This Month's Latest Tech News in Buffalo, NY - Sunday August 31st 2025 Edition

Week in Review: Buffalo's AI moment - public investment meets local debate - This month the University at Buffalo moved from plan to launch as the new Department of AI and Society, backed by a $5 million state seed and positioned alongside UB's Empire AI resources, kicking off interdisciplinary bachelor's programs that pair AI with fields from economics to language; Governor Hochul framed the investment as preparing students and the region for “AI for the public good” (Governor Hochul AI initiative announcement) while UB's own site outlines a fall rollout and an AI & Society Building with labs and incubator space to bridge research and community outreach (University at Buffalo Department of AI & Society fall rollout).

For Buffalo professionals wanting practical AI skills now, Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp offers hands‑on training and prompt-writing practice to apply AI in any role (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration).

Item	Detail
State funding	$5 million to launch the department
Launch	Fall 2025
Expected enrollment	300+ students/year by 2030
New bachelor's degrees	AI & geospatial analysis; AI & language technology; AI & quantitative economics; AI & policy analysis; AI & responsible communication; AI & logic and ontology; AI & language and intercultural competence

“Our vision is to create AI systems that are built by society, for society.” - Atri Rudra

University at Buffalo launches Department of AI and Society - backed by a $5 million state seed, UB is rolling out seven interdisciplinary AI-focused bachelor's degrees and two minors this fall to teach students how to apply machine learning across fields from language and geospatial analysis to policy and communication; Governor Kathy Hochul framed the move as part of a broader Empire AI push and detailed the programs in her Governor Hochul announcement on AI-specialized degrees at the University at Buffalo, while local reporting highlights plans to invest much of the funding in high-performance computing and new faculty hires and notes a dedicated AI & Society Building (construction slated for summer 2027 with SUNY funding) to house labs and community-facing work in the UB Spectrum report on UB's AI & Society launch; UB expects the programs to enroll more than 300 students a year by 2030, signaling a regional talent pipeline that pairs technical horsepower with humanities and policy training so graduates can steward AI “for the public good.”

Item	Detail
State funding	$5 million to launch the department
Launch	Fall 2025
Degrees	7 AI-focused majors, 2 AI minors
Building	AI & Society Building - construction expected summer 2027; $196M SUNY funding (development)
Enrollment goal	300+ students/year by 2030

“This is not just about infusing AI into other disciplines. As much as AI can benefit the arts, humanities and social sciences, AI desperately needs the arts, humanities and social sciences as well. We recognize that AI systems cannot benefit society without an AI workforce that understands society.” - Atri Rudra

UB to offer seven AI “AI+X” undergraduate degrees starting Fall 2025: the University at Buffalo is rolling out a first‑of‑its‑kind “AI + X” suite that embeds AI coursework and ethics into seven majors - ranging from AI and geospatial analysis to AI and responsible communication - plus two AI‑focused minors, all supported by a $5 million state seed for the new Department of AI and Society; approved by the New York State Education Department, the programs pair technical training with humanities and policy coursework so graduates can apply AI tools responsibly in fields like economics, language, and policy analysis, and the initiative sits squarely within Governor Hochul's broader push (Governor Hochul announcement on AI specialized degrees) as well as MeriTalk's rundown of UB's AI‑integrated model, which notes these programs are expected to enroll 300+ students within a few years and leverage Empire AI's supercomputing power - technology that has already cut training time for some models from weeks to mere hours (MeriTalk coverage of UB's “AI + X” model).

Item	Detail
State funding	$5 million to launch the Department of AI and Society
Start term	Fall 2025
Programs	7 AI‑integrated majors; 2 AI minors
Enrollment projection	300+ students within a few years / by 2030

“We recognize that AI systems cannot benefit society without an AI workforce that understands society.” - Atri Rudra

Student protests over Turnitin AI-detection use at University at Buffalo - UB students have pushed back loudly this spring after Turnitin flags landed in inboxes, with a medical student, Kelsey Auman, saying her assignments were scored “60% AI, 67% AI, and then 97% AI” and launching a change.org petition calling on the university to disable the detector; local reporting captures the strain of proving a negative and UB's response that it will not rely “solely” on the tool when adjudicating cases, but critics point to broader evidence that Turnitin's detector can generate false positives and harvest student work into corporate databases (see WKBW coverage of UB students pushing back on Turnitin, WKBW coverage of UB students pushing back on Turnitin, CalMatters analysis of Turnitin AI detector, Times Higher Education on plagiarism appeals over generative AI detection).

A vivid takeaway: well‑written, carefully revised student work can look suspicious to an algorithm, leaving learners scrambling to document drafts, browser histories, and other proofs to protect their grades and reputations.

“The software just isn't good enough.” - Kelsey Auman

Empire AI's statewide push is turning New York's public universities into a coordinated engine for “AI for the public good”: Governor Kathy Hochul has seeded $5 million to help eight SUNY campuses stand up departments, centers, and institutes of AI & Society that pair technical research with ethics, environment, health, and community engagement (Governor Hochul's $5M AI and Society initiative announcement), while campus stories show concrete projects already under way - from SUNY ESF's environment-focused AISE to Binghamton's new Institute for AI and Society tapping Empire AI's Alpha to speed up studies that once would have taken decades (Binghamton University Institute for AI and Society announcement).

