have a discerning eye for coded words and how they will be translated.” 

Ethical hurdles and unknowns remain with AI: attribution of results, protection of intellectual property and copyright, and recognition of bias, as well as the significant energy and environmental footprint required to power AI.

The issue of authorship can have ramifications when submitting grants. Beth Twomey, head of research and engagement from UD Library, Museums and Press, offered her department as a source for grant writers before submitting proposals. In many cases, the use of AI is restricted.

“If you are working on grant proposals, especially involving the government, there are a lot of guidelines on using generative or AI intelligence in grant proposals. You don’t want to apply for a grant proposal and find out it was denied just because you used these tools,” Twomey said.

After the Friends of Extension presentation during lunch, Extension staff from Delaware State University, Gulni Ozbay, Rose Ogutu and Kwamie Matthews and graduate students shared some of their experiences working with technology in collaboration through their Center for Excellence for Emerging Technologies. Those technologies included drone surveillance and thermal imaging to detect health issues in small ruminants, climate-smart coastal farming and a robotic dog.

Friends of Extension Awards

In achieving its mission of Extending Knowledge and Changing Lives, Delaware Cooperative Extension works with individuals and organizations who help disseminate trustworthy, unbiased, university-researched information to the public. Each year at the conference, external partners are celebrated across program areas in agriculture, horticulture, health and wellbeing (formerly family consumer science) and 4-H youth development. 

The University of Delaware recognized:

• Delaware Sen. Gary Simpson (retired) for his lifelong support of the Delaware 4-H program

• Jack Layton, a certified Livable Lawn landscaping professional for sustainable landscape efforts 

• Midline Oware, program manager for Children & Families First, for her work partnership in Health and Well-Being programming in Seaford

• Michael Short, UD Class of 1982, is a freelance reporter for Lancaster Farming. He was honored for his coverage of many Extension programs 

   

Delaware State University honored:

• Jane Harris for her 20+ years of volunteer support with 4-H Youth programs

• Meredith Abbath for her key role in their Farm School and Incubator Farmer program.

• Marimba Ivery, for her partnering with Extension’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) to promote healthy lifestyles with local students 

Additional photos are available on the Extension Flickr site.