Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science announced its membership in an international alliance to support the safe, responsible innovation of artificial intelligence.
The AI Alliance is a community of researchers, companies, universities, and other institutions working to address safety concerns as AI technology advances. As a new member, Penn Engineering will participate in two groups related to AI safety and policy advocacy, according to the announcement on Feb. 8.
Founded in December 2023, the AI Alliance is comprised of a network of organizations that specialize in AI education, development, and governance. Member-driven working groups focus on developing initiatives promoting the responsible deployment of AI to help combat society-wide challenges. The organization has partnered with creators of popular open AI models such as LLama2, StarCoder, and Bloom to encourage further development and exploratory research of global AI programs.
The two working groups involving the Engineering School — AI Safety and Trust Tooling and AI Policy Advocacy — will employ policy experts and industry leaders to help them address challenges associated with responsible AI development and deployment.
More than 20 new members recently joined the alliance alongside the Engineering School, including Anaconda, Uber, and Northeastern University. Other members include Intel, the University of Tokyo, and IBM.
Zisman Family Professor in Computer and Information Science Rajeev Alur said in the announcement that the alliance's mission aligns with the work of the Engineering School's newly established ASSET, or AI-Enabled Systems: Safe, Explainable, and Trustworthy, Center, for which he is the founding director. The initiative focuses on creating AI-based systems that will allow developers to produce a reliable product and correspondingly increase user trust.
“Due to the proliferation of media stories about vulnerabilities and potential harm of AI, bridging the trust gap between developers of AI technology and skeptical users is critical to realize the promise of AI,” Alur said.
The membership follows Penn’s release of updated guidelines last November outlining the proper use of AI in classrooms. The public statement marked the first University-wide policy for AI programs on campus and encouraged students to remain cognizant of privacy protection and academic integrity when using generative AI for their assignments.
The Engineering School’s membership in Alliance AI is a continuation of the University's efforts to promote AI’s potential across various domains. Established last November, the Penn Research in Embedded Computing and Integrated Systems in Engineering Center began studying how AI could help improve the accuracy of current diagnostic and clinical practices in the healthcare industry. Penn Engineering also offers a variety of courses centered around AI development, such as computational learning theory, GPU Programming and Architecture, and Integrated Intelligence for Robotics.
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