Technology and Innovation Commons^™

Silicon Rivalry: Understanding The U.S.-China Ai Competition In Southeast Asia, Daniel Christopher Kent

Master in Public Policy Theses

In the rising global strategic competition between China and the United States, artificial intelligence (AI) has taken on a special significance given its potentially transformative impact upon economics and security. Yet while the dialogue around the “AI race” is typically centered on foundational model capability enhancement, application in security contexts, and chip design and manufacturing, there is much less attention paid to its impact on geopolitics. In particular, AI diplomacy—the work of a state to spread its model of AI governance, evangelize its AI companies, and develop critical AI interdependencies and linkages around the world—is far less studied. Nowhere is …

The Efficacy Of Emotional Reframing As An Intervention To Promote Adult Transformational Growth, Linda Rossetti

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study investigates the underexplored relationship between adult developmental growth and emotions. Developmental growth requires an individual to respond to self-concept instability by adopting new meaning structures and navigating oppositional emotions. This quantitative study examined the relationship between an emotional reframing intervention and perspective shifts, an indicator of developmental progression. Data collected on three college campuses in the 2024-2025 academic year revealed a strong positive relationship between the intervention and perspective shifts, as evidenced by differences in pre- and post-assessment responses within the studied population, both in aggregate and in specific use cases. The findings contribute to three academic arenas: …

Generative Artificial Intelligence And Its Effects On The Creation, Distribution, And Possession Of Child Sexual Abuse Material, Grace Chitwood Hampton

Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Sex Offenses

This paper examines the growing legal and constitutional challenges posed by AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in the United States. Tracing the evolution of federal child pornography laws from the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977 through the PROTECT Act and modern reporting statutes, the paper argues that existing legal frameworks were developed for an era preceding generative artificial intelligence and are ill-equipped to address fully synthetic yet hyper-realistic depictions of minors. Through analysis of key Supreme Court decisions, including Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, New York v. Ferber, and Miller v. California, the paper explores …

The Role Of Ceo Biases And Heuristics For Large Firms’ Innovation, Cristina O. Vlas, Radu E. Vlas

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

Do different CEO biases affect large firms’ innovation differently, and to what extent are these effects bounded by CEOs’ heuristics? In this article, we highlight overlooked antecedents, such as the biases imposed by CEO narcissism and self-monitoring and the heuristics driven by CEOs’ motivation (regulatory foci) for certain courses of action. We found that narcissistic CEOs differ from self-monitoring CEOs when it comes to innovation. We found that, for self-monitoring CEOs, these effects are conditioned by the individuals’ underlying promotion and prevention motivation, but this is not the case for narcissistic CEOs. These findings contour our understanding of the immutability …

The Paradox Of Perfection: Hidden Risks Of High-Performing Ai In Human-In-The-Loop Governance, Chen Zhong, Alper Yayla, Xueping Liang

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

As AI systems achieve near-perfect accuracy in high-stakes decision-making domains, governance frameworks risk overlooking a critical paradox: superior AI reliability may render human oversight ceremonial rather than functional. This paper presents a theoretically grounded experimental research design to investigate Automation Complacency—the cognitive degradation of human vigilance triggered by sustained streaks of accurate AI outputs. Grounded in Dual-Process Theory and the competency trap literature, we hypothesize that consistent AI reliability shifts operators from analytical (System 2) to heuristic (System 1) processing, significantly impairing error detection when AI eventually fails. Using a simulated phishing detection task (N=200), we plan to test how …

Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models, Ai Applications, Ai Business Transformation, Reza Vaezi

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

This paper critically examines the prevailing approaches to AI ethics, arguing that current frameworks—focused on regulation, compliance, and risk mitigation—are insufficient for guiding increasingly autonomous and socially influential AI systems. It contends that ethical behavior in humans arises from morality that is rooted in human empathy, which AI lacks. By differentiating between morality (emotionally intuitive) and ethics (analytical and rule-based), the paper highlights the limitations of procedural ethics in AI, which operates solely in an analytical mode. The author proposes an alternative path for ethical AI through conscious empathic AI, suggesting that embedding empathic capacities could stabilize moral behavior in …

Llms Are Not The Answer Relevant Ai For Business Transformation, Christopher Simpkins

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

AI hype is driving AI failure. Hype-driven focus on LLM-centric AI products – which in reality have few practical applications – is causing businesses to miss out on the real opportunities offered by the breadth of AI that is more relevant to their problems. In this position paper I provide a definition of AI that focuses on the kinds of problems AI can solve and a brief introduction to the broad field of AI. I then explain at a high level why LLMs fall short of their hype and always will, as a consequence of fundamental technical limitations. Within the …

