Panel Session 1: Tuesday, Sept 8 10:40 am- 12:00 pm
AI and the evolution of trust
AI-driven geospatial workflows are increasingly vulnerable to threats and bias that undermine the trustworthiness of spatial knowledge at every stage of the loop. This panel will examine how and where trust breaks down — whether through inadvertent misinformation, black boxes, or the unseen propagation of algorithmic bias across spatial and analytic scales — and what the consequences have been for practitioners, policymakers, and the public who depend on geospatial outputs. Discussion will reflect on the deeper epistemological and practical stakes of eroding trust: when AI mediates the production of spatial knowledge, do spatial professionals need to fight increasing distrust, or does it erode our ability to distrust in the first place?
- Patrick Ellis, NGA
- Mark Munsell, GeoFutures STL
- Peng Luo, University of Iowa
Panel Session 2: Wednesday, Sept 9 10:40 am-12:00 pm
Effects of geospatial automation on decision-making
As AI and ML tools become embedded in professional GIS workflows, practitioners face difficult tradeoffs of efficiency and interpretability. This panel will focus on how geospatial automation is changing the daily practices of decision-making. How does the automation of geospatial analyses change how the outputs are communicated to make decisions and inform the public? The discussion will address practical challenges practitioners encounter around model explainability, interpretation, and maintaining quality and integrity in AI-assisted outputs.
- Sam Arundel, US Geological Survey
- Robert Stewart Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Vasit Sagan, Saint Louis University
- Zhenlong Li, Penn State
