Israeli Academia is Shaping AI’s Impact, Not Just Its Capabilities

While our understanding of artificial intelligence’s exact impact on society remains incomplete, its potential to touch every sector of our lives is well known and highly promising for science and scientific discoveries. However, we are at a critical juncture where we must answer lingering concerns and questions surrounding AI’s influence on society before continuing to scale its power. What kinds of data should AI models be able to access? Is AI safe to use in healthcare? Will AI eliminate much-needed jobs?

Ultimately, what does it look like to develop and use AI technology responsibly and ethically? We acknowledge that we failed to anticipate the deeply polarizing impact and societal consequences of social media – we have an opportunity to do better with AI.

As a global leader in AI innovation and talent, Israel has an opportunity to be a model for the rest of the world demonstrating how we should grapple with these questions. Those who understand the technology most acutely must also provide guidance and guardrails to ensure that AI will only ever be a positive influence on humankind.

According to the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research, an independent think tank based on campus at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel leads the world in AI talent concentration and patent applications for AI technologies. The Technion specifically leads Israel in the number of AI academic programs for students, and graduates are highly sought by tech giants like Google and Nvidia who are implementing the AI revolution worldwide.

Technion graduates also independently contribute to our new reality, either with their own startups or within a diverse set of industries – not just tech. Jonathan Spitz, for example, launched his own AI-powered manufacturing software used by household names like Coca-Cola. Dor Netzer is exploring how AI can make architecture and design more effective, and Einat Borohovich is transforming patient care and medical research at Rambam Health Care Campus.

Israel’s AI capability and tech leadership is well established and born out of the Technion’s early adoption of AI education and innovation. Naturally, Israel has a responsibility to measure how this technology is changing the way our world works. Those findings should inform how we ensure that this rapid progress remains exciting and helpful, especially as AI is fundamentally changing how we learn about the world around us, seek employment, receive medical care, engage with our community, and more.

The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel at Tel Aviv University provides a necessary and fitting complement to the Technion’s leadership in AI innovation and implementation. An independent, non-partisan, socioeconomic research institute, the Taub Center measures how policies across economics, health, welfare, education, and the labor market materially impact Israeli society. Its findings aim to influence public policy grounded in evidence-based research.

The Taub Center’s priority research areas are the very sectors that are poised to be most transformed by AI. This transformation is already in motion, and institutions like the Taub Center are imperative for measuring and defining how society can leverage AI to benefit these sectors responsibly.

Official policies and a defined social contract about how to best use AI are required to ease global anxiety about where we go from here and to guide the leaders who are building the technology itself. Between the Technion’s role as Israel’s engine for AI transformation, and the Taub Center’s oversight and analysis of its impact, Israel has a national ecosystem for responsible innovation.

These researchers around the world are working to refine AI, and data scientists have a unique opportunity to have a direct hand in shaping global perceptions and real-world use of AI technology. Because of Israel’s unique ecosystem, policymakers understand how AI can positively shape society’s future. Tech leaders have a roadmap to tailor innovation to real-world needs, and the public feels confident that their wellbeing not only remains intact but improves. With this collaborative framework across institutions, Israel can contribute at this moment of change with trustworthy guidance and expertise on the global stage.

Michael is the out-going CEO of the American Technion Society, and this blog reflects his own personal opinions, and not the ATS or Technion.