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Penn State Altoona will hold the Metabytes AI Lab series from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. on Thursdays, from Oct. 1 through Nov. 19, in room 202 of the Eiche Library.Now in its second year, the series is an open laboratory for students, faculty and staff to engage in hands-on work with artificial intelligence.
Each session centers on a hands-on experiment: testing a course assignment, examining where a system fails in a particular discipline, comparing human and machine interpretations or asking what it means to call a piece of writing someone's own.
Metabytes is convened by John Eicher, associate professor of history. Eicher is one of 16 faculty selected from across the University as a 2026-27 AI-aware faculty leader, a program sponsored by Penn State's AI Center of Excellence for Teaching and Learning and the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence.
“A lot of conversations about AI on campus are conversations about students rather than with them,” Eicher says. “Putting a nursing instructor and an engineering major on the same task, in the same room, seems worth trying. Students are often more fluent with these systems and less able to say what's wrong with the output. Faculty can usually say what's wrong and are less fluent. Each has half of what's needed.”
Eicher adds that the lab is not an endorsement. “We show these systems failing every week. Skeptics are welcome, and they're often right. The important question isn't if we will use this technology but instead what kind of judgment it demands from us, and whether we're teaching and learning that.”
All materials are supplied, no preparation or prior experience is required and participants may attend any session without having attended the others. Participants are welcome to bring lunch.
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202 Eiche Library, Penn State Altoona, 3032 Ivyside Park, Altoona, PA 16601-3760, United States
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