This webinar examines the current and potential impact of artificial intelligence on the economy and society. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already a widespread technology, affecting every aspect of our daily life. Even though it is, as yet, no more than a machine or program performing a narrow range of tasks efficiently, it already does so as well as or even better than humans. Some experts are hailing this spectacular improvement in AI capacity, but others are concerned. AI is a double-edged sword: it can either protect or damage people depending on how it is used. Technologies, including AI, are intrinsically […]

Compared with their urban and suburban peers, rural students in the United States are less likely to complete higher education. Thus, they forego one of the main paths to the development of human capital and its associated benefits. Some have pointed to divides in Internet access, due to concentrated socioeconomic inequalities and gaps in the infrastructure for fixed home broadband, as a contributor to rural students’ reduced ability to acquire human capital. Overcoming the “homework gap” between students who can and cannot use the Internet from home, possibly through wireless Internet access, has been suggested as one solution to bridging […]

Please RSVP for this talk using the following Google form here or email quello@msu.edu ________________________________________ We have lacked good data to understand how people use technology across communities and what impact this has on local outcomes. The need has been especially critical during the pandemic when so much of life shifted online. With access to de-identified data on GoDaddy’s 20 million “ventures” (or domain name websites) since 2018, we explore over time how this digital activity matters for economic opportunity and resilience in communities. Over 75% of these ventures are commercial, and this new data captures online activity of micro- […]