It’s registration time. Log on to CSUN’s Web site, select interesting classes and be amazed as a brand new computer program, artificial intelligence technology, suggests which academic majors should or should not be considered. A computer doubling as a student advisor is just one of the possibilities that may one day become reality through futuristic software currently being studied at CSUN.

CSUN’s artificial intelligence laboratory, located in the Department of Engineering and Computer Science, is responsible for upgrading the university’s computer technology with new advanced software. And with the assistance from a leading information solutions company called MindBox, a new artificial intelligence program, ARTEnterprise, was donated to the university.

The cutting-edge program is designed to help students and professors pursue the possibility of recreating human intelligence in computers.

“Artificial Intelligence is the next frontier in computer technology,” said lab director, Peter Gabrovsky. Artificial Intelligence is a program that simulates the human mind in computers, allowing them to think logically and intuitively, in order for them to make judgments and decisions.

“We are hoping to implement artificial intelligence to an online student advisor,” Gabrovsky said. “This kind of project can possibly be done with the new software,” Gabrovsky said, adding that the project is still on the table, and that he hopes to get more graduate students involved.

Gabrovsky also said that with the new software, students would take a new approach and interest when dealing with artificial intelligence technology.

“This new software gives students a hands-on approach to a product they could be using when they get into the workplace,” Gabrovsky said, citing companies like Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Countrywide and American Express as users of the ARTEnterprise software. He also said the new software would raise the awareness of CSUN’s Department of Engineering and Computer Science. “High school students can definitely consider coming to CSUN to further their computer technology education,” he said.

Will Lingamen, computer science major, said that he would greatly benefit using the MindBox software. “The contribution can open a lot of opportunities for me,” he said. Lingamen plans to work in the field of artificial intelligence. “It doesn’t get any better than having such an amazing program within reach,” he said.

CSUN is now the only campus in the California State University system to run the ARTEnterprise software in an artificial intelligence laboratory. “Not even the top schools have this software,” Gabrovsky said.

Chris Winner, director of Industry Solutions Group at MindBox, helped create the artificial intelligence laboratory in 2005 with a donation of software and computers. The artificial intelligence laboratory is run by graduate and undergraduate students who work with professors in replicating the complex human mind in computers.