Schmidt Sciences has announced that Wharton professor Daniel Rock will join the second cohort of nineteen AI2050 Early Career Fellows, who pursue bold and multidisciplinary research in artificial intelligence (AI) for societal benefit across four countries, six disciplines, and seventeen institutions. The AI2050 Early Career Fellows are a part of the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Institute at Schmidt Sciences, which supports fundamental research in AI, the application of AI and data science across a wide variety of disciplines, and the creation of high-impact research platforms that can speed discovery.

Conceived and co-chaired by Eric Schmidt and James Manyika, AI2050 advances Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s $125 million commitment over five years to identify and support talented individuals seeking solutions to ensure society benefits from AI. The AI2050 Early Career Fellowship encourages young researchers to pursue bold and ambitious work on difficult challenges as well as promising opportunities in AI, which often involves research that is multidisciplinary, risky, and hard to fund through traditional means. 15-20 early career researchers around the world are selected annually through a rigorous process. Early Career Fellows receive an award to support a two-year project as well as non-monetary support, such as connections to stakeholders to help them amplify impact.

Dr. Rock, an assistant professor of operations, information and decisions at the Wharton School, researches the economic effects of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. His work focuses on information systems, the future of work and automation, productivity, and intangible assets. 

Dr. Rock will build a new tool kit for measuring the impact of AI on work. Through analyzing unstructured economic data, such as job postings, he will measure the impact of AI on job creation and technological dissemination, which will lead to the creation of an open-sourced large language model for future economic research.

AI2050 has allocated up to $5.5 million to support the 2023 cohort of Early Career Fellows in their multidisciplinary efforts to advance work on the Hard Problems in AI. Fellows are eligible to receive up to $300,000 over two years and will join the Schmidt Sciences network of experts to advance their AI research in fields including computer science, economics, political science, and philosophy.