Smith Business magazine-summer24-paperturn - Flipbook - Page 25
CREATING A HUB
In April, the Smith School launched
of which was held in January 2024.
the Center for Arti昀椀cial Intelligence
Other community engagement
in Business to be the hub for AI
events are in the works, says
research and outreach, working in
Padmanabhan, such as AI programs
conjunction with the University of
for small businesses and for local
Maryland’s new Arti昀椀cial Intelligence
high school students.
Interdisciplinary Institute at
“In addition, the center wants to
Maryland. Padmanabhan leads the
launch some unique and high-impact
center, along with an advisory board
research projects,” Padmanabhan says.
of industry professionals and faculty
“This will bring people in different
members. The center’s mission is “to
departments and functional areas
facilitate the creation of amazing and
together at Smith and in collaboration
safe products and services through
with other schools and partners.”
intentional design and governance.”
To do this the new center will
This means helping businesses
tap into the school’s research and
create short- and long-term value, he
signi昀椀cant faculty expertise in arti昀椀cial
says, while being responsible stewards intelligence, analytics and data science,
of AI. Stewardship includes being
which spans multiple academic
proactive on issues such as ethics, bias, departments and centers of excellence.
and human and societal impact.
Nearly 30 faculty members across
It will be Smith’s arm to the
every discipline have research that
business and policy community
looks at AI in some way—either using
through industry-focused events,
or studying it.
including the annual AI Design and
The center will also explore
Governance Conference, the 昀椀rst
how humans 昀椀t in. Roland Rust,
Distinguished University Professor
and the David Bruce Smith Chair
in Marketing, wrote the book “The
Feeling Economy: How AI is Creating
an Era of Empathy,” with co-author
Ming-Hui Huang. He says workers
with intuition, empathy, creativity
and people skills will thrive.
“As AI is taking over more thinking
tasks, human workers are pushed more
into feeling tasks. That is currently
a differential advantage for humans,
although we have active, ongoing work
on ‘feeling AI,’ that can effectively
simulate human empathy,” says Rust.
Professors Wendy Moe, Liye
Ma, Kunpeng Zhang, and Wedad
Elmaghraby work closely with
companies such as Amazon, Deloitte
and Meta on AI-related initiatives
and translate those experiences
into the classroom. And professor
P.K. Kannan’s executive education
initiatives in AI are making inroads
with more companies.
The center also builds on Smith’s AI
Initiative for Capital Market Research.
Balaji Padmanabhan
summer 2024
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SMITH BUSINESS
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