In late 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot capable of generating conversational responses and analytics, as well as images, in response to user questions and prompts. This generative AI was built using computational procedures, such as large language models, that train on large corpora of human-created and curated data, including scientific literature. Since then, fears that AI could one day outsmart humans have spread.
In a new collection of essays, leading experts provide a historical perspective and ethical approach to emerging AI technologies; an overview of AI frameworks and principles; and an assessment of current AI advances, obstacles, and potential.
Realizing the Promises and Minimizing the Perils of AI for Science and the Scientific Community (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) contains contributions from experts in behavioral and social sciences, ethics, biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science, as well as leaders in higher education, law , governance, as well as scientific publishing and communication. Their essays remind us that even as our understanding of emerging technologies and their implications evolves, science’s commitment to fundamental norms and values must remain firm. The volume’s conclusion advocates following principles of human accountability when using artificial intelligence in research, including transparent disclosure and attribution; verification and documentation of AI-generated data and analytics; a focus on ethics and fairness; and continued monitoring and public engagement.
The editors
The essays in the volume are drawn from retreats hosted in 2023-2024 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Its editors are:
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
William Kearney is executive director of the Office of Public Information and Information and editor-in-chief of the Science and Technology Issues of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC.
Anne-Marie Mazza is senior director of the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law and senior advisor to the Division of Policy and Global Affairs at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C.
Challenges of the AI era
In the book’s final chapter, “Safeguarding the Norms and Values of Science in the Age of Generative AI,” Jamieson and National Academy of Sciences President Marcia K. McNutt call on the scientific community to ensure that the standards of science, including accountability and the transparency that makes replicability possible, are honored in the development of AI. They argue that AI poses particular challenges to these standards due to complications such as “the transformations it portends, the pace at which its capabilities evolve, and the opacity of its systems.” For example, they note that most data-intensive AI applications are “essentially opaque, black-box systems, making it difficult to determine accountability.”
“…Governments around the world have instituted structures to monitor and oversee the development of generative AI,” McNutt and Jamieson write. “It is both appropriate and necessary that the scientific community and the disciplines within it do the same. »
Contributors
The contributing authors are:
- Marc Aidinoff, assistant professor of history of technology, Harvard University
- David Baltimore, professor emeritus of biology, Caltech
- Wolfgang Blau, Managing Partner, Global Climate Hub Brunswick Group
- Vinton Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
- Juan Enriquez, Managing Director, Excel Venture Management
- Joseph Francisco, President’s Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Professor of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania
- Urs Gasser, late professor of public policy, governance and innovative technology, TUM School of Social and Technological Sciences at the Technical University of Munich
- Mary L. Gray, Senior Principal Investigator at Microsoft Research, Associate Professor at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University
- Mark Greaves, Executive Director, AI20250, Schmidt Futures
- Barbara Grosz, Higgins Research Professor of Natural Sciences, Harvard SEAS
- Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Program Director, The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands; director, Annenberg Public Policy Center; Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
- Gérald Haug, president Leopoldina
- John Hennessy, president emeritus of Stanford University and chairman of Alphabet Inc.
- Eric Horvitz, Chief Scientific Officer, Microsoft
- David Kaiser, Germeshausen Professor of History of Science and Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Jared Katzman, Ph.D. Student, University of Michigan
- William Kearney, Executive Director, Office of Public Information and Information, National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
- Alex John London, K&L Gates Professor of Ethics and Computer Technology and Director of the Center for Ethics and Policy, Carnegie Mellon University; Chief Ethicist at the Block Center for Technology and Society, Carnegie Mellon University
- Robin Lovell-Badge, Senior Group Leader and Head of the Stem Cell Biology and Developmental Genetics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute
- Anne-Marie Mazza, Senior Director, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
- Marcia McNutt, President, National Academy of Sciences
- Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary Professor, Harvard University
- Tom Mitchell, founding university professor at Carnegie Mellon University
- Susan Ness, former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission
- Shobita Parthasarathy, professor of public policy and women’s and gender studies and co-founder and director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program, University of Michigan
- Saul Perlmutter, Franklin W. and Karen Weber Dabby Professor, University of California at Berkeley
- William H. Press, Leslie Surginer Professor of Computer Science and Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin
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Realizing the Promises and Minimizing the Perils of AI for Science and the Scientific Community
University of Pennsylvania Press | November 2024
Paperback: $34.95 | ISBN978-1-5128-2748-4
eBook: Free download | ISBN978-1-5128-2747-7
Read about this book at Penn Press.
Read and download the free eBook edition on this link.
THE Annenberg Public Policy Center from the University of Pennsylvania was established in 1993 to educate the public and policy makers about the role of communication in advancing public understanding of policy, science, and health issues at the local, state, and federal levels.
THE National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.
THE Annenberg Trust Foundation at Sunnylands hosts high-level conferences, seminars and retreats on issues of global importance. The Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California, was the winter home of the late Ambassadors Walter and Leonore Annenberg, who hosted presidents, royalty, international political figures, and cultural and entertainment icons at their home .