“AI will not wait for curricula updates or policy debates. The decisions we make today decide whether AI empowers or undermines our future.”
Today's conversations surrounding AI often shift towards places of fear and uncertainty but Romelia Flores is quick to bring everyone's attention back to what matters: responsibility, literacy, and impact. At the IBM TechXchange 2025 Conference, she challenges educators, public sector leaders, and technologists to rethink how AI is currently being deployed, not as an extravagant tool, but as a foundation for trust and transformation. The Spotlight Series continues and today we will have a deep dive with Romelia Flores, tiptoeing between the lines of Innovation and Ethics and how this is affecting newer generations experiencing AI for the first time.
Innovation Meets Ethics: Navigating the Grey Line
AI is advancing so fast that it is outpacing our policies, pedagogy and public understanding. This leaves a “grey area” where the ethics regarding this technology hasn’t been established yet but the innovation is continuous, never stopping. Almost every time a new product is released we have only a moment to process this new development before the next update is released. This gives us little to no time to deeply think about the ethics behind innovations like AI. AI is impacting broad aspects of society. So for risky use cases we need to seek input during design and business capture efforts from individuals from across a variety of disciplines such as business leaders, business domain experts, technologists, and depending on the use case being considered psychologists, lawyers, researchers, educators and more. AI requires effective teaming.
Romelia recalls presenting a risky project to IBM’s Responsible Technology Board. The experience was transformative!
“It can be scary to stand in front of such a diverse group of experts and have them pick apart your work. But what you realize is they’re not criticizing; they’re helping. That collaboration makes the project stronger and the outcomes safer.”
Education as the Frontline of AI Literacy
If there is one misconception about AI Romelia wants to address, it's the idea that AI is optional.
“AI is here to stay. The real question isn’t whether we’ll use it, it’s whether we’ll understand it.”
This is why she treats AI literacy as a necessity and as non-negotiable. Without it, institutions could risk building upon unstable ground. Her sessions at universities prove this point. At the University at Buffalo, she had a multi-disciplinary team focus on assessing an AI grading assistant and determining what they would do to build a trustworthy solution.
Attendees discussed the guardrails and guidelines necessary to be considered such as:
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Would grading be fair for students with English as a second language?
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Should students know whether AI or a professor graded their work?
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Could the system explain why a grade was given or taken away?
University curriculum is under constant pressure to evolve as quickly as possible in order to keep up evolving technology and ensure students obtain up to date education. Coding techniques utilizing AI code and test generation as well as optimization are state of the art techniques that students need to understand. AI for Business intelligence is also impacting business and MBA courses as well.
“Students want to know they are paying to go to the best university and want state of the art education to position themselves for their careers. That means schools must evolve as quickly as the students demand it.”
Romelia stresses that what applies to education also applies equally to governments, healthcare providers, and public sector agencies that face the same need for literacy and responsibility.
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Continuous Learning as a Public Mandate
When asked to sum up the IBM TechXchange in one word, Flores chose "transformation." Then she added a second: continuous learning.
She believes that everyone, regardless of their preoccupation as a student, a C-Suite leader, or a government official, must continue learning. Universities need to embed AI literacy into every discipline, governments must set policies that both protect and empower, and enterprises should lead by example with responsible technology boards.
Her call to action is as clear as day: place ethics, literacy, and collaboration in every decision now, and AI will not only transform education and public services but also make them more transparent, more resilient, and more human-centered.
Watch Romelia Flores at the IBM TechXchange Conference 2025, October 6 to 9 in Orlando, Florida 📅
Public Market Innovation Summit: AI in Action for Education, Healthcare & Government(GovEd) [3119]
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