In this special episode of In AI We Trust?, recorded live at the launch of the EqualAI C-Suite Summit in Washington, D.C., host Miriam Vogel sits down with the dynamic Van Jones — acclaimed social entrepreneur, innovator, and tech evangelist. Together, they dive into a candid and thought-provoking conversation about how AI can be a powerful force for good. With his trademark clarity and passion, Van shares a hopeful vision for AI’s potential to drive equity, expand opportunity, and reshape society for the better — but only if guided by the right policies and values.
AI as a Jetpack
Van proposes AI can be “a jetpack for everyday people who have really been locked out of opportunity.” While he acknowledges AI’s potential to disrupt jobs and industries, he emphasizes that “the future is yet to be written,” and encourages listeners to pour their energy into AI’s potential to disrupt broken systems, like healthcare and education.
AI Policy for Greater Opportunity
Van calls on policymakers to be imaginative and ambitious when thinking about AI. He advocates for an ‘AI transition trust’ to help people through the changing times and the leveraging of federal contracts to drive ethical AI development.
He also stresses the importance of providing support to institutions that are already trusted and established into communities, from educational institutions, like community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities, to libraries, like those his organization, Dream Machine, is working with currently.
Turning to Each Other
Van believes that communities who have faced significant disadvantages have, in turn, had to become highly adaptive, which will benefit them as AI brings about change. He reminds us that while AI will disrupt our reality, we should “tune up and turn up people’s history of resilience, of innovation, of improvisation, of overcoming.”
He recognizes AI as an issue that impacts everyone, providing people an opportunity to work together and grow their community across political and cultural divides.
C-Suite Summit
Van Jones kicked off the EqualAI C-Suite Summit with a powerful call to action, urging leaders to harness AI as a force for greater opportunity. His remarks set the tone for two impactful days of dialogue among top policymakers and industry leaders, focused on aligning best practices in AI governance. Key themes included preparing the workforce for an AI-driven future, advancing AI literacy across sectors, and building effective systems for AI incident reporting. The Summit highlighted the critical role of collaboration in ensuring AI realizes its promise with leading figures Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, including Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) and new AI House leads Rep. Kiley (R-CA3) and Rep. Fedorchak (R-ND), Steven Overly of Politico, Speaker Johnson’s AI aides, Department of Labor AI workforce leads, Ylli Bajraktari, President and CEO of Schmidt’s Special Competitive Studies Project Action Program, Dewey Murdick, Executive Director of CSET as well as EqualAI members, such as AWS, Pepico, Priceline, Verizon, M&T Bank, and SAS.
Listen to the special edition episode here:
https://equalai.transistor.fm/episodes/special-edition-a-pre-summit-conversation-with-van-jones
