Experts Discuss AI Adoption at State Leaders Conference in Princeton

By Jim Pytell, Managing Editor On Jun 16, 2025

Artificial intelligence is improving at a breakneck pace, and many of the questions surrounding how the technology will impact our lives remain unanswered.  

A panel discussion at the AI State Leaders Conference in Princeton today, moderated by Gov. Phil Murphy, saw experts in the field of AI share their thoughts on how to best handle dealing with these unanswered questions in the face of the inevitable and rapid evolution of the technology.

“I think we have to acknowledge some of the tensions that are still playing themselves out,” Murphy said of the uncertainty that surrounds AI advancement, particularly in terms of upskilling versus fears of jobs being replaced, and how individuals will utilize the technology for good or for bad.

Martin Svensson, managing director at AI Sweden, spoke about the importance of combining the powers of the public sector with the private sector in order to better navigate the unknown.

“We realized early that the questions surrounding AI use and adoption are exactly the same whether you are in a public organization or private company,” Svensson said. “When you can talk about them in forums like [this discussion] and additionally have concrete collaboration, we can better move things forward.”

“This is a technology that is best learned by doing,” John Bailey, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and member of Virginia’s AI task force, said. “Often in the public sector, we are waiting for someone else to go first, thinking maybe we can learn from them. I think the challenge with [AI] is that it is improving so rapidly, that the longer you wait, the further you are behind, and the more overwhelmed that you feel.”

He lauded efforts that states, including New Jersey, are making to collaborate and learn more about the best use cases, risks and opportunities that AI presents.

One example of this is the NJ AI Hub at Princeton, which represents a partnership between the state, Princeton University, and industry leaders such as Microsoft and CoreWeave.

The goal for the Hub is to bring together AI researchers, industry leaders, startup companies, and other collaborators to advance AI research and development, ethical use for positive social impact, and workforce training in applied AI, in collaboration with New Jersey universities, community colleges, and vocational schools.

Regarding the unease that many of us feel regarding AI’s power, Bailey pointed out that during his time in Silicon Valley, he noticed that even the tech CEOs share these same feelings.

“I think that feeling is normal. They are creating these incredibly powerful systems and models, but even they don’t know the use cases and risks,” Bailey said. “I think we just need to embrace the feeling and lean into it.”

At the same time, Afua Bruce, former US government official and author of The Tech That Comes Next, emphasized that it is imperative for whoever is developing technology – and especially governments – to identify what is deemed acceptable and what is deemed harmful in terms of AIs use.

“Generative AI is an opportunity to do new things and engage in ways we haven’t before, but we also need to make sure that in our pursuit of harnessing the power of AI, we don’t do it at the expense of trust or at the expense of agency of individuals,” Bruce concluded. 

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