Kate Archer Kent: How do you plan for this college to interact with the rest of the university?
Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau: There’s a research side of that, and there’s an educational side of that. The research side is through partnerships. For example, we’re about to launch a new interaction on health and AI and the future of research and education, in that space between us and the School of Medicine and Public Health. That’s such a great example of the type of possibilities that are there because so much is changing about what it means to be a person working in health tech. What does it mean to be an MD in the future? How much do you have to know about the world of AI to be a successful doctor in the future? We’re going to address that directly.
It also has an educational bent. We’re hoping that, as we develop new classes, we think about not just classes for our students … but we also hope to be in partnership with all other colleges as a center point for education in what students need to know today that’s going to help them when they leave here to enter the workforce. That’ll probably start with a class or two and eventually be a certificate. I’m hoping we can do a lot of dual majors and dual degrees across all the other colleges, and I think we’ll be really well-positioned to do that.
KAK: What is your approach to teaching ethical issues in AI?
RAD: (This is) exactly why a university has to have a strong unit that is at the center of this world. The world is changing and a lot of it seems … like the industry is shaping this. Where’s the voice of something other than the tech industry? I think a university can be a lead in that.
I’m a computer systems expert, so my expertise is not in ethics, and there’s people in our college that have that expertise. And of course, we’ll be working with others on campus that have expertise, (like) the Department of Philosophy. There’s a lot of places where we’ll work together to think about what kind of ethical training students should have here.
It’s one thing to have a class, and it’s quite another thing to make the hard decisions when you’re faced with an ethical conundrum in the real world. So what we can hope to do here is expose students to these ideas and thoughts in class — and as much as we can in real-world situations. Like much of campus, we’ll be doing more experiential learning, where you work in more industry settings, so you see real problems. Hopefully we can give students enough courage of their own conviction, so when they leave here and they’re faced with a tough ethical choice, that they can know what the right thing to do is.