AI Institute for Societal Decision-Making (Computational Representation of Human Decision Processes Research Thrust)
With this project, we are developing computational representations of human decision processes within disaster response and public health contexts. We will use computational cognitive architectures (particularly some form of ACT-R/Φ) and sociocultural theory (particularly those theories coming out of a critical black studies tradition) for this research. Dr. Dancy is co-leading this research thrust with Cleotilde (Coty) Gonzalez
Understanding antiblackness in the development of AI systems
With this project, we are exploring the effects of antiblackness on the AI development process. As opposed to only focusing on the interface between the person using/cooperating with an AI system, we are focusing on the development process, especially individuals and organizations in the AI development process, using perspectives from cognitive science and sociocultural theory. We’ll focus on both the more obvious explicit and distributed implicit ways antiblackness may affect the development process. Dr. Dancy has an article published related directly to this project that he coauthored with Dr. Khalil Saucier
Creating socioculturally competent AI systems
This project involves using individual-level (i.e., cognitive models) and social-level (i.e., sociocultural knowledge used by cognitive models) perspectives to study interactions between individuals and AI systems. We are using a cognitive architecture to model individual interactions with certain AI systems (agents) and particularly understand how and why racialization of AI agents may affect cooperation with those agents/systems.