USC has been active in computing and artificial intelligence for more than fifty years, tracing key institutional milestones to the founding of the USC Information Sciences Institute in 1972 and the Department of Computer Science in 1976 in the Viterbi School of Engineering. The article highlights landmark breakthroughs tied to the campus, including work that helped establish the Domain Name System and the invention of DNA computing. Interim President Beong-Soo Kim announced a President’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee in October, and the university is hosting its first Artificial Intelligence Summit to convene industry experts, faculty, staff and students on how to apply these technologies in education and beyond.
The piece emphasizes an approach that pairs technical innovation with responsible use. Examples cited include the 2016 launch of the USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society, early work on socially assistive robots for seniors, and technology designed to preserve Holocaust survivor testimonies. The article also references newer initiatives such as a Center for Generative Artificial Intelligence and Society, an Institute on Ethics and Trust in Computing supported by the Lord Foundation of California, and the launch of the USC School of Advanced Computing, which the university promoted with a campus drone video tour.
The coverage surveys applied research across education, health and society. In education, USC studies show common student use of tools such as ChatGPT unless instructors guide usage, and the Institute for Creative Technologies supplies tools the U.S. Army uses to train writing. In health and life sciences, USC researchers used artificial intelligence to map genetic influences on the corpus callosum, developed a tool to detect cancer cells in blood samples, and won DARPA funding to study learning mechanisms that could inform bio-inspired AI. The article also notes findings that large language models do not yet match humans in building therapeutic rapport and research pointing to privacy risks when clinicians use chatbots. Additional examples include business and farming applications, studies tracking how artificial intelligence reshapes work, and philosophical inquiry into what it means to think in the age of systems such as ChatGPT.
