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UNM professor joins $152 million project to build transparent AI models for science
Sarah Dreier, University of New Mexico assistant professor of political science, works at her desk on Tuesday. Dreier is one of five investigators on the Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science project.
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One of the biggest challenges with artificial intelligence today is the quality of data. Many models were trained on the internet, full of falsehoods and lies. This is particularly a problem in science, where clean data is paramount 鈥� the exact problem that Sarah Dreier, an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Mexico, is going to be working on.
Dreier is joining a team of researchers hoping to develop truly open AI models that will accelerate scientific discovery. The work is being done as part of the , or OMAI, project. While a 鈥渢ough task,鈥� the project鈥檚 objective aims to create 鈥渕ore transparent, more open and more flexible鈥� AI models, Dreier said.
鈥淭he engineers (who) are training these models, they don鈥檛 know what the data is,鈥� Dreier said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not reading unfathomably large amounts of text to feed into their model.鈥�
Led by the Allen Institute for AI, the $152 million project will create a fully open suite of advanced AI models designed to support the U.S. scientific community and the broader action plan set forth by the White House to ensure the country produces leading models that enhance its footing for global AI dominance. The U.S. National Science Foundation and Nvidia Corp. are funding the project with $75 million and $77 million, respectively.
The use of AI has gained widespread popularity in recent years, with companies such as OpenAI and Google touting hundreds of millions of monthly users, and with industries rapidly evolving thanks to the technology鈥檚 application in areas such as automation and product innovation.
While the multimillion-dollar project includes a group of computer science鈥揻ocused investigators, Dreier is the only social scientist involved. Using a $600,000 funding allocation, Dreier is aiding the lead investigator in the curation process by thinking 鈥渆xpansively鈥� about different kinds of data with which they can train their open models, specifically those relevant to tasks scientists would need the technology for, like analyzing research or generating code.
The OMAI project is led by Noah Smith, senior director of natural language processing research at the Allen Institute and professor of machine learning at the University of Washington.
鈥淭his funding will provide critical infrastructure 鈥� advanced computing systems, open-source models, and tools 鈥� that will enable researchers across partner universities, including the University of New Mexico, to accelerate breakthroughs in fields ranging from energy to biology,鈥� Smith wrote to the Journal.
Large language models are a category of learning tools trained on immense amounts of data, making them capable of understanding and generating natural language and performing a wide range of tasks.
Smith said many large language models are 鈥渃losed,鈥� meaning the data and tools used to train them are kept private. This then limits the technology鈥檚 outputs, which, he said, creates a real barrier for science as it restricts a user鈥檚 ability to inspect, adapt or build upon it.
鈥淥pen models are essential for transparency, reproducibility, and collaboration 鈥� the core of how scientific progress happens,鈥� Smith said.
Along with , other researchers working on the five-year project grant include UW computer science and engineering associate professor Hanna Hajishirzi; University of Hawai鈥檌 at Hilo computer science associate professor Travis Mandel; and University of New Hampshire computer science assistant professor Samuel Carton.
鈥淥bviously, as a social scientist, I鈥檓 going to be thinking most immediately (about) the kinds of data that could be useful to political scientists, sociologists 鈥� the kinds of data that we would, in theory, want our large language models to be trained on if we were going to rely on those models in order to help us with our scientific pipeline,鈥� Dreier said.
Dreier was a post-doctoral research fellow in Smith鈥檚 lab at UW before coming to UNM. Since leaving, she said the pair has continued working together, specifically on tasks related or similar to the OMAI project.
Smith said developing fully open AI models tackles two intertwined challenges: advancing the science of AI and applying the technology to accelerate discoveries in the broader fields of science and engineering. Overall, he said the Allen Institute aims to help those working in AI research to advance the field in a more 鈥渢ransparent and trustworthy鈥� direction.
鈥淥ur models will help scientists in other fields to be able to process and analyze vast amounts of research, generate code and visualizations, and connect new insights to past discoveries,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淚n practice, that means faster breakthroughs in areas like materials science, protein function prediction, and energy research.鈥�
