Artificial intelligence has the potential to have extremely beneficial but also detrimental effects on society as we know it. From helpful home robots run amok to artificial intelligence that widens the gap between rich and poor, there are many ways the increasingly present AI in our lives can go bad.

It is widely anticipated that one of the enduring impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a drastic rise in mental health cases. This will necessitate more inventive ways to deliver care, including the use of technology, which Good Systems research is helping to address.

To date, Good Systems researchers are leading at least a dozen projects related to COVID-19, just as our grand challenge moves into its second year.

University of Texas researchers argue that information scientists have a bigger role to play in the COVID-19 crisis because of the proliferation of conflicting messages. We asked three experts, who have been sheltering-in-place for the past two months in Austin, Texas, to tell us more about their perspectives on the pandemic.

Even in a life full of shocks big and small, people typically find their own personal equilibrium over time, balancing core feelings of sadness, happiness and fear. What people feel in the immediate aftermath of even the most significant life events.

When COVID-19 began actually infecting bodies around the globe earlier this year, UT community and regional planning associate professor Junfeng Jiao decided to look at the transportation system as a way to predict the virus’ spread.

It is imperative that we use technology to maximize the best and minimize the negative parts of the human condition. But in order to do this... companies must act sustainably. And in this case, ‘sustainable’ refers to ethical practices.

The Good Systems team here at UT aims to help technologists stop to think about what they are doing. We’ve embarked on an 8-year mission to design AI technologies that are driven by human values and that benefit society. We’ve done so because we believe it is ethically irresponsible to think about AI only in terms of what it can do; we believe it is even more important to consider what AI should — and should not — do.

Tim Hwang, a lawyer, writer, and researcher working at the intersection of emerging technologies and society, says this isn’t realistic; machine learning and AI aren’t as they’re portrayed in the movies. Hwang is the former director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance AI Initiative and has previously served Google’s global public policy lead on AI.