In recent years the department has been trying to make labs more engaging; safer-at-home orders demonstrated the benefits of letting students design their own experiments.
The cross-disciplinary institute involving Engineering and the School of Law will examine advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, robotics and new forms of digital media to identify their benefits and risks.
The event is being held exactly a half century after a team led by UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock sent the first message over the Arpanet — the precursor to today’s internet.