Hope about AI can be hard to come by—especially in higher ed. It’s helping students skate through a degree, it’s taking away the cognitive friction that keeps our brains sharp and it’s contributing to a surge in academic research that does little to advance knowledge.

But at a recent event Inside Higher Ed hosted with the University at Buffalo, leaders from across industry, policy and higher education found plenty of reasons to be hopeful about artificial intelligence. Our discussions about the future of AI centered on one principal question: How can higher ed be a, if not the, leader in shaping AI for the public good?

We considered how colleges can help their communities have more say about data centers in their backyards and whether robots are coming for our jobs (the consensus among the labor market experts in the room was no—at least not yet). Despite the negative narratives surrounding AI in higher ed, this group of leaders argued that colleges have a very clear role in this moment: to lead with what it means to be human, with all of our faults and neediness. “We’re entering a golden age of humanists,” one particularly sanguine speaker said.

Essentially, our human messiness is our strength as AI continues to penetrate our lives and work, attendees agreed. And one of the messiest parts of being human is that we get things wrong. Venu Govindaraju, vice president for research and economic development at UB, reminded attendees that failure is central to the scientific process, which reminded me of Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin from a neglected, mold-ridden petri dish. Because it’s programmed to give what it thinks is the right answer to every question, AI is not intentionally messy, but messiness is often where accidental discoveries happen. Outsourcing too much to AI platforms risks losing out on the lessons that come from failures. That is our unique edge over the machines, Govindaraju argued.

Another human trait is the need for purpose. And this is what mission-driven higher ed institutions have in spades. Govindaraju noted that technology companies are optimized for the market, while universities are optimized for societal benefit. “Universities cannot outspend big tech, but can they outpurpose them?” Govindaraju wondered. When I asked Satish Tripathi, outgoing president of UB and a computer scientist, how universities could keep much needed tech talent in-house, he said the values-driven work of academia will continue to outrank higher salaries for many.

Kavita Bala, an AI researcher and provost at Cornell University, noted how higher ed’s nonprofit status gives it a unique position in the development of AI. The exciting part for higher ed will be exploring the human-centered possibilities of AI while addressing its negative impacts, she added.

A higher ed curriculum should reflect one question, Bala argued: “What is the purpose of us?”

After the event, I spent some time around Niagara Falls, ready to be awed by the power of the cascades and steeling myself for the inevitability of being annoyed by my fellow tourists. But what I didn’t expect was to get an education in just how far purpose can carry someone. The bronze plaques around the city told the story of Nikola Tesla, who, after seeing an image of the falls while in his home country (what is now Croatia), immigrated to the U.S. in 1884, driven by his fascination with hydroelectric power. Within 10 years he had designed the country’s first large-scale power system that pumped alternating-current electricity across long distances.

I also learned about John Morrison, the head waiter at the Cataract House in the mid-19th century. Morrison, an African American, and his crew of Black waiters, cooks and porters—many of them formerly enslaved people—ferried a number of freedom seekers across the raging waters of the Niagara River to Canada. The grand hotel was the center of Underground Railroad activism in Niagara Falls.

From a photo exhibit in our hotel, I saw that spirit of advocacy reappeared in the 1970s, when Black housing activists Agnes Jones, Vera Starks, Elene Thorton and Sarah Herbert formed the Concerned Love Canal Renters Association to advocate for Black residents in their public housing complex impacted by toxins that had leached into their homes and schools from a nearby industrial chemical dumping ground. They demanded the same protection, compensation and relocation assistance as white homeowners in the area.

These stories remind us that purpose has been the driver of change throughout our history—and it will be so at this inflection point, too. AI may be able to mimic humans, but we’re the ones with the lived experiences—whether it’s stumbling upon lifesaving medicine, following a passion to the other side of the world to develop new energy sources or risking it all so others can live healthy and free lives. That’s what we should keep in mind as we consider how we want AI to continue to be in our lives and how we can harness it for the public good.