Description: During recent years, corporations around the world have raced to adopt the usage of artificial intelligence (AI). Some have dedicated more resources to AI adoption than others. Regardless of the level of resource dedication, corporations are not immune from societal and governmental influence regarding AI acceptance. Societies and governments in some countries more widely accept AI than in others. In Progress and Poverty, Henry George asks why there is still so much poverty despite all of the economic growth and technological progress. To answer this question, this panel discussion will examine the extent of AI adoption in Japan, Germany, Armenia, and Georgia, who is truly benefitting from it, and what can be done to ensure that the technological progress is shared with everyone.
Panelists:
Prof. Dr. Hironori Washizaki: Prof. Dr. Hironori Washizaki is a Professor and the Associate Dean of the Research Promotion Division at Waseda University in Tokyo and a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Informatics. He also works as an Outside Director of eXmotion. He has served as the IEEE Computer Society President in 2025 and Past President in 2026. He has led software engineering research and ICT professional and educational activities, including developing the IEEE-CS’s Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK Guide). He has led many academia-industry joint research and large-funded projects in AI software engineering. He leads a nation-wide professional IoT/AI/DX education project called SmartSE. http://www.washi.cs.waseda.ac.jp/
Prof. Willi Semmler: Willi Semmler is the Arnhold Professor of International Cooperation and Development, Em, at the New School for Social Research, New York. He was a Postdoc at Columbia University, a professor at American University, Washington, D.C., and Bielefeld University, Germany, and a Fulbright Professor at the University of Vienna. He is an honorary doctor of the American University Europe-Fon and served as an evaluator of research projects for the EU Commission, and was a visiting scholar at the ECB and the IMF while working for the IEO at the IMF. He is also a member of the Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University, directed by Edmund Phelps (Nobel Laureate in Economics), a research associate at La Sapienza, Rome, a senior research associate at the IIASA, Vienna, an associate editor of the journal Econometrics and Statistics, and a member of the Board of the HGSSS. His research is on empirical macroeconomics, financial economics, and the economics of climate change. He has numerous journal and book publications, and his research has appeared in publications of the World Bank, the IMF, the ECB, and ILO.
Prof. Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan: Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan, Ph.D. is Henry George Chair in Economics and Associate Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics and Finance of the Peter J. Tobin College of Business at St. John’s University in New York City. Dr. Gevorkyan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Vincentian Centre for Church and Society, a Research Fellow at the Center for Global Business Stewardship, and a Board Member at the Armenian Economic Association. Dr. Gevorkyan also serves as Economics Subject Matter Expert for the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See To the United Nations. He is also a member of the editorial boards at the Review or Political Economy, Review of Keynesian Economics, Armenian Journal of Economics, and other journals. His research covers topics in open economy macroeconomics, economic development, diaspora economics, and post-socialist transition economics. Dr. Gevorkyan’s most recent book is Transition Economies: Transformation, Development, and Society in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (Routledge, 2018).
Tato Khundadze: Tato Khundadze is an AI/ML Engineer and Ph.D. candidate in Economics at The New School for Social Research. His work focuses on applying machine learning, deep reinforcement learning, and scientific machine learning to economic dynamics, decision-making, and policy-relevant modeling. He currently leads the development of AI-driven systems at the Ministry of Infrastructure of Georgia, where he designs cloud-native AI platforms and LLM-based assistants to enhance transparency, monitoring, and data-informed decision-making across national infrastructure projects. Alongside his public-sector work, Tato serves as an Associate Professor of Machine Learning at the British University in Georgia and is co-founder of Commons AI, where he develops applied LLM solutions for Georgian-language legal and tax analytics.
Moderator:
James Cusick: James Cusick is a Visiting Associate Researcher at Ritsumeikan University’s Department of Electronics and Information Engineering in Kyoto, Japan, and an IT Consultant specializing in Software Engineering, IT Operations, and Cybersecurity. James also serves as a Board Trustee at the Henry George School of Social Science where he researches topics in Innovation and Economics. Previously James was Senior Director IT Strategy and Operations & Distinguished Engineer with Wolters Kluwer a global information services company. Earlier he held leadership and technical roles at Dell, Bell Laboratories, and AT&T Labs. James was also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Department of Computer Science where he taught Software Engineering. His publications include over 100 papers and articles and two recent books on IT. James is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Columbia University in New York City. He is also an IEEE Senior Member, an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Contributor, a recipient of the IEEE Japan Medal, and a certified PMP (Project Management Professional).
Location: Online via Zoom
Time: 8:30AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)