In September, the Mayo Clinic in Arizona created a first-of-its-kind job within the hospital system: Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer.

Doctors at the Arizona site, which has facilities in Phoenix and Scottsdale, had been experimenting with AI for years. But after the release of ChatGPT in 2022 and the subsequent frenzy over the technology, the hospital decided it needed to work more with AI and find someone to coordinate the efforts.

That's why executives appointed Dr. Bhavik Patel, a radiologist who specializes in AI, for the new job. Dr. Patel has since tested a new AI model that could help speed up the diagnosis of a rare heart disease by looking for hidden data in ultrasound scans.

“We're really trying to advance some of these data and AI capabilities in every department, every division, every work group,” says Dr. Richard Gray, the CEO of the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. The role of Chief AI Officer was created because “it helps to have a coordination function with deep expertise.”

Many people have long feared that AI would destroy jobs. But a technology boom has instead pushed law firms, hospitals, insurance companies, government agencies and universities to create what has become the hottest new role in corporate America and beyond: the senior executive in charge of AI.

Credit agency Equifax, manufacturer Ashley Furniture and law firms such as Eversheds Sutherland have appointed AI managers in the past year. In December, The New York Times named an editor-in-chief of AI initiatives. And more than 400 federal departments and agencies last year sought chief AI officials to comply with an executive order from President Biden that created safeguards for the technology.

A total of 122 people with the title of chief or vice president of AI participated in a forum on company review site Glassdoor last year, up from 19 in 2022, Glassdoor said.

The AI ​​manager jobs are emerging as organizations look to leverage the transformative technology, says Randy Bean, the founder of the consulting firm NewVantage Partners, which advises companies on data and AI leadership. At the same time, he added, “organizations want to say, 'Yes, we have a Chief AI Officer,' because it makes them look good.”

Other managerial positions have emerged in response to major technological and financial changes. In the 1980s, advances in computing power led to a boom in Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers, who typically oversee the way technology is used or developed within a company. After the 2008 financial crisis, Chief Data Officers were appointed to comply with new regulations and manage how companies used data.

With leadership roles in AI, companies and organizations are looking for someone to help them navigate the risks and potential of the technology and how it can change the way people work.

To that end, health insurer Florida Blue promoted Svetlana Bender to the new position of vice president of AI and behavioral sciences in May. One of her first AI projects was testing an internal chatbot that can help write computer code and analyze customer data.

Dr. Bender, previously director of technology solutions for Florida Blue, said her team would train the chatbot on customer data and open it up for use by all employees. This month she hired a director of AI to help with the work

“We want to transition as quickly as possible” to using the technology while ensuring customers' insurance data remains secure, she said.

Accenture, a consulting firm, added a chief AI officer in September as clients became increasingly interested in the technology. The company promoted Lan Guan, who worked in global data and AI, to the role of advising clients on how to integrate AI into their businesses. Accenture also builds AI tools, including for the insurance sector.

The new job “underlines our ambition in the market and how optimistic we are about what we see as the enormous potential for our customers in AI,” Ms Guan said.

At Western University in Ontario, Mark Daley, professor of computer science and chief information officer, took on the new role of chief AI officer in October. While still teaching, he left the role of Chief Information Officer.

Dr. Daley has since focused on creating more than 30 AI pilot projects, including working with the research and finance team to automate audit processes and collaborating with faculty in the humanities to develop new courses.

“We are at a moment where the best approach to generative AI is actually research and experimentation,” he said.

Some experts said technology was changing so quickly that it could soon surpass rollers. a Harvard Business Review article Last year, co-written by Mr. Bean of NewVantage, it was posited that the Chief AI and Data Officers were set up to fail because the jobs were “a high-pressure balancing act with a technology that presents enormous risks and opportunities.”

Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at LinkedIn, said AI would also evolve from a newfangled technology to something that is embedded in everyone's work. “AI will appear in many roles, and it will be so ingrained that the specific AI job title will disappear,” she said.

Some Chief AI officers said their jobs had staying power. Dr. Patel of the Mayo Clinic in Arizona said a big part of his new job was communicating with other doctors and regulators, such as the Food and Drug Administration, and identifying how AI can make medical work more efficient.

“Today's healthcare still has many gaps,” he says. “This is where I think we can use artificial intelligence smartly to bridge, or at least reduce, that gap.”

