When yconic co-founder and CEO Arnell Milhouse talks to companies about leveraging artificial intelligence, he commonly encounters at least some anxiety.
The technology exploded in popularity just three years ago, when OpenAI released its ChatGPT software in late 2022. With that recency, “no one wants to be the first one to fail,” Milhouse said. But hesitation to adopt AI is the larger risk, he says.
“If we are not prepared now [for advancing AI usage], we will be dead last,” Milhouse said.
The idea of balancing the innovation and threats posed by artificial intelligence featured prominently in a panel discussion, “How AI is – and Will – Reshape the Future,” at Providence Business News’ Cybersecurity, AI & Tech Summit, held on Oct. 9 at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick.
It’s not just industry observers who are reckoning with the technology’s potential, according to panel moderator Christopher Parisi, host of the “AI Wave Podcast” and founder of the marketing firm Trailblaze Inc. Indeed, when Parisi asked audience members to indicate if they had used AI for work in the last week, a large majority raised their hands.
In the early days of ChatGPT, many users viewed it as “a shiny new toy,” Parisi said. That perspective had shifted by 2024 and morphed even more dramatically in 2025.
“Last year, AI was no longer a toy,” Parisi said. “This year was all about practical applications in our everyday lives.”
With this surge in popularity comes a need “to upscale every Rhode Islander … [with] the ability to confidently and responsibly use AI,” Parisi said.
For Tim Henry, a professor in Rhode Island College’s Computer Science and Information Technology Department, the moment calls to mind the Greek myth of Prometheus introducing fire to humanity but suffering divine punishment as a result.
In a modern context, “we need to incorporate the risks of having fire” in education, Henry said.
“If we don’t understand what the risks and the dangers are, we’re going to burn down the forest, and we’re going to create a lot of damage,” he said.
Milhouse added that companies must also prioritize smart, controlled risk-taking.
“Create a sandbox within your company,” Milhouse said. “Create an air-gap lab where you can experiment. You don’t have to test with live data. You can [use] simulated data to do that. We’re doing tons of that type of work, and it is massively important that there’s a greater sense of urgency to do this.
“This moment of accelerated opportunity is something that’s not far off into the future,” Milhouse said, advising companies to ask themselves, “What’s the fastest way I can move forward in a way that’s safe?”
Donovan Brady, director of solutions and architecture at managed services company RapidScale Inc., compared AI to agriculture. Tractors didn’t replace farmers, Brady said, but instead they made farmwork more efficient when working in concert with human oversight.
“The tool is just a tool,” Brady said. “It’s not some magic wand. It’s not going to replace you. It’s not going to replace a human.”
This idea is particularly important as recent graduates face historically high unemployment rates, Brady and Parisi said, and may have higher concerns about AI usage as a result.
Joyce Ofili, information systems specialist and business systems analyst at global biotechnology company Amgen Inc., encouraged a similar view of AI usage.
“AI is here to optimize processes, not actually take your job,” Ofili said. But like Henry, she emphasized a need for improved education around AI in not just higher education but within workplace training initiatives.
Amgen leaders have already begun applying this practice to the manufacturing floor, with a goal of tailoring this teaching to individual employees and tasks.
“At the end of the day, you don’t want to have technological solutions, and then the staff capacity is at an all-time low,” she said.
Rhode Island’s small size and tight-knit communities offer potential but also pose drawbacks when approaching AI, panelists said.
On one hand, the state must get out of “siloed” ways of thinking, Milhouse said, adding that at CIC Providence LLC, where startup accelerator yconic is based alongside scores of other companies, he’s witnessed an “interdisciplinary explosion of ideas.”
Henry said he sees this potential being applied throughout the Ocean State.
“Because of our small size, we are really good at collaborating amongst industries,” he said.
