Enlightening Roundtable with AI and Society Fellows

Generative AI is on the rise!
Bots are influencing elections! And thanks to ChatGPT, you can have a live phone call with Salvador Dalí! But as these technologies continue to develop and their use becomes more widespread, how do we ensure that they are ethically practiced and responsibly designed?

Join SFIS’ AI and Society Fellows, Dr. Akuadasuo Ezenyilimba, Dr. Nitin Verma, and Dr. Marjorie Xie, as they discuss their current research, responsible innovation in the context of AI, and how their upcoming course, FIS 494/HSD 598 AI & Society: Ethics & Impact, will equip students to address the ethical and societal concerns surrounding AI.

The Artificial Intelligence and Society Fellowship is a postdoctoral research and training program developed to address the growing need for scholars who are trained at the intersection of AI and societal impact. Offered in collaboration between Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the New York Academy of Sciences, the AI and Society Fellowship integrates technical AI research with perspectives from the social sciences and humanities to produce multidisciplinary scholars, thought leaders and public figures equipped to shape the future of AI innovation, research and policy in ways that advance the public good.

Fellows will discuss:

• Their journey into why they care about AI and Society
• The role AI plays in their respective domains
• How to teach students about responsible innovation and ethical design

About the Fellows:

Dr. Akuadasuo Ezenyilimba is a recent Human Systems Engineering PhD graduate from Arizona State University. Her academic background consists of a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, a Master of Science in Applied Psychology, and a Master of Science in Human Systems Engineering. As a National Science Foundation Research Trainee, she has experience working on citizen-centered solutions for real-world problems. Currently, she is researching the relationship between human-computer interaction and traumatic brain injury (TBI), executive function, and TBI rehabilitation.

Dr. Nitin Verma’s research focuses on the relationship between the human drive for creating technologies and how human technologies and societies co-shape each other. He studies the mechanisms of interpersonal trust that make large communities cohere and how technologies (esp. ICTs) such as deep learning-infused AI influence the mechanisms of trust. His doctoral research investigated the severe challenges posed by deepfake technology to public trust in the media, and to the personal credibility and safety of visual journalists.

Dr. Marjorie Xie’s work combines AI, mental health, and education. Her goals are to: 1) Develop technology to enable social-emotional learning and facilitate collaborative interpersonal relationships; 2) Develop systems for effective AI governance. As an AI researcher, engineer, and social entrepreneur, she collaborates with mental health professionals, educators, business leaders, and social media experts. Previously, she interned at Basis Research Institute, building AI tools for reasoning about collaborative intelligence in animals.