SUNY Artificial Intelligence Initiative

The current New York state budget restores some of the money that has been cut from the state university system in the last decade. Each university is choosing how to use these funds, but at SUNY Albany, the provost is putting the majority into hiring 27 faculty members for a new initiative focusing on studying Artificial Intelligence and computing. Proponents hope that emphasizing this cutting edge field will attract new students to Albany, but will this come at the expense of existing programs.
Aaron Major is an associate professor of Sociology and president of the campus’ chapter of UUP, the union that represents all the academics and most of the professional support staff at the UAlbany. He explained some of the ramifications to Moses Nagel.