AI Leaders Weigh In On Ethics and Real-World Application at Fourth Annual Dartmouth AI Conference

by Betsy Vereckey
Nov 12, 2026

By featuring speakers across different industries, the conference aimed to educate the audience on how to deploy AI as a daily business practice and better understand its practical realities and challenges, rather than treating the technology merely as a theoretical concept. The majority of the day’s sessions, from “Power, Compute, and Concrete” to “AI in the Physical World,” featured executives and practitioners who shared real-world stories on how they are thinking about AI deployment.

When kicking off the event, Alva Taylor, senior associate dean and the center’s faculty director, reiterated that no matter how advanced AI becomes, human judgment is still a valuable part of the equation. 

“We have abundant intelligence,” Taylor said. “The scarce resource as intelligence gets easier is human judgment.”

The event, now in its fourth year, is led by Tuck’s Center for Digital Strategies and coincided with the anniversary of the 1956 Dartmouth summer study that coined the term “artificial intelligence.” The conference mirrors how Tuck teaches AI in the classroom, with hands-on business application, from the First-Year Project to dedicated AI electives and sprints—AI is now integrated across the entire MBA curriculum. 

“The sector has changed dramatically since last fall’s conference—we’ve seen agentic AI emerge alongside new risks, such as worldwide cybersecurity challenges,” said Patrick Wheeler, executive director of the Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies. 

“Human judgment was a core theme of this year’s conference,” he added. “Speakers talked about how to exercise sound judgment when using AI, when to use it and when not to, and how to preserve critical thinking as AI becomes more capable.” 

This grounded approach ran throughout the day’s conversations, which centered on using AI to solve real-world challenges.

Wheeler participated in a fireside chat with keynote speaker Bradley Webb T’16, the chief operating officer of Surge AI, a company that helps AI developers improve efficiency by having real experts review and correct the AI’s work. 

“The biggest challenge and the biggest change [with AI] is that the models are more capable, and that increases the length of time that a model can exert some human level of judgment,” said Webb. That said, as AI models become more capable of solving complex problems, demand will increase for human reviewers who can evaluate AI’s performance and give feedback. This is becoming a major bottleneck in AI development and research, he said.

Sandy Chen Fedor T’15 of General Motors and Gemma Ross D’08 of OSARO discuss real-world applications of AI during a panel at the fourth annual Dartmouth AI Conference.

The same practical emphasis shaped a panel on how AI is reshaping businesses and the workplace, featuring data scientist Carl Shan of OpenAI and Doug Tallmadge D’19, co-founder of Gradial. Moderated by Warren Valdmanis D’95, the founder and managing partner of Future of Work Partners, panelists reiterated that companies must rethink workflows and use automation to drive growth, rather than simply cut costs. 

In addition, people still need to be in the driver’s seat to provide valuable human contributions such as creativity.

Shan, for instance, highlighted AI’s ability to complete complex coding tasks in software engineering. But he curiously noted that job postings for software engineers have gone up in 2026 compared to 2025. “Why is that? Even if you can automate a lot of these tasks?” he asked. “The short answer that I would give is—a job is a lot more than a bunch of tasks. Tasks are part of it, but a huge part of it is accountability, responsibility, and ownership.”

Regarding regulation and ethics, there was collective agreement that thoughtful regulation should be put in place. Speakers discussed child safety, who should take responsibility when AI causes harm, and how U.S. regulation could affect AI competition with other countries.  

Taylor moderated a panel about AI companions that featured Karen L. Fortuna, associate professor, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth; Nicole Lopez, a partner at Orrick; and Dr. Sarah Shirazyan, a lecturer at Stanford Law. From older adults with chronic illness to teens, AI companions can help address loneliness and barriers to accessing information, though panelists agreed they should never completely replace human relationships.

“I do think loneliness is driving interaction with AI companions,” Fortuna said. She noted that because of recent Medicaid cuts, there aren’t services available for additional types of support after the workday ends. And yet, people need support all around the clock. “Loneliness is just as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and what we’re finding with our technology within the older adult population is that people are using this at 3:00 a.m. when people aren’t available to them.”

Additional panels covered infrastructure and applications, and AI in the physical world.

Amos Cariati D’18, T’27, a second-year MBA student and a Center for Digital Strategies Fellow, was particularly excited by panels on hardware and learning about how AI is being used tangibly in the physical world.  

“So much of the discourse is around software,” he said. “I really like that interplay with the physical world.”

Cariati was especially encouraged by a conversation he had with David Picotte T’11, an infrastructure expert and senior vice president at Vertiv, who told him that continued investment is making data centers far more efficient by using a closed-loop cooling system to manage the massive heat generated by its servers and networking gear.

“There’s a lot of frustration around data centers, understandably so,” Cariati said. “It was encouraging to know that the people who are actually building these data centers are well aware of the energy costs. They don’t want to waste energy and water and would much rather have a green infrastructure to lower their electricity costs.”

Cariati used AI a lot while completing his entrepreneurial First-Year Project, in which he and a classmate built an app and leveraged AI constantly from back-end app development to running market research and note-taking. 

After graduation, Cariati will join Procter & Gamble’s brand management team and plans to bring AI along. “I view my ability to leverage these tools as something that will differentiate me,” he said. “My goal from attending this conference and remaining involved in this space is to understand what’s possible so that I can put the knowledge to use if the right opportunity arises.” 

More information on the conference is available here.