When Humans Stop Thinking: Cognitive Offloading, Atrophy Risk, And The Design Of Human-Ai Intelligence, Pravinya Mandalapu, Adriane B. Randolph, Andrea Taylor

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems proliferate across professional and everyday contexts, humans increasingly rely on these tools to perform cognitive tasks they once carried out internally. This phenomenon of cognitive offloading extends beyond the use of traditional aids like calendars or calculators, raising foundational questions about how deep reliance on AI reshapes human cognition itself (Risko & Gilbert, 2016). While offloading can enhance immediate task performance, emerging evidence suggests meaningful costs to memory retention, judgment quality, and creative autonomy (Burnett & Richmond, 2025; Risko et al., 2023). Drawing on seminal work by Cliff Nass and colleagues on media multitasking, task-switching, …

Agentic Implementation In Business Processes With Guardrails, Kunal Kumar

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

Enterprises are increasingly adopting Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance automation in document driven workflows. However, their probabilistic behavior raises challenges related to governance, auditability, and regulatory compliance. This work proposes an agentic automation framework that integrates LLM-based cognitive services with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to enable intelligent document processing while preserving determinism and traceability. The architecture separates probabilistic interpretation from deterministic execution, using LLMs for bounded information extraction and RPA for rule-based orchestration, validation, and audit logging. To mitigate risks associated with nondeterministic AI behavior, the framework incorporates guardrails such as structured prompting, confidence thresholds, human-in-the-loop review, and comprehensive …

Human-Like Or System-Like Trust? A Comparison Of Trust Measures For Intelligent Assistants, Denise Mcwilliams, Adriane B. Randolph

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

Organizations increasingly deploy intelligent assistants to augment human tasks within virtual teams, reshaping how work is coordinated and performed. As intelligent assistants become embedded in everyday workflows, technology shifts from a passive tool to an active collaborator in team processes. Despite growing adoption, trust remains a critical factor influencing the use of intelligent assistants and may hinder organizations’ efforts to realize their full value. Prior research debates which trust construct is most appropriate for examining trust in artificial intelligence. Traditional perspectives emphasize cognitive and affective trust, developed for human-to-human relationships, which may not fully capture trust in human–computer contexts. Emerging …

From Configuration To Cognition: A Self-Configuring Agentic Crm Architecture For Small-Scale Retail Enterprises, Praveen Manimangalam

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly enhanced enterprise-scale customer relationship management (CRM) systems; however, small-scale retail businesses remain structurally excluded from these advancements due to configuration complexity, technical overhead, and limited digital capabilities. This paper introduces a Self-Configuring Agentic CRM (SC-ACRM) architecture designed to eliminate configuration barriers in micro-retail contexts. The framework operationalizes Intent-to-Schema automation, translating natural-language business intent into structured operational models and reducing configuration debt embedded in traditional metadatadriven systems. The architecture further incorporates adaptive agentic orchestration and Cognitive Infrastructure Elasticity, enabling dynamic policy adjustment under demand volatility while preserving human-supervisory governance. Using an agent-based simulation of a multi-SKU …

Hierarchical Multi-Level Llm Agent Swarms For Financial Research Synthesis And Trading Decision Support In Multi Strategy Hedge Funds, Puneet Gandhi, Rishab Gulati

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

"There will be no software in the future that's not agentic. And so, it is absolutely true that every software company will become an agentic company.”- Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. As various companies grapple with agentic architectures suitable to their firm environments, we present a hierarchical agentic architecture geared towards Multi Strategy hedge funds. Multi-strategy hedge funds operate within highly complex and rapidly evolving information environments. Trading decisions emerge from layered organizational structures in which sector specific teams continuously consume heterogeneous data sources. Sr. Portfolio Managers synthesize information to allocate capital towards high-conviction opportunities. As the volume and diversity of financial …

Creating It Capabilities In Workflow Automation With Unstructured Data, Gary J. Braswell

Proceedings of the Cognitive Innovation Conference (CognoCon)

Service organizations increasingly seek to automate customer service workflows, yet most customer communications arrive as unstructured data, such as email and chat. Although large language models (LLMs) offer new possibilities for interpreting such data, their non-deterministic behavior creates reliability risks that can undermine automation performance, as error rates as low as 10% can cause automated flows to perform worse than manual ones. This research discusses how firms can build IT capabilities that convert LLM-based interpretation of unstructured data into reliable automated customer service workflows. Using the Resource-Based View (RBV) as the theoretical lens, the study examines how knowledge sharing and …

Digital Transformation And Adaptive Capacity Of Banks In Tanzania: The Mediating Effect Of Knowledge Sharing, Sospeter Muchunguzi, Ulingeta O. L. Mbamba, Victor G. Wilson

