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Coming Soon: What AI Means – A Podcast
AI in the Liberal Arts (AILA) is thrilled to announce the upcoming launch of What AI Means, a new podcast hosted by Amherst College Professor Lee Spector. We’ve been working hard to create this series, which explores artificial intelligence through the lens of the liberal arts. What AI Means is the podcast that asks scholars…
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Thank you, Daniel Flores Garcia (’24)!
AILA welcomed Amherst College alumnus Daniel Flores Garcia (‘24) back to campus for a richly engaging talk on AI and Music, exploring how technological innovation is reshaping musical tools, creative processes, and cultural representation in music. Flores Garcia, whose work centers on generative systems for rhythm and percussion, opened by tracing a lineage of music-making…
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Recap: 2025 Hack the Herd – AI & Sustainability Hackathon
By: Caitlin Kennedy Downey This year’s Hack the Herd: AI & Sustainability Hackathon brought together an impressive group of about 20 student innovators from Amherst College, Smith College, and UMass Amherst for an intensive, collaborative, and high-energy weekend of problem-solving and creation. Over the course of 24 hours, students worked in teams of up to…
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When AI Meets the Liberal Arts: How a Campus Initiative is Sparking Critical Interdisciplinary Conversations about AI
By: By Brooke Ingemi Featured in: The Amherst STEM Network Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a part of everyday life, transforming how we learn, think, and communicate, while also raising deep questions about what the future will look like. Previously confined to computer science labs, AI now touches nearly every field, from art and law…
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Thank you, Robert Thies!
Facing the Algorithm: AI in Police Reports and Its Impact on the Criminal Justice System Speaker: Robert Thies, Investigator, Federal Public Defender – Eastern District of MissouriHosted by AILA and LJST | November 11, 2025 By: Caitlin Kennedy Downey, AILA Staff AILA and LJST welcomed Robert Thies, Investigator with the Federal Public Defender’s Office for…
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Thank you, Ahmed Aly (’24)!
Alumni Speaker Series: Ahmed Aly ’24 on Liberal Arts and Bold Innovation By: Caitlin Kennedy Downey, AILA Staff The second event in AILA’s Alumni Speaker Series featured Ahmed Aly ’24, a Computer Science and Political Science graduate and founder of Vship, a startup using AI to empower truck drivers and promote equity in the logistics…
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The Rise of AI Search: Is Google Obsolete?
An AILA x i2i Venture Accelerator Event | October 30, 2025 By: Caitlin Kennedy Downey & Jiaqi Huang, AILA Staff Students, faculty, and staff gathered for a lively discussion hosted by the AI in the Liberal Arts Initiative (AILA) and i2i: Idea to Innovation on how AI-driven search tools are reshaping research, learning, and creativity….
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Creativity On Trial: How AI Is Raising New Challenges For Copyright Law
AILA hosts local Art Lawyer, Kate Lucas Writeup by: Caitlin Kennedy Downey, AILA Staff The intersection of artificial intelligence and creative production is forcing society to revisit some of the most fundamental questions in copyright law: Who, or what, can be an author? What is the distinction between the “expression of an idea” and what…
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The AI Book Club: Contributions to the Intellectual Ecosystem of Amherst College
The vision for the AI Book Club: The AI Book Club strengthens Amherst’s intellectual ecosystem by creating a mini-community that reflects AILA’s mission: bringing together people from different walks of life, professions, stages of life, and levels of AI knowledge to explore big questions through literature. By using literature as a common language, we create…
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DeepSeek and the Next Wave of AI Innovation: A Critical Discussion
by Hena Ershadi, AILA Student Assistant AI in the Liberal Arts recently hosted an informative discussion on generative AI that brought together students from various disciplines to explore the field of artificial intelligence. The event featured speakers from Ideas 2 Innovations (i2i), with Dhyey Mavani as the chief guest, joined by Ryan Ji and Liam…
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Love Letters to Lifelong Learning: Professor Baron’s Remarks on AI and the Future of Writing
by Emmanuelle Toulouse, Spring 2024 AILA Assistant In the 1950s, if you asked a computer to write you a love letter, it would produce something like this: “My sympathetic affection beautifully attracts your affectionate enthusiasm. You are my loving adoration, my breathless adoration. My fellow feeling breathlessly hopes for your dear eagerness.” Today, ChatGPT can…
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AI, Creativity, and Writing: A Coda
by Naomi S. Baron | Professor Emerita of Linguistics at American University Recently, it was my pleasure to share thoughts with some of you on what matters for humans when it comes to AI, creativity, and writing. To my regret, the allotted hour disappeared before I managed to address a question that anyone who writes…
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“Hacking” Sustainability Issues at Amherst with AI
Written by: Sebastien, Tina, Dhyey, Selena and Taichi In December 2023, our team placed 1st at Amherst College’s inaugural Hack The Herd sustainability hackathon. Our project (Gaia) was born from a desire to improve discussions around campus sustainability projects and improve communication between the various stakeholders involved in such decisions. We initially spoke with Wes…