Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In Texas Science, our students, staff and faculty strive to learn from one another, build communities together and make discoveries that start here and change the world.
In Texas Science, our students, staff and faculty strive to learn from one another, build communities together and make discoveries that start here and change the world.

![Is it Time to Regulate AI?
Today on AI for the Rest of Us, we’re talking about AI and the law. What are the biggest risks of AI that are not currently regulated? Do the makers of AI chatbots like ChatGPT owe something to content creators whose material was scraped to train the models? What kinds of things could we do to make AI safer and more useful for everyone? And could too much regulation stifle innovation and US competitiveness?
Matthew Murrell (https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/john-m-murrell/biography/) is a lawyer and lecturer in @UTexasLaw who is teaching a new class on the Law of AI (https://law.utexas.edu/courses/class-details/20249/28669/) in fall 2024. According to Murrell, one of the biggest risks of AI that isn’t currently regulated is aggregation, the ability for companies to assemble copious amounts of data about a person to build a rich profile of their life, which could be misused by nefarious actors. He noted another top concern: automated decision-making tools that perpetuate discrimination against historically marginalized people. He said in many cases, AI doesn’t present entirely new legal questions, just new twists on old questions. And he predicts that in the near term, most new regulations will likely be amendments to existing laws.
—Dig Deeper—
• The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html), New York Times (Dec. 2023)
• California Legislature Approves Bill Proposing Sweeping A.I. Restrictions (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/technology/california-ai-safety-bill.html), New York Times (Aug. 2024) (Governor Newsom will have until Sept. 30 to consider whether to sign the bill into law)
• Microsoft calls for new laws on deepfake fraud, AI sexual abuse images (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/30/microsoft-ai-deepfake-law-fraud/), Washington Post (July 2024)
—Episode Credits—
• Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab (http://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/) .
• Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
• Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the @LiberalArtsUT ITS recording studio.
• Elements of the cover image for this episode were generated using Midjourney and Photoshop’s generative AI tools.
—About AI for the Rest of Us—
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI (https://yearofai.utexas.edu/) initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-for-the-rest-of-us/id1749168252), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/2Z3Ut7PMH5RmRcr45wI1A7), Amazon Podcasts (https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/1197b991-2383-42f1-af69-e88138facaf2/ai-for-the-rest-of-us) , RSS (https://feeds.simplecast.com/ak gU6w), or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net (http://aifortherest.net/). Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
#TexasAI #YearofAI #Podcast #SciencePodcast #AIForTheRestOfUs #ArtificialIntelligence @UTAustin Is it Time to Regulate AI?](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YdD2-Lhcqd4/mqdefault.jpg)
![Live Show: AI + Energy
AI takes a huge amount of energy to run and could make it harder to fight climate change. On the other hand, AI could help make our energy systems more sustainable, efficient and safer. Three experts talk all things AI and energy with a live audience. The talk was part of a daylong symposium titled “Policy Leadership in the Age of AI (https://lbj.utexas.edu/policy-leadership-age-ai-symposium)”, hosted by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin.
Meet the panelists:
• Michael Pyrcz (https://michaelpyrcz.com/) is a professor in UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering and the Jackson School of Geosciences, who researches and teaches about ways to apply data analytics and machine learning to improve the exploration and safe production of minerals, groundwater and conventional energy, a.k.a. oil and gas. He also shares educational content on YouTube and elsewhere under the alias @GeostatsGuyLectures.
• Varun Rai (https://lbj.utexas.edu/rai-varun) is a professor in UT’s LBJ School who studies the spread of clean energy technologies and how real-world factors – from economics to politics to regulation to social behaviors – drive the adoption of these technologies.
• Rob James (https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/lawyers/robert-james.html) is an attorney at the law firm Pillsbury, who leads a number of energy and infrastructure projects for the firm in Texas and California. Those projects have included AI data centers and zero-emission power generation and storage.
—Dig Deeper—
• The A.I. Power Grab (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/climate/ai-big-tech-emissions.html), NYTimes (Oct. 2024)
• A bottle of water per email: the hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/18/energy-ai-use-electricity-water-data-centers/), Washington Post (Sep. 2024)
• Four ways AI is making the power grid faster and more resilient (https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/22/1083792/ai-power-grid-improvement/), MIT Technology Review (Nov. 2023)
• Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/09/20/microsoft-three-mile-island-nuclear-constellation/), Washington Post (Sep. 2024)
• Extreme Weather Is Taxing Utilities More Often. Can A.I. Help? (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/climate/power-outages-utilities-ai.html), New York Times (Sep. 2024)
• Fixing AI’s energy crisis (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03408-z) , Nature (focused on reducing computer hardware’s power consumption - Oct. 2024)
• A.I. Needs Copper. It Just Helped to Find Millions of Tons of It. (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/climate/kobold-zambia-copper-ai-mining.html), New York Times (July 2024)
• AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand (https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/AI-poised-to-drive-160-increase-in-power-demand), Goldman Sachs (May 2024)
—Episode Credits—
• Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab (http://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/) .
• Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
• Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the @LiberalArtsUT ITS recording studio.
• The cover photo for this episode is by Thomas Meredith, courtesy of LBJ School of Public Affairs.
• Photos from Policy Leadership in the Age of AI Symposium (https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelbjschool_ut/albums/72177720320989647/) (Oct. 2024)
—About AI for the Rest of Us—
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI (https://yearofai.utexas.edu/) initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-for-the-rest-of-us/id1749168252), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/2Z3Ut7PMH5RmRcr45wI1A7), Amazon Podcasts (https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/1197b991-2383-42f1-af69-e88138facaf2/ai-for-the-rest-of-us), RSS (https://feeds.simplecast.com/ak gU6w), or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net (http://aifortherest.net/). Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
#TexasAI #YearofAI #Podcast #SciencePodcast #AIForTheRestOfUs #ArtificialIntelligence @UTAustin @CockrellSchool @TheLBJSchool @PillsburyLaw @JSGUTAUSTIN Live Show: AI + Energy](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YqnNZgxsa_k/mqdefault.jpg)







