Iowa State’s liberal arts program wants to advance ‘trustworthy AI’

The liberal arts program at Iowa State University is heading a new initiative called Trusted Innovation in AI, the university announced Tuesday.

According to the school, the initiative is an attempt to advance the university’s use of artificial intelligence, while ensuring that AI is also trustworthy, ethical and used across disciplines.

Benjamin Withers, dean of the Liberal Arts and Sciences school, said in the university announcement that “they build from a perspective that the challenge of generative AI is not solely technical — it is fundamentally human. “Our strengths across the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, and natural sciences allow us to examine AI through the lenses of ethics, communication, policy, human behavior, and scientific rigor simultaneously. By bringing these disciplines together, we can help ensure that AI systems are not only innovative, but transparent, accountable, and worthy of public trust.”

The university said one of the challenges it is attempting to address is the prevalence of AI hallucinations. Another is tracing the work of AI models used to arrive at a particular answer. The school is apparently also concerned about the environmental effects of AI data centers.

“We see this as a seed to produce something bigger,” said Gustavo MacIntosh, the school’s associate dean for research and graduate education. “We are bringing them together, helping them connect, and providing some support for leadership.”