Neil Jacobstein chairs the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Track at Singularity University on the NASA Research Park campus in Mountain View California. He served as the former President of Singularity University. Jacobstein is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Stanford University Media X Program, where his research focuses on augmented decision systems. He Chaired AAAI’s 17th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, and continues to review technical papers for IAAI’s. In 2016, he became a founding member of the editorial board of AAAS Science Robotics. Jacobstein has served as a technical consultant on AI research and development projects for DARPA, NSF, NASA, NIH, EPA, DOE, the U.S. Army and Air Force, GM, Ford, Boeing, Applied Materials, NIST, and other agencies. He was CEO of Knowledge Corporation, a pioneering AI company, where he worked on AI applications systems for industry and government. He worked as a graduate research intern in Alan Kay’s Learning Research Group at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and was a consultant in PARC’s Software Concepts Group. He is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He has moderated Aspen Institute Socrates Programs on the technical and ethical implications of advanced technologies, and he coaches Socrates moderators.
Jacobstein is deeply interdisciplinary and has a keen sense of how the arts and sciences can integrate. Since 1992, he has served as Chairman of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, a 501c3 nanotechnology R&D organization. Jacobstein contributed to the 2005 National Academy of Sciences workshop on the feasibility of molecular manufacturing, and the 2007 Foresight Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems. He is the primary author of the Foresight Guidelines for the responsible development of nanotechnology. Jacobstein is in demand as an engaging speaker who can make complex topics clear to diverse audiences. He has given invited talks worldwide on the technical, business, and ethical implications of exponential technologies, such as AI, robotics, and atomically precise manufacturing. He is a member of AAAS, AAAI, IEEE, and ACM. Jacobstein has served in a variety of executive and technical advisory roles for industry, nonprofit, and government organizations.
He received his BS in Environmental Sciences, Summa cum Laude from the University of Wisconsin, and an MS in Community Health Sciences and Human Ecology from the University of Texas, in conjunction with NASA’s Environmental Physiology Simulation Program.