February 26, 2026
The speakers will discuss different applications of generative AI and a range of ethical concerns its use poses.
Panelists
Fengqi You, Cornell University
Hannah Beckler, Business Insider
Amy McKiernan, Dickinson College
John MacCormick, Dickinson College
Last July, the current US administration announced an action plan for “Winning the AI Race" which includes almost 100 federal policy actions, among them the dissolution of federal regulations around AI development and the promotion of rapid buildouts of data centers. This panel explores what the AI boom means for all of us, from scientific research, healthcare diagnostics and automated content creation to its effects on public utilities and the environment.
This program is presented by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.
For more information visit https://www.clarkeforum.org/thursday-february-26-2026/
Fengqi You is the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering at Cornell University. He holds affiliations with multiple Graduate Fields at Cornell, including Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Operations Research and Information Engineering, Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Applied Mathematics. Within Cornell, he serves as the chair of Ph.D. Studies in Systems Engineering, co-director of the Cornell University AI for Science Institute (CUAISci), co-director of the Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture (CIDA), and director of the Cornell AI for Sustainability Initiative (CAISI). Before joining Cornell in 2016, he worked at Argonne National Laboratory’s Mathematics and Computer Science Division and served as a faculty member at Northwestern University. His research focuses on fundamental theories and methods of systems engineering, with applications in materials informatics, smart manufacturing, digital agriculture, energy systems, and sustainability.
Hannah Beckler is an award-winning investigative reporter at Business Insider. Her work has been honored with a National Magazine Award and the Hillman Award in Newspaper Journalism, among others. Most recently, she reported on the data center construction boom’s impact on water, power, pollution, and local economies.
Amy McKiernan is associate professor of philosophy at Dickinson College. McKiernan teaches Practical Ethics, Biomedical Ethics, The Ethics of Punishment and Forgiveness, Environmental Ethics, Existentialism, Fiction and Moral Philosophy, and Ethical Theory. She is writing a book that argues for the value of bringing care ethics together with the increasingly influential therapeutic approach, internal family systems. My recent publications include “Queer Care and Pleasure Activism” in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Care Ethics, “Teaching Moral Emotions” with Daniel Haggerty in Teaching Ethics, “Obstacles to Empathetic Listening After Sexual Violence” with Elspeth Campbell ’18 in Hypatia, and “Blaming from Inside the Birdcage: Strawsonian Accounts of Blame and Feminist Care Ethics” in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly. She also serves as the director of the Ethics Across Campus & the Curriculum program and currently leading work on the Dickinson Core Values Project.
John MacCormick is professor of computer science at Dickinson College. His work in computer science spans several sub-fields, including computer vision, large-scale distributed systems, computer science education, and the public understanding of computer science. He is the author of four books, including Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today’s Computers and Thinking AI: How Artificial Intelligence Emulates Human Understanding. Dr. MacCormick holds 19 US patents on novel computer technologies and is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles; his Nine Algorithms book has been translated into eight languages.
Further information
- Location: Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium
- Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
- Cost: Free