Jinjun Xiong discusses AI for social good on Driven to Discover podcast

Jinjun Xiong was a young computer scientist at IBM when the company’s Watson computer famously beat the top human players on “Jeopardy!”. While the rest of the world oohed and aahed, Xiong wondered if we should be using AI for a higher purpose—not to defeat humans, but to help them.

Now a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor at the University at Buffalo and director of UB’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Xiong is committed to using AI for the betterment of society.

In this episode of Driven to Discover, Xiong talks to host Cory Nealon about the epiphany that drove his career choices; the AI projects he’s most excited about at UB, including a $20 million National Science Foundation-funded institute to use AI to transform speech-language services in schools; and why he thinks people should stop freaking out about the downsides of AI and be more energized by its possibilities.

Listen to episode nine of Driven to Discover.