IT Matters: Generative AI
May 30, 2023
Focusing on generative AI uses, opportunities, challenges, and ethics, Kevin Boyd talked to faculty about how tools like ChatGPT and Bard for text, DALL-E and Nightcafe for graphics, and similar medical AI tools are rapidly evolving and improving.
The last year has seen enormous investment in generative artificial intelligence and explosive growth in capabilities, but it has also experienced calls for a pause on development and high-profile examples of how AI may radically change certain industries and disciplines. In this program, we asked the experts about how they believe their fields will be changed by AI and whether it will be for the better.
During the event, we spoke with UChicago faculty: Paula Clare Harper, Patrick Jagoda, and Samuel Volchenboum.
View the Generative AI recording (Panopto video)
About the Speakers
Paula Clare Harper
Paula Clare Harper is Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and The College. She is a musicologist who researches music, sound, and the internet. She is interested in putting digital ephemera and oddities into broader context, in hearing the musicality of online meme cultures, and in tracking music’s creation and circulation across digital platforms and communities.
Patrick Jagoda
Patrick Jagoda is Professor of English and Cinema and Media Studies, and an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. He specializes in media theory, game studies and design, science studies, and twentieth and twenty-first century American literature and culture. He is Executive Editor of Critical Inquiry, co-founder of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab and Transmedia Story Lab, and faculty director of the Weston Game Lab.
Samuel Volchenboum
Samuel Volchenboum is Associate Professor of Pediatrics; Associate Director, Institute for Translational Medicine; Associate Chief, Research Informatics Officer; and Dean of Master’s Education. His clinical specialty is pediatric hematology/oncology, caring for kids with cancer and diseases of the blood. Until 2019, Dr. Volchenboum directed the Center for Research Informatics, a 40-person group that supports biological research throughout the division. He oversaw high-performance computing, HIPAA-compliant storage and backup, application development to support clinical trials, development and maintenance of the clinical trials management system, the clinical research data warehouse, data analytics and visualization, and bioinformatics, including high-throughput genomic analyses and machine learning.