The trial of Jennifer Crumbley, whose son committed the worst school shooting in Michigan history, began Thursday with dueling portraits: of a negligent mother whose indifference caused a tragedy, and of a good, even “hyper-vigilant” mother who… darkly groped. about her son's problems until that tragedy occurred.

Attorneys for the prosecution and defense painted those starkly different pictures for jurors in a courtroom in Pontiac, Michigan, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Oxford High School, where the mass shooting occurred on Nov. 30, 2021.

The gunman, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time, killed four students and injured seven others. He pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced last month to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The cases against Ms. Crumbley and her husband come on the cusp of an effort by some prosecutors to hold parents accountable when they are suspected of enabling deadly violence by their children. In recent months alone, parents whose children committed gun violence in other states have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct or neglect.

In the Michigan trial, Ms. Crumbley, 45, faces more serious charges: four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say that despite clear signs of Ethan's violent intentions, his mother's inability to “just be careful” about acting on what she knew made her criminally liable for the Oxford High School massacre.

Her husband, James Crumbley, 47, has also been charged and will be tried separately in March. Unable to post $1 million combined bail, both parents are being held in the Oakland County Jail.

In his opening statement on Thursday, Marc Keast, an Oakland County prosecutor, emphasized that Ms. Crumbley was not charged with murder or simply accused of being a bad parent. But, he said, because of her “deliberate disregard for the danger she knew,” she was a cause of the mass shooting Ethan carried out.

“Jennifer Crumbley didn't pull the trigger that day,” Mr. Keast said. “But she is responsible for those deaths.”

Mr. Keast spent much of his opening statement describing the litany of troubling signs that preceded the shooting — information he said the Crumbleys knew but did not share with the school — while suggesting that prosecutors also investigate the actions of Mrs Crumbley would emphasize in the aftermath. After Ethan's arrest, the Crumbleys fled the area, and police later found them in the basement of a Detroit art studio.

“Her first instinct was to lie,” Mr. Keast said. “Her second was running.”

Shannon Smith, a lawyer representing Ms Crumbley, said the prosecution was trying to pin the blame for a horrific attack on a woman who was “doing her best” in raising her son.

Ms. Smith said that it was only after the shooting that Ms. Crumbley became aware of many of the red flags, such as Ethan's text messages with friends, that the prosecution would cite as evidence of Ethan's mental origins. Ms. Smith said Ethan hid these signs from her and that school officials never told her about some of the more disturbing examples of Ethan's behavior.

“He did something she could never have foreseen, fathomed or predicted,” Ms Smith said.

A long series of motions, rulings and other pretrial filings paint a chaotic home in which, prosecutors say, Ethan's mental breakdown was ignored and his pleas for help went unheeded.

The week before the shooting, Mr. Crumbley took Ethan to buy a 9 millimeter SIG Sauer pistol, and Mrs. Crumbley took him for target practice. On the morning of November 30, both parents were called to school because Ethan had drawn violent images of a shooting on school work. Against a school counselor's suggestion, they did not pick up their son from school to receive immediate medical attention, and they were unaware that he had brought the gun to school that day in his backpack.

Within hours of that encounter, Ethan started shooting.

Ms Smith said Mr Crumbley was responsible for putting the gun away. She also said her client never considered Ethan a risk for committing violence against others, even after being alerted that a mass shooting had occurred at the high school. Until authorities told her explicitly what had happened, Ms. Smith said, “it still never occurred to her that he would ever shoot someone else.”

She also insisted that the Crumbleys went to Detroit after the shooting because they were receiving death threats and that they planned to turn themselves in after learning they were being charged.

Ms Crumbley's lawyers planned to call Ethan to testify at the trial, along with three doctors who had spoken to him. But lawyers representing Ethan told the court in a letter that they advised him to “invoke his right to remain silent” and demand protection when it comes to confidential information, including conversations with treatment providers.

Mrs. Crumbley's lawyers responded by asking the judge to compel Ethan and the doctors to testify. The judge has not yet ruled on the question.

After opening remarks on Thursday, Molly Darnell, a teacher in Oxford at the time of the shooting, took the stand as the first witness. She described that day: the commotion, the loud bangs, the announcement of a lockdown and the terrifying moment when she wanted to close her door and looked at Ethan. He shot her in the arm.

Mrs. Darnell, remembering that moment, burst into tears. “I couldn't understand what was happening,” she said.

