Austin Mayor Kirk Watson discusses how the city is exploring and deploying various AI technologies. Good Systems is a key partner in many of these endeavors, including the development of smart hand tools that might be useful to City of Austin workers, the use of digital twins to aid real-time fire tracking and smoke analysis, and the development of standards and guidelines that help ensure the city utilizes AI ethically and responsibly.

The University of Texas’ Speedway Mall was taken over Friday afternoon by parading robots, a mariachi band and community members flashing pictures in the culminating event of UT’s “Year of AI.”

Researchers from Good Systems' Information Integrity core project are hard at work building tools to combat the deleterious effects of mis- and disinformation, which, thanks to AI, now spreads faster and more convincingly than ever before.

Mis- and disinformation are growing challenges, particularly with the rise of generative AI, which amplifies false information online. Good Systems' Josephine Lukito and Matthew Lease highlight how emotionally charged content spreads faster and emphasize the need for media literacy and AI tools to combat misinformation. In this election season especially, students must critically evaluate content and advocate for fact-checking systems to counteract these issues.

Throughout this tumultuous election season, dis- and misinformation have spread rapidly, blurring the line between fact and fiction. Viral posts, often misleading or false, impact public political understanding, challenging platforms' abilities to curb disinformation. Good Systems' Josephine Lukito is just one of many UT Austin researchers emphasizing the need for critical media literacy to navigate this evolving digital landscape.

From generating research questions to analyzing data to running simulations, AI could affect every aspect of the scientific process, but experts like Good Systems' Matt Lease say accuracy and sustainability should be part of the conversation.

We asked some of our researchers and partners to share their insights on what we should know about AI today, innovative applications of AI for social good, how we can all influence technology design and deployment and take agency over the ways AI shows up in our lives, and what they are most looking forward to from Good Systems this year.

Read letters from outgoing Executive Team chair Sherri Greenberg and incoming chair Luis Sentis as they reflect on the last year and look ahead.

UT Austin's Good Systems grand challenge expands research on cross-cutting themes in ethical AI, welcoming two postdoctoral fellows to join existing work on AI alignment. The new fellows will focus on human-AI interaction and AI's impact on knowledge and power structures.

Planet Texas 2050 Waves Goodbye to Outgoing Chair Paola Passalacqua and Says Hello to Incoming Co-chairs Katherine Lieberknecht and Patrick Bixler