Artificial intelligence is advancing at breathtaking speed. Every week brings another breakthrough, another billion-dollar investment and another prediction that AI will transform every sector of the economy. But the past few weeks have brought alarming “breakthroughs” of another type: AI agents going rogue. The companies involved were forthcoming, and no harm was done. The question is whether we will wait for AI’s “Three Mile Island moment” before deciding how to proceed responsibly.
We must not. And Chicago can lead the way.
Nuclear power promised limitless clean energy but lost decades of public confidence after the partial meltdown of the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island. Social media connected billions before society fully understood the platforms’ effects on children, mental health and democracy. Genomics, by contrast, revolutionized medicine while developing ethical standards that helped earn public trust.
Responsible innovation did not slow genomics — it enabled it. AI presents the same choice.
Responsible AI is not about putting the brakes on innovation; it is the infrastructure that allows businesses and communities to adopt AI with confidence. It means developing AI that protects privacy, reduces bias, strengthens democratic institutions, uses energy wisely, and creates value for workers, companies and communities.
Around the world, a new competition is emerging. The winners won’t necessarily be the places that build the largest AI models — they’ll be the places that become synonymous with trustworthy AI. Achieving that moonshot requires more than great research; it requires an ecosystem that attracts talent, investment and innovation.
Universities have an essential role to play, not as the center of that ecosystem but as its catalyst. Institutions such as the Discovery Partners Institute, a Chicago outpost of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, exemplify this role by bringing together universities, national laboratories, companies, entrepreneurs, government and civil society to accelerate innovation for the public good.
Few metropolitan regions are better positioned than Chicago to bring those communities together. Responsible AI cannot be developed in the abstract — a hospital system has to encounter clinicians, an industrial system has to encounter workers and manufacturers, and a financial system has to encounter regulators and customers. The closer researchers are to the environments in which these systems will operate, the faster they can identify failures, understand trade-offs and build technologies that work in practice.
Chicago is the place where AI can encounter the full complexity of the real economy. Time and again, discoveries made in the region’s universities and national laboratories have changed the world, while entrepreneurs, companies and civic leaders transformed those discoveries into industries. Yet too often, the next generation of companies and jobs grew elsewhere. Today’s investments in quantum computing — and tomorrow’s investments in trustworthy AI — offer an opportunity to write a different story, one in which this region not only helps invent the future but also builds the ecosystem that brings it to life.
Illinois’ investments in quantum are already strengthening the region’s technical talent, research capacity and innovation base. Combined with leadership in responsible AI, they position Chicago to build a technology economy that is globally competitive, equitable and sustainable.
Chicago can build the infrastructure for trustworthy AI: the research partnerships, testing environments, standards, workforce and public-private collaborations that allow responsible AI to be invented, tested, deployed and brought to market. In doing so, it will become a magnet for companies, entrepreneurs and investors committed to building AI worthy of trust.
Trust has always been good business. When hearing this idea, Chicago attorney and adviser Fred Tannenbaum reminded us that Intel transformed an invisible microprocessor into a competitive advantage through its iconic 1991 “Intel Inside” campaign. Tomorrow’s AI economy will need a comparable mark of trust. “Responsible AI — Made in Chicago” could become that standard.
Imagine products carrying a “Responsible AI — Made in Chicago” designation, signaling that they meet the highest standards of safety, transparency and reliability. More than a slogan, it would become a competitive advantage. Businesses would increasingly choose locations where AI talent, trusted governance and real-world deployment come together. Investors would gravitate toward environments that reduce uncertainty while accelerating innovation. Workers would embrace AI when they trust it and have the skills to use it.
To be sure, no honest conversation about AI can sidestep its most immediate human concern: jobs. In offices, factories, hospitals and classrooms, people are asking whether AI will make their skills obsolete. Those concerns deserve a plan, not just reassurance. The future should not be one in which AI replaces people, but one in which people who know how to work with AI outperform those who do not.
Earning that trust also means treating workforce readiness as core infrastructure. Chicago’s community colleges, unions, universities and employers are uniquely positioned to prepare workers across every sector to use AI as a tool that amplifies human judgment and productivity. That is how disruption becomes opportunity.
We are at a crossroads. AI is advancing faster than our institutions, norms and governance. As concerns grow about AI’s societal and environmental impacts, building AI worthy of trust is shifting from a niche concern to a strategic imperative. Pope Leo XIV, a native of Chicago, has reminded us that technological progress must remain grounded in human dignity and the common good. His message reflects a growing global recognition that innovation and responsibility are not competing values — they are mutually reinforcing.
Chicago is at its best when it unites unlikely partners to solve big problems. This is another such moment. The AI race has only just begun. It will not be about who builds the smartest AI. It will be about who builds responsible AI.
Chicago can become that place.
Gene Robinson is executive director and CEO of the Discovery Partners Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Rashid Bashir is dean of the Grainger College of Engineering and vice chancellor for Chicago Strategic Partnerships at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
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