Former South Bend Mayor and U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigeg spoke at Notre Dame today (Friday), returning for the first time since he briefly joined the faculty in 2020. Buttigieg mixed his remarks with concern, hope and a call to action for students.
At the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, the moderator began by asking his thoughts on artificial intelligence as his four-year-old twins get ready to start school.
“The world they’re coming into will obviously be so radically transformed but I don’t think we have to be pessimistic about it. I don’t think it is written that AI will necessarily make us dumber but it might and it seems to be on its way to doing so.”
Buttigieg said policy makers must focus on ensuring AI benefits everyone as evenly as possible.
A student later asked him how universities can continue to be places of independent thought as their research funding has come under attack from the Trump Administration.
“It’s what makes this place great and it’s in the name of that independence that I think this and every academic institution has to stand up to that bullying. But what every firm, every university, and every politician has discovered, if they try to play the game of this administration in order to survive, is that sooner or later it will come back and demand more until ultimately you get eaten anyway, so stand up.”
