A business school takes a multidisciplinary approach to teaching students about the critical role of ethics in the deployment of artificial intelligence.
San Francisco has a long history of discovery—from the Gold Rush to the tech revolution. The city also has a history of embracing people-centered social justice. It makes sense, then, that faculty at San Francisco State University (SFSU) would want to combine the two as we explore the implications of one of the next frontiers of discovery: artificial intelligence.
I have found that business schools largely discuss AI within other topic areas such as product development or marketing. It's rarer that they examine its implications in multidisciplinary discussions and curricula. To bring that multidisciplinary approach to this emerging technology, SFSU’s Lam Family College of Business, in collaboration with faculty from the computer science and philosophy departments, launched a graduate certificate program in ethical artificial intelligence (EAI) in the fall of 2019. Serving as a bridge between disciplines, the program brings together students and faculty from the university’s three colleges to form a set of common values around the use of AI in business contexts.