5 Truths Every Young Professional Needs to Know About AI

The challenge for young people just entering the workforce is twofold: master the technical skills related to AI while navigating uncertainty around career growth. In a new Forbes article, Chris Callison-Burch notes that AI is expanding access to powerful tools, giving young professionals new ways to build and define their careers.

• Computer and Information Science

Why AI Acts So Creepy When Faced With Being Shut Down

“When [an AI] model is set up with an opportunity to fail and you see it fail, that’s super useful information,” said Robert Ghrist to Business Insider. “That means we can predict what it’s going to do in other, more open circumstances.”

• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Mathematics

What Is an NPU? A Penn Expert Explains

In a Penn Today Q&A, Benjamin C. Lee explains what neural processing units are and why they’re showing up in newer consumer electronics like high-end smartphones and laptops. NPUs, he says, are the “frontier” for today’s processor designers.

• Computer and Information Science
• Electrical and Systems Engineering

Training Tomorrow’s Data Scientists

This year, as part of its new AI x Science initiative, the Data Driven Discovery Initiative has expanded its four-year-old postdoctoral fellow program to include researchers from Penn Engineering and Penn Medicine using cutting-edge techniques in data science and artificial intelligence.

• Computer and Information Science
• Criminology
• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Physics and Astronomy
• Radiology

Microelectronics and Entrepreneurship with Kurt Petersen

In the latest episode of Penn Engineering’s Innovation & Impact podcast, Vijay Kumar sat down with one of the most influential figures in modern engineering, Kurt Petersen, widely recognized as the father of microelectromechanical systems.

• Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

Penn Students Innovate in the Time of AI

Academic year 2024-25 was a milestone for artificial intelligence at Penn: It saw the introduction of the Penn AI Council, the launch of the Penn AI Initiative, the opening of Amy Gutmann Hall as a space for campus-wide data science and AI collaboration, and the first AI Month at Penn.

AI Month 2025 Wrap Up

AI Month 2025 at Penn Engineering featured standout events with Yann LeCun and Bill Dally, plus panels and talks on AI and human well-being. Thanks to all the speakers, partners and attendees who made it such a meaningful month!

How Penn is reimagining research in the age of artificial intelligence

Bhuvnesh Jain and René Vidal have teamed up to create the AI x Science Fellowship, which builds on the thriving postdoctoral program of the Data Driven Discovery Initiative to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration among researchers across the University.

• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Physics and Astronomy
• Radiology

Can We Still Detect AI-Generated Content?

As models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini blur the line between machine and human authorship, a team of researchers including Weijie Su has developed a new statistical framework to test and improve the “watermarking” methods used to spot machine-made text.

• Computer and Information Science
• Statistics

Rob Ghrist: The Soul of an Artist, the Mind of a Mathematician

Robert Ghrist embraces innovation to enrich each of his roles: artist, author, engineer, mathematician, and mentor. Penn Today met with Ghrist and some of his many mentees, both former and current, to talk about math. “Rob has an extraordinary gift for making the abstract not just accessible, but exhilarating," said Tony Pantev.

• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Mathematics