With the interest and hype being what it is, in one sense it’s never been a better time to be studying AI. You can see this in how many people want to be associated with AI. Looking at a few examples from ND, NYU, and Penn ([1], [2]), we see that faculty working in or around AI span a variety of disciplines.
But if you are someone looking for help navigating the current state of AI, who do you reach out to? Say you have a question of how AI can help your firm, or how to think about AI as you draft legislation. These lists of researchers are long! Two possibilities emerge:
- Matching problem: I want the best expert for my question, so I have to search and search until I find that person.
- Matthew effect: I’m overwhelmed by the number of options, so I’ll reach out to the person I saw on the news last week, or the person with the most active social media presence.
People are busy, and don’t want to spend time on option number 1. But option 2 makes it difficult for specific experts to find their most appropriate targets. This is necessary, though, to ensure that firms, legislators, individuals are getting the right information from the right people. So it’s up to faculty members and institutions to share their research and engage with the wider community.