Louisiana’s innovators are using artificial intelligence (AI) in groundbreaking ways to improve the lives and livelihoods of our state. Celebrating this progress around Louisiana is particularly valuable as proposed state and federal regulations multiply. The Pelican Institute’s Center for Technology and Innovation has collected and is continuing to update a list of news stories that highlight the ways AI is being used in our state, including the following recent stories.
Reporting in April from the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report indicates that the hospitals and medical facilities of the capital region are embracing AI in their practice. In an interview, the CEO of Baton Rouge cancer-treatment center Mary Bird Perkins, Jonas Fontenot, marveled at the widespread utility of AI. The technology has made the patient experience better, the medical professional’s work more streamlined, and provided previously unimaginable answers and cures to diseases. Early this year, we examined how the very progress being embraced by Mary Bird Perkins and other hospitals around the state is threatened by hasty and sweeping regulation. Read more about medical AI and the policies impacting it here.
Earlier this month, at Louisiana State University and A&M College (LSU), engineering students debuted their hard work at an AI showcase focused on AI solutions to real-world business problems. LSU has invested heavily in AI over recent years and announced Louisiana’s first Bachelor of Science degree in AI to be offered in the upcoming fall. Many of the stories compiled in the AI in Louisiana list begin in the labs and classrooms of our state’s universities because Louisiana students have access to institutions that care deeply about preparing them to thrive in a future shaped by AI.
While AI will certainly shape the future, it is also helping to remember and honor Louisiana’s past. A fellow at the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL) is tackling massive archives and artifacts using AI. Dr. Boisy Gene Pitre explained how AI helps historians do what they do best by, “helping us identify patterns, relationships and recurring themes across vast collections of documents,” Pitre said. “Once you understand the questions that can be asked, then you can start asking even more interesting questions. So, it’s a force multiplier.” In a state like Louisiana, with such a unique history, tools that help with preservation and discovery can keep a vibrant culture alive.
These are just recent examples of how the Pelican State is using AI to save lives, prepare students for the future, and honor a storied past. The opportunities created by AI abound and are multiplying. This is why reports last week of the White House’s interest in a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) style model for regulating and approving new AI raised such alarm. Later reporting indicated that the White House had distanced itself from the bureaucratic approach first rumored. While the specific contents of any upcoming executive order on the technology remain unknown, the value of AI to Louisiana is most certain.