The Alpha phase at the University at Buffalo is running heavy workloads - scores of public-good projects and hundreds of researchers - and state budget plans and member commitments aim to scale that capacity further so SUNY students and regional partners can both train on and steward powerful AI tools without sending data or expertise out of state.

Campus	Project
University at Albany	AI & Society College & Research Center
Binghamton University	Institute for AI and Society
University at Buffalo	Department of AI and Society
SUNY Downstate	Global Center for AI, Society and Mental Health
SUNY ESF	Center for Artificial Intelligence, Society, and the Environment (AISE)
SUNY Poly	Institute for AI and Society (seed funding)
Stony Brook University	Department of Technology, AI and Society
Upstate Medical	AI for Health Equity, Analytics, and Diagnostics (AHEAD) Center

“The progression of AI research in New York State is going to inspire other states to follow our path.” - Governor Kathy Hochul

New York appoints first Chief AI Officer, Shreya Amin - The State's Office of Information Technology Services has tapped Shreya Amin as its inaugural Chief AI Officer to drive a centralized, governance‑first AI strategy across agencies, refine the statewide Acceptable Use of AI policy, and expand ITS's public inventory of deployed systems; Amin arrives with more than 17 years of enterprise AI experience (including leadership at healthtech firm Wellist and an AI/ML consultancy), strong math credentials from Brandeis and the University of Chicago, and a mandate to balance modernization with ethical guardrails for systems that run on ITS infrastructure - the same data centers operating 24/7 to support over 17 million resident accounts and 120,000 employee accounts.

Her role is cast as a practical bridge between Empire AI–era compute power and everyday government services; read the official ITS announcement and CDO Magazine's profile for full context.

“I am deeply honored and incredibly excited to join the State of New York as its first Chief AI Officer. This is an extraordinary opportunity to shape our future through responsible AI. I'm committed to leveraging AI to enhance services, facilitate operations, and drive data-informed decisions, ensuring ethical guardrails, equity, and transparency. Collaborating across agencies and with our communities, we will create meaningful improvements in the lives of our residents while positioning New York as a leader in government AI.” - Shreya Amin

Regional AI events and public workshops kept Buffalo's AI conversation grounded and practical this spring: Buffalo State's “Augmented Human Intelligence in the Age of AI” workshop on April 19 sold out quickly (80 seats) at the Jacqueline Vito LoRusso Alumni & Visitor Center and delivered hands‑on, public‑facing sessions that paired local LLM tutorials (an Ollama demo), prompt‑engineering clinics, and demonstrations of an AI assistant for AP Calculus and AdsorbCast - organized by Joaquin Carbonara, Angela Thering, Naila Ansari Catilo, and Zhen Liu to bridge students, faculty, and the community.

Keynote speaker Po‑Shen Loh urged attendees to think about inclusive, human‑centered AI while Ernest Fokoue framed AI as “an invitation to transformation.” The free, capacity‑capped format kept sessions intimate and practical, underscoring Buffalo State's push to put usable AI skills into local hands; see the university's workshop recap and the event page for details and future programming.

Item	Detail
Date	April 19, 2025
Location	Jacqueline Vito LoRusso Alumni & Visitor Center, Buffalo State
Attendance	Free, capped at 80 (sold out)
Keynote	Po-Shen Loh (Carnegie Mellon University)
Highlights	Local LLM/Ollama tutorial, prompt engineering tracks, AI assistant demos, AdsorbCast presentation

“Learning how to use AI wisely is a critical skill for educators, professionals, and students.” - Amitra Wall, Buffalo State University provost

UB's growing AI ecosystem is already threading into national security research: as the state-backed Empire AI hub on UB's north campus expands capacity, regional faculty and students are well positioned to engage with Department of Defense programs that explicitly seek university partners, from the DoD's Laboratory‑University Collaboration Initiative (LUCI) to broader CDAO partnerships and acquisition work described in RAND's brief on generative AI for influence activities.

These pathways aren't abstract - LUCI runs a tight timeline (white papers in spring, interviews in mid‑summer, projects kicking off in October) that can turn campus research into funded, defense‑relevant projects within months, and RAND's analysis underlines both the operational promise and the acquisition headaches DoD faces when integrating generative models.

The practical takeaway for Buffalo: UB's interdisciplinary AI+X degrees and Empire AI compute create a local pipeline that can feed DoD collaborations - but participating researchers will need to sprint through application windows, align with defense acquisition norms, and plan for the data‑security and ethical guardrails those partnerships demand; see the LUCI program details, the RAND brief, and the state announcement on UB's AI programs for context.

LUCI milestone	Date (2025)
FY26 LUCI webinar	Jan 24
White paper deadline	Apr 30
Interview period	Aug 18–28 (est.)
Notification of selections	Aug 29 (est.)
Project start	Oct 1 (est.)

