CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., September 16, 2024 – The University of Virginia today announced the launch of the LaCrosse Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Business, accelerating the university’s leading role in shaping the impact of AI on society and business.
The new institute will be based at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and was made possible by the largest gift in Darden’s history, made by alumnus David LaCrosse (MBA ’78) and his wife, Cathy.
The establishment of the institute expands the work and mission of Darden’s AI Initiative, which was established in 2022 with an initial gift from La Crosse and is supported by Darden’s Institute for Business in Society and the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology, as well as the Collaborative Institute for Applied Data Science in Business, established in 2021 in partnership with the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science.
The LaCross AI Institute will empower UVA to coordinate and expand research, pedagogy, leadership and engagement in AI across its schools, institutes and research centers.
“The La Crosse AI Institute will powerfully help the University serve society at large by strengthening our approach to artificial intelligence in ways that combine our strengths and expertise,” said University of Virginia President Ian Baucom. “Now is the time for institutions like the University of Virginia to bring together resources and apply them to shape perhaps the most impactful technology of our lifetimes. Building on the Darden School’s strengths in educating responsible business leaders and thought leadership on the role of business in society, the La Crosse AI Institute will continue to accelerate the University’s impact.”
AI, now taking hold in everything from voice-enabled virtual assistants to healthcare applications such as AI-powered drug discovery, has catapulted to the forefront of public consciousness with the emergence of large-scale language generation AI models such as ChatGPT and Gemini. These models demonstrate its enormous potential to more directly connect the everyday functions of work and life with technology, impacting them in both positive and negative ways. As with any new technology, a range of ethical concerns dampen enthusiasm for AI, including the reliability and quality of training data, transparency of AI models, the impact of AI on work, and whether it can be effectively deployed alongside human decision makers.
For research institutions like UVA, artificial intelligence creates opportunities—and associated responsibilities—to participate in its design, development, and deployment in the following ways:
Educate students and practitioners on the pros and cons of AI; conduct research on the broader impacts of AI; develop AI-related technologies and best practices; prepare students for AI-related careers; and convene leaders to analyze and explore the impact and responsible growth of AI.
Darden School Dean Scott Beardsley said the new institute is an opportunity to combine the school’s core strengths, including business ethics, stakeholder theory and technological innovation, and apply them to a whole-of-enterprise approach to the promise and challenges of artificial intelligence.
“AI is already a multi-trillion dollar business that demands comprehensive solutions. Our students are hungry for AI-related skills and knowledge, and the La Crosse AI Institute will enable them to explore AI business opportunities across sectors and define what ethical leadership means in the age of artificial intelligence,” he said. “Our faculty have worked for decades to infuse ethics into everything we teach and value. This makes Darden perfectly positioned to set the standard and example for how ethics should be embedded in the development and integration of AI in business, while also exploring the business of AI itself.”
Beardsley said that AI, as a technology, has been transforming how companies create value for stakeholders and society for decades, and that as it accelerates, it is essential for business leaders to understand how to create positive impact. The institute will create new professorships, relevant courses, case studies, conferences, thought leadership, partnerships, education innovations, numerous doctoral and executive fellowships, and job opportunities at Darden and the University of Virginia.
In October 2023, Dave and Cathy LaCrosse announced a historic gift of $101 million to Darden, signaling their commitment to allocate $50 million to establish a Darden-led AI Institute to collaborate with University of Virginia schools and initiatives working along similar lines. The gift will then be expanded to fund a professorship in ethical AI in business, including a university professorship and a practitioner chair in AI. This will enable Darden to build on the strength of its existing faculty by recruiting additional world-leading professors and practice professors to advance teaching and research.
The total philanthropic impact of the LaCross family’s AI investment in Darden now exceeds $62 million, one of the largest AI donations to a business school in the world. Darden’s existing AI initiative, established in 2022, is the result of an earlier gift from the LaCross family.
“The institute’s goal is to foster education, research, actionable knowledge generation, and meaningful dialogue to enable business and society to embrace the continued expansion of artificial intelligence in a way that considers its human impact,” LaCross said. “Kathy and I are thrilled to support the University of Virginia and the Darden School of Business in this important effort.”
UVA’s Board of Visitors approved the name for the new institute on Friday.
AI is already attracting considerable attention across UVA, from its impact on teaching and research to its influence on law, business, medicine, education, the arts and sciences. The institute will bring together faculty from across campus to translate and share expertise on topics like data privacy, data architecture and human-machine collaboration in ways that advance the promise of AI and mitigate its perils.
Among other initiatives, Darden and the Department of Data Science have forged an active partnership focused on the intersection of data science and business, funding interdisciplinary AI research, convening scholars from across the University of Virginia, and engaging business leaders in dialogue about ethical AI and its opportunities and risks.
“Without data, there is no AI, which is why the School of Data Science is excited to be a partner in the new institute,” said Phil Vaughn, dean of the University of Virginia School of Data Science. “We already have a strong relationship with Darden through our collaborative institute on applied data science in business and a cohort of AI researchers at SDS who are constantly thinking about the ethical implications of rapidly evolving, society-transforming technologies, so this partnership is both natural and welcome.”
Beardsley chairs the institute’s advisory board, which is made up of deans from a number of Virginia universities. Darden professors Yael Grushka-Cockin and Raj Venkatesan serve as academic directors of the La Crosse AI Institute. They are among a group of Darden and Virginia professors who connect AI teaching, research and practice in education and business.
“The University of Virginia and Darden can offer insights into how to transform an organization, how to lead an organization through this transformation, how to embrace technology, how to think about the ethical implications, and how to get people comfortable embracing change,” Grushka-Cockin said.
Venkatesan added: “As a global business school, if we want to prepare students to be responsible leaders, it is our duty to stay ahead of the curve and join the conversation about how AI will impact business and society.”
In his proposal to establish the institute, Darden said it would “serve as a driving force for research, education and practice on the ethical use of AI in business and serve as UVA’s primary network node connecting with other AI initiatives, centers and units across the university.”
Grushka-Cockin said signs of success will be evidence that the institute has enabled a “vibrant research ecosystem” that features faculty and students collaborating across campus, research that produces thought leadership that helps companies, and partnerships between companies, academia and other organizations on AI issues. She also hopes that UVA’s research can help other universities interested in developing responsible leaders in AI.
School leaders said the La Crosse AI Institute is committed to putting the University of Virginia and Darden at the forefront in exploring ethical approaches applied to all the opportunities and risks that AI poses for business.
This includes the infrastructure and inputs that drive the business of artificial intelligence, the technologies and tools they produce, how they are deployed, managed and used by organizations and their employees, and how their impact and output can be measured and monitored. Darden has already launched new courses for students in its MBA program and lifelong learners to provide today’s and future leaders with the tools and frameworks to lead responsibly in an era of rapid adoption of AI around the world.
Learn more about Darden’s broader AI efforts here.
For more information, visit the LaCross Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Business website.
