Maxwell School News and Commentary

One safe bet is advanced manufacturing, where specialized roles still require human oversight despite growing automation on factory floors, says Baobao Zhang, Maxwell Dean Associate Professor of the Politics of AI. “They're not traditionally considered prestigious industries,” she says. “But it's these back-to-basics jobs that are harder to automate.”

$567,491 from the National Science Foundation will support groundbreaking work on how generative AI is reshaping productivity, satisfaction and skill development.

Baobao Zhang, Maxwell Dean Associate Professor of the Politics of AI, says that the administration may have been willing to give up on the moratorium in order to push through the rest of the bill by its self-imposed Independence Day deadline.

Maxwell School professor examines the philosophy and ethics of data science and artificial intelligence.

“Washington uses ‘chokepoints’ to restrict global access to AI development, but this approach may threaten U.S. national security while creating significant moral dilemmas,” says Johannes Himmelreich, associate professor of public administration and international affairs. 

“Military and surveillance tech aren’t bad or unethical as such. Instead, supporting national security and doing so in the right way is incredibly important. And supporting national security is, in fact, arguably the ethical thing to do," says Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs. 

“Some people compare AI to the atomic bomb. I don't think this is that kind of risk, but there are risks. There are concerns—ethical, economic, social and cultural—that have to be addressed before it's too late. And I think one of our best tools to do that is policy,” says University Professor Hamid Ekbia.

“All communities need to innovate responsibly. The review will give everyone a say,” says Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs. “I would not want such drones to fly under the radar of public input.”

“There’s no way for Elon Musk to be unbiased,” says University Professor Hamid Ekbia. “He will use his new-fangled role to insert xAI into a dominant position at the expense of competitors who have a history of divergent agendas and philosophies.” 

“If they had strictly stuck to doing technocratic policy and formulated this as a matter of bureaucratic procedure, avoiding terms to which the Republican administration is allergic, maybe that executive order could have stood a chance,” suggests Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs.