24 patents: Professor demands proof students understand AI output

Prof. Claudia V. Goldman has told her data science students that fully AI-generated answers will not be accepted. The associate professor at the Hebrew University Business School in Jerusalem is enforcing a strict rule: if a machine writes the response, the student must prove they understand it.

Goldman, who has held 24 patents and published more than 50 academic papers, explains to students exactly when and why they may use artificial intelligence tools. She requires them to credit the technology and explain their usage process. She tells the class she can detect AI in their writing, a fact she uses to keep students honest and critical.

The core of her method is active verification. Instead of banning AI, she encourages students to brainstorm with it but demands they remain skeptical. Students must check whether the information is biased and verify that cited sources actually exist. This approach forces them to engage with the material rather than passively accepting machine output.

Goldman’s teaching style relies on in-person assessment to gauge understanding. She evaluates students through a mix of classwork, presentations, and discussions. She also assigns activities that students organize for their peers, which allows her to see how they interact with complex topics face to face. The curriculum includes discussions on human responsibility and professional values.

In a recent interview at her office, Goldman addressed the concept of "Human Reserved" jobs, a suggestion made by Bill Gates. She rejected the idea that the issue is a simple binary of which professions stay human. In her view, the focus should be on understanding the benefits AI brings to different roles and identifying the critical skills needed to strengthen them.

The Hebrew University Business School supports this integration with specific courses, including AI for Social Good, Responsible AI, and When AI Meets Humans and Society. The university also runs a Free Listener Program that allows senior citizens to audit these classes. The fall semester has already begun, and these new standards are now in effect.

Goldman’s background in industry informs her academic approach. She spent 15 years as a research scientist in General Motors’ research and development organization in Herzliya. Before that, she worked as a team leader at Samsung Telecom Research. At GM, she focused on introducing learning agents into the vehicle user experience to help drivers understand autonomous driving functions.

She has been in academia since 2005, holding research posts at Bar-Ilan University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of Haifa. She has served as an associate professor at the Hebrew University Business School since July 2024. Her doctoral work was supervised by Prof. Jeff Rosenschein.

Goldman moved to Israel in January 1984, at the age of 16. She was born in Argentina, where her grandparents fled before the Holocaust. She attended a Jewish school in Buenos Aires, studying in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Spanish. She told her father in 1983 that Israel was the only place she saw herself growing up. The family made aliyah six months later.

She met her husband, Prof. Roy Shenhar, a full professor at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Chemistry, in 1995. They first encountered each other on the stairs of the Ross Building on the Givat Ram campus. After they ran into each other a third time, he bought her ice cream according to Hebrew custom. They married in 1999.