Chris Callison-Burch, a University of Pennsylvania professor and AI expert, has been working and researching in the field since the early 2000s.

As AI has continued its emergence and some are dreading its impact on society, Callison-Burch aims to quell the fears, writes Malcolm Burnley for Philadelphia Magazine.

“As the technology keeps advancing, I think we’re going to see both benefits and harms from him,” Callison-Burch said. “Some positive aspects are as tools for writing, answering your emails more effectively, summarizing large documents that you’re searching through, and physicians using AI-powered tools to help with their patient interactions.”

He added, “In the negative column are things like deepfakes and the potential for spreading misinformation, like the voice synthesis of Biden discouraging people from voting in one of the primaries.”

Throughout the evolution of artificial intelligence, a key measure has been how intelligent machines can be.

As the goalposts move as to what constitutes machine intelligence, Callison-Burch stresses that there is no guarantee that AI systems can possess all the attributes of human intelligence.

He, however, envisions the next frontier with AI may be machines that can perform moral reasoning. But if he had to pinpoint one fear, it would be the rapid displacement of work.

Read more about Chris Callison-Burch’s AI expertise at Philadelphia Magazine.

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