2020–2021 Annual Report
Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
See the progress HAI has made in research, policy, and education during our second academic year.
Letter
from the
Co-Directors
We can’t help but reflect on how the development of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) since our founding in 2019 has taken a course no one could have predicted. Despite the challenges of the ongoing pandemic, HAI has grown in size and strength as an organization and campus community, all while we were working remotely. A silver lining of remote work was that it enabled us to entirely remodel the Gates Computer Science Building, providing HAI with its first home.
During the 2020-2021 academic year our milestones included progress with the National Research Cloud, a significant program for EU policymakers, and exciting findings from our Hoffman-Yee grant recipients. We invite you to read more in this, our second annual report.
We sincerely appreciate the support of our growing community of faculty, fellows, and students. Our supporters, advisors, and corporate members have been generous with their time and resources, while the HAI staff has worked tirelessly to move the organization forward. We simply could not achieve this important work without the contributions of our community.
The cost and complexity of AI has changed markedly in the last three years with a new class of large-scale neural networks transforming the field of AI in ways we are only beginning to understand. This past year HAI responded by establishing a Center for Research on Foundation Models that involves hundreds of Stanford scholars across many different fields, contributing to research and driving important conversations about the risks and opportunities of these large models.
Sustained interdisciplinary dialog has never been more important in the field of AI. Academic research, by Stanford scholars and others, is key to pushing the frontiers of basic science, both for the sake of discovery and to evaluate the ethical and societal implications that industry developers may not consider, or may not be equipped to address.
We welcome your ideas and participation in our journey.
HAI by the Numbers
Although we measure our success by impact, these facts paint a picture of the scope and depth of our work over the 2020-2021 academic year:
All 7
Stanford schools
represented by HAI faculty
represented by HAI faculty
108
Stanford faculty
funded by HAI
funded by HAI
113
blog articles featuring the work of
HAI faculty, students, and fellows
HAI faculty, students, and fellows
$11M
issued in grants
102
projects funded by HAI grants
120,000
views of HAI virtual events
Research
Our grant programs fund research in three key areas: Human Impact, Augmenting Human Capabilities, and Intelligence.
Learn MoreEducation
Learn how we are supporting education initiatives for high-impact decision makers, as well as emerging and future leaders.
Learn MoreCorporate Members Program
HAI recognizes that industry is at the forefront of AI, and we are committed to working closely with business leaders seeking to harness the opportunities posed by AI while understanding and mitigating its risks. To help establish these bridges, HAI published industry briefs on healthcare and life sciences, the future of work post-COVID, and financial services. HAI also launched the next phase of the Founding Members Program for industry stakeholders. It now includes a research fund that can be allocated according to members’ priorities, new pathways of engaging with and recruiting students, and new partnerships with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and the Stanford AI Lab. HAI founding members have been using the program’s new structure to seed, support, and collaborate on research projects across Stanford, as well as to curate tailored professional education programs for their companies.
In addition to these efforts, HAI launched a Corporate Affiliate Program for companies interested in AI research, policy, and practice to interact with HAI. The inaugural focus of this program is on AI and financial services.
The strength of the HAI Corporate Program lies in the breadth of opportunity to engage with a wide range of faculty and departments. Our partnership helps to inform the strategic direction across IBM's portfolio of fundamental research. The expansion of the program's 'wallet' feature, along with the white-glove treatment shown by the HAI team, will allow us to increase research collaborations and generate even more measurable value.
Jeffrey J. Welser
COO IBM Research, VP Exploratory Science & University Collaboration
The HAI Founding Members Program allows for customizable, project-based collaborations that engage participating Googlers with new topics, methods, and people in the domain of human-centered AI. We look forward to expanding on these initiatives—Google recognizes that HAI's interdisciplinary perspective is key to shaping an inclusive AI future.
Jeff Dean
Google Senior Fellow and SVP of Google Research
The strength of the HAI Corporate Program lies in the breadth of opportunity to engage with a wide range of faculty and departments. Our partnership helps to inform the strategic direction across IBM's portfolio of fundamental research. The expansion of the program’s ‘wallet’ feature, along with the white-glove treatment shown by the HAI team, will allow us to increase research collaborations and generate even more measurable value.
Chintan Mehta
CIO, Head of Digital Technology and Innovation, Wells Fargo
Events
Events are an integral part of the HAI mission. HAI hosted weekly seminars and several conferences in AY 2020-21, all designed to bring our community together in new ways that lead to insight and action:
8
workshops
27
weekly seminars
September 2020
Coded Bias Screening and Panel Discussion, co-sponsored by Stanford Arts
October 2020
HAI Fall Conference on Triangulating Intelligence: Melding Neuroscience, Psychology, and AI
March 2021
HAI Spring Conference on Intelligence Augmentation: AI Powering People to Solve Global Challenges
April 2021
Healthcare’s AI Future: A Conversation with Fei-Fei Li & Andrew Ng, HAI’s most viewed event of the academic year
May 2021
2021 Tech & Racial Equity Conference: Anti-Racist Technologies for a Just Future (co-sponsored with the Stanford Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity (CCSRE), Digital Civil Society Lab (DCSL) at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and Stanford Program in African & African American Studies, with support from the Public Interest Technology University Network
Support for HAI
Stanford HAI gratefully recognizes the generosity of those who provide support and made our work possible. Contributions made prior to August 31, 2021 are listed on the HAI website and will be updated annually, per our fundraising policy.
