The AI Disruption Speaker Series: Rishi Bommasani

Rishi Bommasani is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), where he researches the societal and economic impact of AI. Rishi received his PhD from Stanford CS, advised by Percy Liang and Dan Jurafsky and supported by the Stanford Lieberman Fellowship and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. His research has won multiple paper awards and has been featured in Science, Nature, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He has led important industrial AI policy efforts such as the annual Foundation Model Transparency Index, the California Report on Frontier AI Policy, and the EU AI Act Code of Practice.

Abstract:
AI will better impact society if it is responsibly governed. In this talk, I will argue that designing wise policy for emerging technologies like AI hinges on building a strong bilateral relationship between AI researchers and AI policymakers. To that end, I will discuss a collection of efforts that have led to some of the key outcomes in global AI policy. I hope this talk will offer a fuller vision for how academic AI researchers can have large-scale impact to advance better societal outcomes.

About the speaker series:
The CIRSS Speaker Series continues in Fall on the new theme of “The AI Disruption.” Our speakers will discuss how recent advances in AI have reshaped their research — what has been made easier and what has become more difficult — and reflect upon its broader disruptive impact on society.

We meet most Wednesdays, 9am-10am Central time, in Zoom. Everyone is welcome to attend. More information, including upcoming speaker schedule and links to recordings, is available on the series webpage. For weekly updates on upcoming talks, subscribe to our CIRSS Seminars mailing list. Our Fall series is led by Yuanxi Fu and Timothy McPhillips, and supported by the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS) and the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.