The trial of Jennifer Crumbley, whose son Ethan carried out the worst school shooting in Michigan history, began Thursday with dueling portraits: of a negligent mother whose indifference caused a tragedy, and of a good, even “hyper-vigilant” mother who in was in prison. dark about her son's problems until that tragedy occurred.

Attorneys for the prosecution and defense painted those starkly different pictures for jurors in a courtroom in Pontiac, Michigan, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Oxford High School, where the mass shooting occurred on Nov. 30, 2021.

The gunman, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time, killed four students and injured seven others. He pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced last month to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The case against the Crumbleys is the precursor to an effort by some prosecutors to hold parents accountable when they are accused of enabling deadly violence by their children. In recent months alone, parents whose children committed gun violence in other states have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct or neglect.

In the Michigan trial, Ms. Crumbley, 45, faces more serious charges: four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say that despite clear signs of Ethan's violent intentions, his mother's inability to “just be careful” about acting on what she knew made her criminally liable for the Oxford High School massacre.

Her husband, James Crumbley, 47, has also been charged and will be tried separately in March. Unable to post $1 million combined bail, both parents are being held in the Oakland County Jail.

In his opening statement on Thursday, Marc Keast, an Oakland County prosecutor, emphasized that Ms. Crumbley was not charged with murder or simply accused of being a bad parent. But, he said, because of her “deliberate disregard for the danger she knew,” she was a cause of the mass shooting Ethan carried out.

“Jennifer Crumbley didn't pull the trigger that day,” Mr. Keast said. “But she is responsible for those deaths.”

Mr. Keast spent much of his opening statement describing the litany of troubling signs that preceded the shooting — information he said the Crumbleys knew but did not share with the school — while suggesting that prosecutors also investigate the actions of Mrs Crumbley would emphasize in the aftermath. After Ethan's arrest, the Crumbleys fled the area, and police later found them in the basement of a Detroit art studio.

“Her first instinct was to lie,” Mr. Keast said. “Her second was running.”

Shannon Smith, a lawyer representing Ms Crumbley, said the prosecution was trying to pin the blame for a horrific attack on a woman who was “doing her best” in raising her son.

Ms. Smith said that it was only after the shooting that Ms. Crumbley became aware of many of the red flags, such as Ethan's text messages with friends, that the prosecution would cite as evidence of Ethan's mental origins. Ms. Smith said Ethan hid these signs from her and that school officials never told her about some of the more disturbing examples of Ethan's behavior.

“He did something she could never have foreseen, fathomed or predicted,” Ms Smith said.

A long series of motions, rulings and other pretrial filings paint a chaotic home in which, prosecutors say, Ethan's mental breakdown was ignored and his pleas for help went unheeded.

The week before the shooting, Mr. Crumbley took Ethan to buy a 9 millimeter SIG Sauer pistol, and Mrs. Crumbley took him for target practice. On the morning of November 30, both parents were called to school because Ethan had drawn violent images of a shooting on school work. Against a school counselor's suggestion, they did not pick up their son from school to receive immediate medical attention, and they were unaware that he had brought the gun to school that day in his backpack.

Within hours of that encounter, Ethan started shooting.

Ms Smith said Mr Crumbley was responsible for putting the gun away. She also said her client never considered Ethan a risk for committing violence against others, even after being alerted that a mass shooting had occurred at the high school. Until authorities told her explicitly what had happened, Ms. Smith said, “it still never occurred to her that he would ever shoot someone else.”

She also insisted that the Crumbleys went to Detroit after the shooting because they were receiving death threats and that they planned to turn themselves in after learning they were being charged.

Ms Crumbley's lawyers planned to call Ethan to testify at the trial, along with three doctors who had spoken to him. But lawyers representing Ethan told the court in a letter that they advised him to “invoke his right to remain silent” and demand protection when it comes to confidential information, including conversations with treatment providers. Mrs. Crumbley's lawyers responded by asking the judge to compel Ethan and the doctors to testify. The judge has not yet ruled on the question.

After the opening remarks, Molly Darnell, a teacher in Oxford at the time of the shooting, took the stand as the first witness. She described that day: the commotion, the loud bangs, the announcement of a lockdown and the terrifying moment when she wanted to close her door and looked at Ethan. He shot her in the arm.

Mrs. Darnell, remembering that moment, burst into tears. “I couldn't wrap my head around what was happening,” she said.