‘Make AI a Force That Is Uplifting for All,’ UMD Leaders Urge at Global Summit

The recent rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as a societal force is transforming higher education at the University of Maryland and beyond—and Terp scholars and scientists have a key role to play in shaping AI as a power for good.

Those were among the key points made by UMD President Darryll J. Pines and Professor Hal Daumé III, director of the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM), as they addressed a live and worldwide streaming audience of thousands on Tuesday at The Washington Post’s Global AI Summit.

UMD was the presenting sponsor for the event held at NASDAQ Headquarters in New York City; the summit is helping to kick off “AI at Maryland” month in October, during which UMD will highlight the university’s leadership in artificial intelligence and how it is altering sectors through research, education and service.

The event also included discussions with experts including Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund; James Manyika, Google senior vice president of research, labs, technology and society; the Rev. Paolo Benanti, AI consultant for the Vatican; and LinkedIn Cofounder Reid Hoffman.

Pines pointed out that while few in the audience had experienced modern generative AI like that found in ChatGPT and other platforms prior to November 2022, AI has since changed the University of Maryland fundamentally.

For example, AI raises important questions about ensuring technological equity across society. UMD has stepped up to address in various ways, including through the introduction of a free certificate program in AI offered by the Robert H. Smith School of Business that has drawn 30,000 registrations in four months.

“That's a service that we wanted to do and that Smith School of Business wanted to do for small business owners and other community members—to level the playing field so that everyone can learn about the tools of AI,” Pines said.

UMD is also reimagining new ways to help students succeed with this technology, including a virtual classroom assistant, he said. “I could be taking a class in calculus, and I have this tutor to monitor my pace, probe my knowledge and give me questions and make sure that I understand the material—even give me practice quizzes.”

On a larger scale, Daumé said, UMD has hundreds of AI-focused researchers who play a fundamental role in shaping how AI further impacts society.

UMD’s history as a leader in the field stretches back to the 1960s, when pioneering computer vision researchers established the Center for Automation Research. In the following decades, an influential natural language AI program arose that helped build the foundations of today’s powerful large language models and chatbots. Since then, Terp alumni—Pines noted UMD was recently ranked the No.1 producer of computer and information science bachelor’s degrees—have spread throughout the field to create broad impact.

The crowd chuckled when Daumé recalled that two early large language models LLMs developed by Terps were named “Bert” and “Elmo,” in a nod to famed UMD alum and Muppets creator Jim Henson ’60.

Today, the university’s researchers are exploring AI’s potential in health care, energy, finance and more, while also thinking about deeper issues.

“To me, the key question we face … is how to make AI a force that is uplifting for all of society and all people,” Daumé said. “If we're going to answer that question, we can't do it just from a technological perspective. The challenge is making sure that humanity is at the center of AI development--and that's something higher education is incredibly well poised for.”