Maxwell School News and Commentary

“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.

“The global regulation of AI will suffer as a consequence [of new controls], despite the circumstances that call for more global cooperation,” says University Professor Hamid Ekbia. “The political and geopolitical ramifications of this can be huge, enabling more authoritarian and oppressive uses of AI across the globe.”

University Professor Hamid R. Ekbia attended the NASPAA conference in Washington, D.C., and led a workshop and panel discussion on AI policy at SEICon in New York City.   

Waymo, the autonomous driving technology company, showcased one of its all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles equipped with the Waymo Driver—the company's automated driving system. 

“Machine Learning (ML) Platforms Can Contradict Dairy Scientists and Feed Firm Websites Regarding Dairy Cattle Performance from Feeding Seaweed Supplements,” co-authored by Professor of Sociology Rick Welsh, was published in Choices.

Professor of Geography and the Environment Farhana Sultana, concerned about how her work may be repurposed, says, “All this occurs while our intellectual property is woefully inadequately compensated, since there is abuse and profit off our mostly free intellectual labor by private corporations reaping profits in the billions of dollars annually from the sale of our books.”

“Immigrants, notably those from the Chinese community, have been instrumental in driving innovation in AI and America’s broader high-tech industry, which suffers from a domestic ‘talent crisis.’ Addressing this challenge demands more favorable immigration policies...and a reduction in the hostility faced by Chinese scientists,” writes Yingyi Ma, professor of sociology.