Business Management Review

Amid rising competition and uncertainty, banks are increasingly adopting digital technologies to sustain adaptive capacity and competitiveness. This study examines the mediating effect of knowledge sharing in the influence of digital transformation on adaptive capacity. Drawing on an integrative theoretical framework combining the Dynamic Capability Theory, the Affordance Theory and the Adaptive Structuration Theory, a deductive approach was used, involving a sample size of forty-three (43) banks in Tanzania. Data were collected using a questionnaire administered through a drop-off and pick-up-later method and analyzed with PLS-SEM using SmartPLS software. We found that digital transformation of customer touchpoints makes banks more …

The Influence Of Digital Audit Capability On Tax Compliance In Tanzania, Henry Zeno Chalu, Daudi Deokari Mtena

Business Management Review

The research evaluates the effects of digital audit capacity on tax compliance in Tanzania, focusing on challenges such as tax avoidance and administrative inefficiency. It applies the Task-Technology Fit Theory and Deterrence Theory in tax audit to examine the relationship between digital audit capability and tax compliance. The findings show that digital audit capability has significantly enhanced tax compliance through data integrity, security, and analytical capability. These features minimize misreporting, secure financial information, and build trust while uncovering predictive insights. The current study also has implications for tax policy by highlighting the promise of digital audit capability in enhancing both …

Ai Is Taking Over!: A New Generation Of Unemployment Fears, Amaya V. Hepburn

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The growing panic surrounding AI taking over the workforce is strong in a distinct group of demographics, in contrast to the fear of computers taking over the workforce that was seen in previous generations. This suggests that AI developments have sparked a wave of fear that is unlike the fear of tech developments in the past. I have discovered that this fear is prevalent across several demographics: age, employment, and income. By cross-analyzing through the 2017 and 2025 fear surveys, I discovered that fear of AI is more prevalent in younger generations and is more threatening to students entering the …

Objects In The Sunset, Iskander Guetta

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

This research explores everyday design practices in the Maghreb shaped by economic, political, and ecological struggles amid transnational debates on decolonizing design. To do so, it looks at objects in, through and with the sunset. Taking المغرب — the place where the sun sets — as a conceptual lens, Objects in the Sunset illuminates the savoir-faire born from dispossession, scarcity, and epistemic violence. Working across different scales of the built environment — infrastructures, spaces, objects, and materials — it shifts design away from Eurocentric conceptions: from rationalization to resourcefulness, homogeneity to heterogeneity, optimization to adaptation, disposability to repair, and universal …

It’S No Longer Greek To Me: A Gamified Parsing Study Tool, Josiah J. Lane

Senior Honors Theses

Learning Koine Greek presents significant challenges due to the language’s complex morphology, including multiple verbal forms encoding tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number. Traditional methods relying on rote memorization often fail to support long-term retention and rapid parsing ability. This project presents a web-based parsing study tool designed to address these challenges by integrating spaced repetition algorithms, active recall, and gamification principles. The system leverages a relational database of lexical forms and parsed words, enabling adaptive scheduling of practice items based on individual learner performance. Gamified elements, including scoring, progress tracking, and immediate feedback, sustain engagement and encourage consistent …

Trust Migration In The Digital Era: Information Regimes And The Transformation Of Buyer–Seller Relationships, Stephen C. Carlson

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Business-to-business selling is being reshaped by rapid advances in digital platforms, enterprise systems, analytics, and artificial intelligence. Organizational buyers increasingly rely on algorithmic tools, peer communities, institutional certifications, and automated evaluation systems before engaging directly with sales representatives. Yet much of the buyer–seller trust literature continues to emphasize interpersonal communication quality, listening behaviors, and individual credibility as primary drivers of relational success.

This article argues that the central transformation in contemporary selling is not the erosion of trust, but its relocation. As technological infrastructures evolve, trust progressively migrates from individual sales representatives to organizational systems, platforms, governance mechanisms, and algorithmic …

Practical Applications Of Artificial Intelligence For Small Business Marketing: A Literary Review & Llm Approach, Noah C. Kowalski

Honors Capstones

This Honors Capstone Research Paper examines the practical application of artificial intelligence in small business digital and social media marketing. As AI technologies become more accessible, small businesses have new opportunities to improve efficiency, enhance customer engagement, and compete more effectively in digital markets. However, there is a lack of clear guidance on how to implement these tools in a practical and cost-effective way.

This study uses a qualitative approach, combining a literature review with an applied analysis of widely used AI marketing tools including ChatGPT, Canva, Hootsuite, Buffer, Google Analytics 4, and HubSpot. These tools were evaluated based on …