Volodymyr Kindratenko
Talk: From Chatbots to Scientific Discovery with Large Language Models
Illinois Chat is a cutting-edge, open-source conversational AI platform developed by the Center for AI Innovation at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Designed as a free, campus-specific alternative to commercial AI chatbots, the platform was initially created to rapidly deploy course-specific AI teaching assistants and has since evolved to support a wide range of research-oriented applications. Leveraging state-of-the-art open-source large language models, Illinois Chat delivers accurate, context-aware assistance tailored to academic and research environments. Its core architecture is built on the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) framework, enhanced with capabilities for customized prompts and integration with external tools. This presentation will explore the platform’s architecture, extensibility, and key functionalities. It will highlight user-friendly tools that enable the creation of personalized chatbots through document uploads, website scraping, and integration with Canvas courses. Real-world examples from classroom instruction, research initiatives, and development projects will illustrate the platform’s versatility.
BIO:
Volodymyr Kindratenko is the Director for the Center for Artificial Intelligence Innovation (CAII) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Research Associate Professor in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. His research interests lie at the intersection of AI systems and applications, with a focus on generative AI solutions for science and education. His team is developing the chat.illinois.edu chatbot platform, which facilitates rapid knowledge distillation.