Artificial intelligence, or at least what we’re calling it, is everywhere in today’s world. Up until very recently, however, most of the software and services using AI haven’t gotten much public attention, and that’s because the primary users of AI historically have been governments, militaries, and giant corporations, all of which have one thing in common— huge amounts of data and huge responsibilities.

In November of last year, the AI industry leaped into the media spotlight with a launch of ChatGPT, a text-based large language model program that can rapidly generate massive quantities of text in the form of articles, stories, and even poetry in response to typed human input.

The attention has been massive. The launch of ChatGPT spurred an arms race in the small world of tech behemoth companies. Google, Amazon, and others have raced to get into the gold rush that Microsoft and its partners at OpenAI created with the launch of ChatGPT.

This is a world that is uncharted territory and there are a lot of implications to the future that seems to be rapidly escalating in a way that is entirely unplanned and certainly unregulated. Now, what does that mean for the future? What does that mean for business? What does that mean for academics?

What does it mean for society at large? There’s a lot to talk about here, and we’re bringing in two panelists to discuss. Gary N. Smith is a professor of economics at Pomona College. Jeff Schatten is an associate professor of business at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.

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