Jinjun Xiong was early in his career, working on AI technology at IBM, when the company’s Watson computer famously beat the top human players on “Jeopardy!” in 2011.

The victory signaled a new era of natural language processing, information retrieval and other critical underpinnings of AI. While incredibly impressive, the demonstration left Xiong wondering how we could use AI to help humans, not defeat them.

Now a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor and director of UB’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Xiong is fully immersed in designing AI solutions for the betterment of society.

In the latest episode of Driven to Discover, Xiong talks to host Cory Nealon, director of news content in University Communications, about the epiphany that drove his career choices, the AI projects he’s most excited about at UB, and why he thinks people should stop freaking out about the downsides of AI and be more energized by its possibilities.