Is Imperial AI Inevitable?

On the latest episode of his podcast, Kevin Werbach interviewed journalist and author Karen Hao about her new book, which chronicles the rise of OpenAI and the broader implications of generative artificial intelligence.

• Legal Studies & Business Ethics

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!

What behavioral strategies motivate environmental action?

Drawing on research in psychology, neuroscience, communication, and environmental science, an interdisciplinary team from Penn, including Emily Falk, ran an “intervention tournament” to test 17 strategies for motivating people to act on climate change.

• Communication
• Marketing
• Operations Information and Decisions
• Psychology

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

How Income Equality Makes Everyone Happy

What does income inequality in America have to do with happiness? A recent study by Matthew Killingsworth, based on approximately 1.7 million real-time reports from more than 33,000 U.S. workers, reveals that in order to increase happiness across society, it’s most effective to raise the incomes of those earning the least.

• People Analytics

The Future of AI With Yann LeCun

AI is at the forefront of technological advances and is also reshaping creativity, ownership and societal interactions. In the latest episode of Penn Engineering’s Innovation & Impact podcast, Vijay Kumar spoke with Yann LeCun about the journey of AI, how we define intelligence and the possibilities and challenges it presents.

• Computer and Information Science
• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

How AI Vaporizes Long-Term Learning

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots in the classroom has sparked much debate in the education community. A 2024 study from Hamsa Bastani and colleagues, featured on Edutopia, revealed AI tools like ChatGPT could boost test scores—but ultimately undermined students’ learning and retention.

• Communication
• Computer and Information Science

Chief AI Scientist at Meta Visits Penn for AI Month Fireside Chat

Yann LeCun, the Chief AI Scientist at Meta, visited Penn last week for a fireside chat hosted by Michael Kearns. Kearns worked alongside LeCun in the 1990s at what was once AT&T’s Bell Laboratories. At the event, Kearns and LeCun spoke about their experience at Bell Labs and the importance of sharing scientific research.

• Computer and Information Science