Inventions are made and robots are built in the Faculty of Science’ Makerspace. It also gave birth to the idea of creating a dedicated, secure AI environment. Pim LinnebankExternal link, coordinator and lecturer of the Makerspace, explains: ‘Via the UvA AI Chat you’ll go to the Makerspace bot. There, students can submit a prompt like “I want to use the 3D printer. What do I need to consider?”.’

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According to Linnebank, this bot saves a lot of time. A lot of information is being collected – and protected from the outside world. Students use it gladly and see its benefits. A student notes: ‘Honestly, I am a little worried because of all the data collection by all of those AI companies. But in the UvA environment our data is not being sold, nor used to train chatbots.’

Will artificial intelligence take over from individual studying? ‘No,’ says Pim Linnebank: ‘To many students it’s a very useful tool, but you won’t get far with just a chatbot. It won’t help you get a diploma.’