Guiding AI with values that protect us all
At the Center on Responsible AI and Governance, Dennis Hirsch leads efforts to shape research and talent for a safer future.
Professor Dennis Hirsch has a conversation with law students. (Photo by Robb McCormick Photography)
Ohio State researchers aren’t only using AI to reimagine their fields. They’re also wrestling with big ethical questions surrounding the technology. “It’s only by using and developing AI in a socially acceptable way that we will achieve its tremendous promise,” says Dennis Hirsch, a professor of law and computer science.
Hirsch is director and principal investigator of the new Center on Responsible AI and Governance (CRAIG) at Ohio State. The center conducts research on safe, accurate, impartial and accountable AI, and develops the workforce for responsible AI jobs of the future.
Funded with $1.47 million from the National Science Foundation—and established in partnership with Baylor, Northeastern and Rutgers universities (Ohio State is the lead site)—CRAIG brings together academic, industry and government leaders to produce the research and workforce needed to build a responsible AI future. “We have to be thinking about training the next-generation workforce—not just the lawyers, but across the university—while we’re pursuing this research,” says Ohio State’s Srinivasan Parthasarathy, CRAIG co-investigator and a professor of computer science and engineering.
Industry members include Nationwide, Cisco, Honda, Ford, Meta, Cardinal Health, Merck, Worthington Steel and Bread Financial. This industry participation is crucial, says Hirsch, who has researched AI law, policy and governance for more than a decade. “Industry knows the rapidly-changing technology and the AI governance challenges and, ultimately, will be the ones to implement our research. Their involvement makes the research more effective and impactful,” Hirsch says.
Hirsch began his teaching career in environmental law and sees parallels to emerging AI law and governance. “Just as the smokestack economy generated pollution, so the information and AI economies create privacy, fairness and other injuries. We can take lessons from the history of environmental law and management to help us meet the challenges of the information age—protecting privacy and preventing consumer exploitation—without crushing innovation.”
One lesson is that society will not tolerate irresponsible behavior for long. “We need to develop AI in ways that enable us to flourish,” Hirsch says. “Responsible AI is successful AI.”
