This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro

This week, I interviewed Dr. Dane Quinn who is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Akron, while I was hosting the Ray Horner Morning show. I wanted to hear what he thinks about future employment prospects for students interested in pursuing that type of degree, in the face of so much change and disruption expected from AI.

This week, I interviewed Dr. Dane Quinn who is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Akron, while I was hosting the Ray Horner Morning show. I wanted to hear what he thinks about future employment prospects for students interested in pursuing that type of degree, in the face of so much change and disruption expected from AI.

Dr. Dane Quinn, University of Akron's Professor of Mechanical Engineering, joined Jeanne Destro to discuss the future of engineering, employment, and more.

As tech giants ramp up their investments in AI, and artificial intelligence-driven applications continue to be deployed throughout society; both the costs and benefits of this rapidly developing technology were on display in dramatic ways this week. Listen now, as we find out more about how the Stock Market reacted to concerns about returns on investments in AI, how teen reliance on AI chatbots to alleviate loneliness is becoming a mental health issue, Disney licensing some of its most iconic characters to OpenAI, and the Akron Police Department using an AI-powered virtual assistant to help answer non-emergency calls.

There is a new legal battle brewing now between the Trump administration and states, including Ohio, over who gets to regulate AI. Congress recently punted on the question, when they refused to pass a measure embedded in the recent continuing resolution that reopened the federal government, that would have denied states the right to regulate AI.  But that did not make President Trump happy, and just yesterday; he signed an executive order to stop "excessive" state regulation of Artificial intelligence. Exactly how his administration is going to define "excessive" is still up in the air though, and may not sit well with states like California, Colorado, Tennessee, and Utah, which have already passed some form of AI regulation, or, like Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut, and Virginia; are working on it now. That's because there is a lot of genuine concern at the state level, about the kind of harm that unregulated AI could do, or perhaps already has done to citizens. In addition, because it is not exempt under federal law from civil liability claims like other technologies including social media platforms; the states actually do have very solid legal standing to write their own laws. At least; that's what they'll likely be arguing in court, sometime in the not too distant future, as we'll hear today from our special guest, Legal Analyst, and University of Akron Law Professor, Emeritus; Dean Carro. Listen now.