The School of Arts and Sciences unveiled a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Initiative last month, which is set to launch this fall.
Political Science professor and member of the SAS AI Advisory Group John Lapinski will lead the project. The release read that the program is the “newest facet” of the school’s new framework, “SAS Horizons: Pathways for a Changing World,” which was announced in February.
The program emerged as the “reach of artificial intelligence expands into new fields in ways previously unimaginable,” according to the release.
In the release, Lapinski wrote that “there’s a seismic shift going on right now.”
“Cities and states are hiring AI leaders to figure out how to integrate the data world into the public sphere,” he wrote. “Most are essentially starting from scratch, trying to figure out as they go how to use AI responsibly.”
The Chief AI Officer role is one that’s emerging at city and state governments, the release read. Penn’s program is meant to “fill the current networking vacuum for state and local Chief AI Officers,” as well as “create experiential learning opportunities for Penn students.”
“Down the line, the plan is to broaden the work to help cities and states navigate AI use, and to foster expanded curricular opportunities for students in the College’s data science–related minors,” the release read.
Penn’s program is part of the AI & Data Across SAS initiative, one of four strategic themes launched alongside the school’s framework.
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To begin, the release detailed, Lapinski will build a team of Penn faculty to launch the initiative and its first annual meeting.
“The goal is to figure out how a Chief AI Officer in one place is dealing with a problem, so they can share that knowledge with others,” he wrote in the release.
He added that the team will collaborate with AI leaders in nearby governments, such as Philadelphia and Washington D.C. and including San Francisco and Seattle. These connections, the release read, will help “understand how the vast trove of faculty expertise” at SAS can “act as a concrete resource,” and “seek avenues for student involvement within those institutions.”
“We’ll try to understand the projects the Chief AI Officers are working on and the ways they’re incorporating AI into how they run and manage programs,” Lapinski wrote. “Then the questions become, how would they want to work with us? Would they want our help?”
Mark Trodden, SAS dean, wrote in the release that the Chief AI Officer Initiative will “foster collaboration with AI leaders at many levels of government and drive important conversations in this space.”
Lapinski also serves as the faculty director of the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program and Fels Institute of Government, as well as the director of the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies. In the release, he wrote that he had been “thinking about AI, machine learning, and large language models for a long time.”
