Innovation

The Ethics Institute serves as the central hub for ethical guidance, collaboration, and community engagement around AI in research, education, and university practices at Michigan State University. From convening the university’s AI Summit to supporting the development of guidelines, research, and faculty working groups, the Institute has led efforts to ensure MSU’s approach to AI is thoughtful, inclusive, and aligned with our institutional values. By bringing together voices from across disciplines, the Ethics Institute fosters dialogue and shapes practices that prioritize equity, responsibility, and innovation in the age of automation.

The Evidence Driven Learning Innovation (EDLI) research center is a collaboration of educators and researchers in the Colleges of Arts and Letters, Business and Natural Science, MSU Libraries, and MSU IT. Our mission is to humanize the digital learning experience and use a values-driven approach to develop and evaluate digital pedagogies and technologies for 21st-century learning.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in STEM education marks a revolutionary shift in pedagogical methods and learning outcomes. AI's role in customizing and enhancing educational experiences is paramount. The Center for Education and Emerging Technologies explores and pushes forward the use of AI in STEM Education.

The Michigan State University AI Research (MAIR), housed within the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Michigan State University (MSU), holds a distinguished position in the dynamic field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). With a rich history of innovation and a commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology, MAIR provides a hub of creativity and discovery in AI research. Led by a diverse team of renowned experts, MAIR endeavors include a wide range of research domains, spanning biometrics, computer vision, data mining, natural language processing, and machine learning.

Professor of German Studies, Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures; Director of Teaching and Learning, College of Arts & Letters

Career readiness is not enough. We need to prepare our students for career transformation and to navigate complex human teams. They need to understand and shape the why. Artificial intelligence is one of a variety of technologies used to meet the newest workplace crisis. Student career success depends on how they lead from whatever position they occupy, whether they can bring people together, and what vision of a better world grants them the courage to make change. My work has been devoted to empowering students to understand the past and formulate present future visions that guide decision-making. This includes fostering an understanding of personal and professional integrity in connection with the ethical and transparent use of AI.  

In my scholarship and teaching, I unpack utopian hopes that guide past and present notions of progress. My recent article in The Conversation questions the type of world that today’s American technology industry elites want to build through AI. Ideas like those of Ray Kurzweil and Elon Musk, among others, can seem as if they are charting paths into a brave new world. But as a humanities scholar who studies utopianism and dystopianism, I’ve encountered this type of thinking before in the futurist and techno-utopian art and writings of the early 20th century.

There are lessons to be learned here. We must ask what kind of world we are building with AI? This must shape how we do and do not build and use it. Students need to be prepared to ask these pivotal questions and then lead change in the workplace and civil society to build the future that they most want to see. My new IAH 206 class has this goal in mind. It is entitled “Can We Imagine Green AI? AI Ethics Past, Present, and Future Through the Lens of Global Film.” At the heart of the course, students envision first the futures they want to build guided by their core values. Next, the class examines past and present fears, fascinations, and hopes for artificial intelligence and what they tell us about those societies and ourselves as human beings. Then, through critical textual analysis and a climate change focus, students will engage in ethical thought games, examining the role that AI might play in a variety of potential dystopian and utopian futures.

My administrative work in teaching and learning with AI began with MSU’s Education 2035 project in 2018-2019. It had as its goal, the imagining and strategic planning for the values-enacted creation and application of artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching and learning on the MSU campus by the year 2035. Together with my colleague Andrew Christlieb in Computational Mathematics Science and Engineering (CMSE), we convened over 80 faculty, graduate students and staff from 18 campus colleges/units. The initiative’s report contains essential questions from the convenings that continue to guide us now:

• What are our core values regarding student and faculty success in the intersection of education, artificial intelligence and design?
• Why would someone come to MSU? What do we give to those students and how does technology help us?
• How to prepare faculty and students for the challenges of new technology both here and in the workplace? Will using AI lead to better learning?
• How do we include theories of learning and design into these systems?

We reconvened Education 2035 2.0 in the spring through a series of cross-university lunches, and this work continues today, now in partnership with the CTLI and as part of the AI Summit. There is more to come!

Recent articles:

• Techno‑utopians like Musk are treading old ground: The futurism of early 20th‑century Europe

Learn more about Sonja and her work on the College of Arts & Letters website.