By Brian Amaral Globe Staff, Boston Globe
Drew Zhang, was recently appointed as the Alfred J. Verrecchia Endowed
Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytics at the University of Rhode
Island. He has a focus on artificial intelligence and business analytics, and a
history of working in AI in both academic and professional contexts.
Good thing or bad thing? “I really don’t know. If you look at the last 10 years,
who would have predicted we would be here? I think it’ll be a mixture of both.
Certainly it makes our life easier, makes our life richer in many ways — all kinds
of angles, (like) entertainment and self-driving cars. You can make clear
arguments about AI being good. But like any other technology, there are always
going to be side effects. The question is, how big are they?”
Stephen Atlas is a URI associate marketing professor who is integrating
language models — ChatGPT in particular — into the classroom, as a way to
prepare students and the future workforce. He’s used ChatGPT for letters of
recommendation, while disclosing it.
Good thing for a bad thing? “I think it’s like any technological shift. It comes
with a lot of changes. And I think like other technologies, it is going to result in
an overall increase in productivity and quality of life — across the board on
improvements in our next stage of civilization.”