“The tech sector is responsible for much of the wealth that allows us to achieve our goals as a region.”
“Any other city would give their eye tooth to have Seattle’s problems instead of their own.”
“Our kids’ future is our region’s future. We’re not creating this economy for other people’s kids. We’re creating it for ours.”
- Ed Lazowska, Educator, Professor and Computer Scientist
When Ed Lazowska arrived at the University of Washington in 1977, Microsoft was still a small startup in New Mexico. Nearly five decades later, as Lazowska retires as the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair of UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington stands at the center of another technological revolution: artificial intelligence.
Lazowska traces the state’s long preparation for the current AI moment. He describes how UW’s early partnership with industry created a steady pipeline of graduates who helped build the companies that came to define the region — Microsoft, Amazon, and more than 150 engineering offices from global firms like Google and Meta. The result is an economy powered by software, with wealth and jobs tied directly to the region’s ability to adapt to technological change. “The tech sector is responsible for much of the wealth that allows us to achieve our goals as a region,” Lazowska notes, adding that Washington’s own children must remain first in line to benefit from that prosperity.
But AI represents a sharper break than past innovations. Unlike the Internet, which experts saw coming, today’s breakthroughs caught even computer scientists off guard. The pace of change — unfolding in three- to six-month cycles — is unsettling. Lazowska stresses that society must maximize AI’s power as a tool while guarding against misuse.
Above all, he argues, education is the state’s critical lever. From K-12 to graduate school, Lazowska envisions three layers of AI literacy: experts to advance the field, professionals to apply it, and a baseline of fluency for every student. The challenge is not whether students will use AI — they already are — but whether they will be prepared to use it responsibly, critically, and creatively in ways that sustain Washington’s economic and civic future.