Why I Created the National AI Equity Lab

Actual intelligence is grounded in people reading, writing, creating, synthesizing, learning, and thinking critically while sharing knowledge person to person. Civic responsibility includes ensuring AI proliferation does not worsen existing inequities within and between groups. New, more catastrophic disparities can emerge without equity-minded practices, partnerships, and policies governing AI development and use. Philanthropic support is being sought to launch the National AI Equity Lab, housed in a center founded at the University of Pennsylvania and relocated to the University of Southern California in 2017. The lab’s agenda is informed by work with more than 400 educational institutions and businesses, including major technology companies. Early experiences with the digital divide show how technologically disadvantaged HBCUs were compared with other campuses.

"I will always be a staunch proponent of actual intelligence-humans reading, writing, creating, synthesizing, learning, thinking critically for ourselves and sharing knowledge person to person. Notwithstanding, I see it as my civic duty to ensure that the proliferation of artificial intelligence does not further exacerbate existing inequities within and between groups of people in our society. I also recognize that new, potentially more catastrophic disparities will rapidly emerge in the absence of substantive equity-minded practices, partnerships and policies governing AI development and use."

"This week, I began seeking philanthropic support to launch the National AI Equity Lab. It will be housed in the center that I founded 15 years ago at the University of Pennsylvania and that relocated with me to the University of Southern California in 2017. My work with more than 400 educational institutions and businesses-including big tech companies (Google, Microsoft, SAS, Zoom and Sify, to name a few)-informs the lab's agenda."

"I remember my first encounter with the digital divide. I was a student at Albany State, a public historically Black university in Georgia. In 1997, the summer before my senior year, 11 other HBCU undergraduates and I were selected to participate in a graduate school preparation program at Columbia University. Access to the internet, including email, was so new, limited and unreliable on our campuses. When we got to the Ivy League university, it was instantly apparent to us just how technologically disadvantaged our HBCUs were."

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