Azer Bestavros Named Kleh Foundation Distinguished Lecturer
The disruption caused by Generative AI is unlike past technological disruptions primarily due to its transformative impact across various domains and the unprecedented human-like abilities it projects. AI is not limited to a specific industry or sector; it has the potential to reshape nearly every aspect of human life. AI models can compose music, write articles, discover new materials, create art, and even engage in natural language conversations with remarkable fluency — and, it is getting better by the day. This level of creative and cognitive capacity is unprecedented and blurs the line between humans and machines, paving the way for a future in which humans and generative AI become co-creators combining human creativity, empathy, and cultural norms with AI’s computational prowess that allow it to assimilate centuries of human knowledge. This future challenges traditional notions of work, creativity, and intellectual property, with far-reaching implications for industries, professions, and society as a whole. Moreover, the rapid pace of AI advancement means that the resulting disruption will continue to be swift and harder to predict, leading to profound societal impacts and changes in workforce dynamics, and necessitating new forms of education and regulation.
In this talk, Professor Bestavros will demystify Generative AI, exemplify its incredible potential in a variety of domains, discuss some of the ethical and legal dilemmas it introduces, and highlight the various ways in which BU is approaching the opportunities and challenges that AI presents to education and research in academia, as well as the role that the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences is playing in that regard.