“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department's ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries.” - DOD CDAO (quoted in CDO Magazine)

Local concerns about AI misuse and harms: Amherst High School image incident - Amherst Central High School opened an investigation after a student allegedly used an AI tool (reported as FlowGPT) to create and share altered images that included the names of students and staff and, in some cases, faces placed on AI-generated bodies to depict undressing or people in bikinis; the episode underscores how quickly generative tools can turn private school networks into vectors for harm and how families and counselors are left to repair reputations and emotional damage.

Police say no criminal activity was found and the identified student is cooperating while the district treats the matter as a disciplinary issue; administrators are focused on removing content and supporting affected students.

Read local coverage for details and next steps at the WGRZ report on the Amherst High School AI image incident and the WIVB Buffalo roundup of the district response.

Item	Detail
Location	Amherst Central High School, Buffalo, NY
Program involved	FlowGPT
Police finding	No criminal charges; treated as school disciplinary matter
Actions	Content removal requests to FlowGPT; school counselors and administrators offering support

“We take online safety and student well-being very seriously. Please be assured that appropriate steps are being taken to address the situation and support those involved. We encourage you to speak with your child about responsible and safe technology use.” - Principal Gregory Pigeon

Regional commentary and research on AI realism and safeguards is emerging as a practical, interdisciplinary effort: the University at Buffalo's College of Arts & Sciences documents projects that apply AI to real-world problems - from predicting contagious-disease spread and mapping roadside biodiversity to building Spanish-language clinical apps and probing misinformation, bias, and alignment - illustrating how technical work is being paired with social‑impact goals (see the University at Buffalo College of Arts & Sciences AI research projects).

At the same time, policy voices warn that

“the window of opportunity for action on AI is closing,”

stressing that with roughly one in six U.S. workers already using AI daily and systems touching hiring, insurance and lending decisions, timely state guardrails are needed to protect vulnerable communities and ensure accountability (read the City & State op-ed “Window of Opportunity for Action on AI” by Kristen Gonzalez).

The combined message is clear: validate models in the wild, prioritize transparency and bias reduction, and pair research with enforceable safeguards before harms calcify into precedent.

Researcher	Focus
Ling Bian	AI to predict contagious disease spread
Lindsay Hahn	Detecting violent behavior on social media
Melissa McCarron	Spanish-language AI app for healthcare communication
Yotam Ophir	AI and misinformation/automated journalism
Cassandra Jacobs	Biases in human and AI language processing
Ryan Muldoon	AI alignment models respecting societal values

Buffalo-area industry and legal coverage is sharpening from theoretical risk to boardroom checklist: local counsel are warning that generative AI can create forensic “data trails” that expose companies to discovery and privacy claims, and national briefs show a rising plaintiffs' bar targeting “AI washing” in investor disclosures - MoFo notes 13 securities suits tied to overstated AI claims - so in-house teams must treat AI like any other high‑stakes technology, with legal review on messaging and risk disclosures.

Practical steps from regional advisers include clearly defining what counts as “AI” for policy purposes, avoiding one‑size‑fits‑all playbooks, and embedding governance into procurement and vendor contracts (see Phillips Lytle's guidance on defining AI for smarter governance and Buffalo reporting on corporate litigation risks of AI).

The upshot for Buffalo employers: documentation, precise public statements, and cross‑functional governance aren't optional; they're the first line of defense when a tool's promise meets regulatory or courtroom scrutiny.

“Another litigation risk of generative AI is that it creates a data trail that must be “treated as any other data trail,” Greene said.

Conclusion: What Buffalo needs next - workforce, governance, and community engagement - Buffalo's momentum is real: a $5 million state seed launched UB's Department of AI and Society and seven “AI+X” majors, while Empire AI - backed by more than $500 million - is already cutting model training from weeks to hours, showing the region can build powerful public‑interest compute.

To turn capacity into shared prosperity, Buffalo needs three things in parallel: fast, accessible upskilling for local workers (short, practical programs like Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work can get non‑technical professionals prompt‑writing and tool‑use skills quickly), tighter governance and transparency so campuses and employers deploy models responsibly, and sustained community engagement so curricula and research map to local employers, schools, and civic needs.

A vivid test: when compute can shrink a drug‑discovery timeline from a decade to months, the city's challenge is making sure the jobs and safeguards follow that speed - training pipelines, clear procurement rules, and public forums to keep AI accountable and locally beneficial (Governor Hochul announcement of UB AI specialized degrees, University at Buffalo SUNY roundtable on Empire AI research acceleration, Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration).

Priority	Detail
State seed	$5 million for UB's Department of AI and Society
Empire AI backing	More than $500 million in public/private funding
Research speed	Model training reduced from ~2 weeks to hours (Empire AI)
Workforce option	Nucamp AI Essentials for Work - 15 weeks; early bird $3,582
Enrollment goal	UB aims for 300+ AI students/year by 2030

“This is not just about infusing AI into other disciplines. As much as AI can benefit the arts, humanities and social sciences, AI desperately needs the arts, humanities and social sciences as well. We recognize that AI systems cannot benefit society without an AI workforce that understands society.” - Atri Rudra