UAL Creative Computing Institute launches new online course in partnership with Google

UAL Creative Computing Institute collaborates with Google to launch new course in machine learning for next generation web development.

UAL Creative Computing Institute (CCI) has collaborated with Google to launch a new online course in machine learning for web development, using Google’s TensorFlow.js open source machine learning library.

The free online course was developed in collaboration with Google as a significant part of CCI’s new BSc and MSc courses in Data Science and AI. Students on these courses are among the first to have the opportunity to work with TensorFlow.js as part of their degree.

Working closely with key industry partners in course design enables CCI to realise its mission to develop the next generation of creative technologists with the skills to meet the needs of the future.

This approach is also a core element of CCI’s masters conversion programme in data science, which was designed in collaboration with the creative industries. MSc Data Science and AI for the Creative Industries equips arts and humanities graduates with applied computer science skills and data science training, developing technical proficiency within a creative industries context.

TensorFlow.js is an open source machine learning library - produced by Google - that enables users to create production-grade machine learning models that can run entirely client side in the web browser.

Delivered on the online MIMIC (Musically Intelligent Machines Interacting Creatively) platform, also developed in collaboration with Google, the course brings machine learning to the browser through interactive coding exercises, open to anyone anywhere in the world.

The course – designed for anyone with a basic working knowledge of JavaScript, HTML and CSS - to develop essential skills in the creative application of machine learning through a JavaScript specific lens, building hands-on experience working directly with the TensorFlow.js library.

MIMIC’s browser-based delivery offers a uniquely accessible and inclusive way of learning the essentials of coding, drawing on the full range of the TensorFlow.js library to explore a wide range of creative opportunities for machine learning.

By making skills in using new technologies widely available to a wide range of professionals from creative technologists and web developers to artists, the course aims to make a unique impact on the creative industries.

Mick Grierson, Professor of Creative Computing at UAL, says: "CCI are committed to working with partners like Google to make AI and machine learning education and research as accessible as possible. The world is an unequal place, and one of the dangers of AI is that it will simply reflect the world's inequalities, rather than help us challenge and overcome them. We need a greater diversity of voices, perspectives and approaches in order to meet these goals. Our platforms and research agenda are designed to help support this vision, and it's been great to move this forward in partnership with TensorFlow.js."

Jason Mayes, Web AI Lead at Google, says: "Web-based machine learning has been expanding exponentially in usage over the recent years due to its unique benefits of being able to run on device. This enables user privacy, lower latency for real time applications, and lower costs as no expensive hardware needs to be hired in the cloud and kept running 24/7. Now is the perfect time to upskill creative thought leaders of tomorrow with skills in artificial intelligence in the languages they use most. For almost 70% of developers, that language is JavaScript, not Python, so it is exciting to see UAL embrace TensorFlow.js in their teachings to students who are already using web technologies to bring their ideas to life, giving them one more tool in their toolbox of technologies they can put to good use in their future careers as we move to a world where AI is top of mind across industries."

About the MIMIC project

MIMIC (Musically Intelligent Machines Interacting Creatively) is a collaborative web platform for the artistic exploration of musical machine learning and machine listening, designed as an interactive online coding environment engineered to bring new technologies in AI and signal processing to artists, composers, musicians and performers all over the world.

The MIMIC machine-learning platform was created in 2019, also in collaboration with Google, as a £1 million project funded by UKRI/AHRC.