Singularity University Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Co-Chair
Neil Jacobstein Co-chairs the AI and Robotics Track and is Director of Executive Academics at Singularity University headquartered at the NASA Ames Research Park. The University’s mission is to assemble, educate, and inspire leaders to understand and facilitate the responsible development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. Jacobstein served as Singularity University’s President for the past year, ending Oct 2011.
Jacobstein has been Chairman of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing since 1992. He has been the principal co-author of the Foresight Guidelines for Nanotechnology Development, which asserts that molecular manufacturing:
- is theoretically feasible in spite of recent pronouncements otherwise,
- may take decades to develop,
- will eventually have significant social and economic benefits as well as risks, and
- should be pursued responsibly with appropriate controls and built-in safeguards.
Jacobstein is a Visiting Scholar in Stanford’s Media X Program, and became a Senior Research Fellow in the Reuters Digital Vision Program at Stanford University in 2006. He has served as a technical consultant on research and development projects for leading business, government, and defense organizations including GM, Ford, FMC, P&G, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Applied Materials, NSF, DARPA, NASA, NIH, EPA, DOE, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. He was CEO at Teknowledge Corporation, an early AI company. Since 1998, Jacobstein has reviewed technical papers on the Program Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s (AAAI) Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) Conference. He co-chaired AAAI’s 16th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, and chaired the 17th IAAI Conference.
In 1999, Jacobstein was selected as a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He has moderated many Aspen Institute Socrates seminars on the opportunities and risks of advanced technologies, including nanotechnology, and has co-chaired the Socrates Program Committee for several years. Jacobstein was a Graduate Research Intern in the Learning Research Group at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and a consultant in PARC’s Software Concepts Group. He spent four years doing renewable energy and environmental research as a Research Associate with the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems. He received his BS in Environmental Sciences, Summa cum Laude from the University of Wisconsin, and an MS in Human Ecology from the University of Texas, in conjunction with NASA’s Environmental Physiology Simulation Program.
Jacobstein has served in a wide variety of executive and advisory roles for industry, nonprofit, and government organizations. He continues to give lectures, seminars, and workshops worldwide on the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. He is a member of AAAS, AAAI, IEEE, and the ACM.
