About the Talk:

Join Ronnie Chatterji, Chief Economist at OpenAI, for a conversation with Columbia University development economist Daniel Björkegren about his research on AI’s impact on low- and middle-income countries. Daniel will discuss how AI is affecting health, economic opportunity, and education. This will include a closer look at findings from his study of teachers in Sierra Leone using an AI-powered WhatsApp chatbot to support their teaching. They’ll then turn to the future, including what advances in AI could mean for international development and what steps can be taken to ensure the world’s poorest people benefit.

About the Speakers:

Daniel Björkegren, Associate Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA)

Daniel Björkegren is an Associate Professor (without tenure) at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He works on the implications of artificial intelligence, particularly in low-income economies. He works on methods to make algorithms more humane: robust, transparent, and better aligned with societal values. He is an affiliate of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, and MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University, and a Bachelor degree in Physics from the University of Washington.

Ronnie Chatterji, Chief Economist @ OpenAI

Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji, Ph.D., is OpenAI’s first Chief Economist. He is also the Mark Burgess & Lisa Benson-Burgess Distinguished Professor at Duke University, working at the intersection of academia, policy, and business. He served in the Biden Administration as White House CHIPS coordinator and Acting Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, shaping industrial policy, manufacturing, and supply chains. Before that, he was Chief Economist at the Department of Commerce and a Senior Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He is on leave as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and previously taught at Harvard Business School. Earlier in his career, he worked at Goldman Sachs and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Chatterji holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Economics from Cornell University.