Software Engineering and AI

LLMs took many disciplines by surprise, since 2022 there has been an explosion of models, almost following Moore’s law for transistors. These models grew from being a handful to several thousands in no time. Many of these models, ChatGPT and Claude Sonnet included, have the capability of producing code, interacting with code and reason about code.

The practice of building systems, including systems that include AI components, is therefore facing the challenge of introducing new tools, new methodologies even new architectures in the practice of software engineering, almost on daily basis. Some clarity on the process a software engineer could follow is needed, from a pedagogical perspective, also, in principles to be effective at using these tools in the most appropriate way, to save time, but also to prevent potentially harmful mistakes that would present only at the very deployment of the system in a production environment.

This course builds, or “compiles”, therefore AI into the existing practices of software engineering from a general modelling perspective when building a new system without AI, but using AI tools to build it, and from an architectural perspective, when the AI component is included in the system as a source of information for the functioning of the system. The emphasis in this course is put on practical, industrial aspects concerning the deployment of AI models, including ethical, qualitative and maintenance issues associated with machine learning in production and potentially interacting wit humans.

Leerdoelen
O1: Understand the intersection between data science, machine learning and software engineering and how to make these disciplines work together to deploy software solutions
O2: Use AI Tools to Enhance Software Development software engineering workflows, focusing on improving efficiency and minimizing errors.
O3: Acquire knowledge about prompt engineering and using large language models in software engineering practices.
O4: Understand design patterns when combined with advanced AI models such as LLMs and object detectors and information retrieval engines.
O5: Learn about current law and ethical standards that Software products must comply to.