This month, the future of artificial intelligence (AI) was spotlighted as more than 120 academic and industry researchers participated in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing’s inaugural Summit on Responsible Computing, AI, and Society.

With looming questions about AI's growing roles and consequences in nearly every facet of modern life, School of IC organizers felt the time was right to diverge from traditional conferences that focus on past work and published research.

“Presenting papers is about disseminating work that has already been completed. Who gets to be in the room is determined by whose paper gets accepted,” said Mark Riedl, School of IC professor.

“Instead, we wanted the summit talks to speculate on future directions and what challenges we as a community should be thinking about going forward.”

The two-day summit, held at Tech’s Global Learning Center Oct. 28-30, convened to discuss consequential questions like:

• Is society ready to accept more responsibility as greater advancements in technologies like AI are made?
• Should society stop to think about potential consequences before these advancements are implemented on its behalf, and what could those consequences be?
• What policies should be enacted for these technologies to mitigate harms and augment societal benefits?

A highlight of the summit’s opening day was Meredith Ringel Morris's keynote address. As director of human-AI interaction research at Google DeepMind, she presented a possible future in which humans could use AI to create a digital afterlife.

In her remarks, Morris discussed AI clones, which are AI avatars of specific human beings with high autonomy and task-performing capabilities. Someone could leave such an agent behind as a memory for loved ones to enjoy once they are gone, and future generations could access it to learn more about an ancestor.

On the other hand, it could easily lead to loved ones experiencing extended grief because they have trouble moving on from losing a family member.

These AI capabilities are in development and will soon be publicly available. As industry and academic researchers continue to develop them, the public needs to learn about their eminent impacts.

“There’s a lot that needs to be done in educating people,” Morris said. “It’s hard for well-intentioned and thoughtful system designers to anticipate all the harm. We must be prepared some people are going to use AI in ways we don’t anticipate, and some of those ways are going to be undesirable. What legal and education structures can we create that will help?”

In addition to Morris’s keynote, the summit’s first day included 20 talks about future and emerging technologies in AI, sustainability, healthcare, and other fields. 

The second day featured eight talks on translating interventions and safeguards into policy.

Day-two speakers included: 

• Orly Lobel, Warren Distinguished Professor of Law and director of the Center for Employment and Labor Policy at the University of California-San Diego. Lobel worked on President Obama’s policy team on innovation and labor market competition, and she advises the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). 
• Sorelle Friedler, Shibulal Family Professor of Computer Science at Haverford College. She worked in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) under the Biden-Harris Administration and helped draft the AI Bill of Rights. 
• Jake Metcalf, researcher and program director for AI on the Ground at the think tank Data & Society. The organization produces reports on data science and equity for the US Government. 
• Divyansh Kaushik, Vice President of Beacon Global Strategies, has given testimony to the US Senate on AI research and development.

Kaushik earned a Ph.D. in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon University before beginning his career in policy. He highlighted the importance of policymakers fostering relationships with academic researchers.

“Policymakers think about what could go wrong,” Kaushik said. “Academia can offer evidence-based answers.”

The summit also hosted a doctoral consortium, which allowed advanced Ph.D. students to present their research to experts and receive feedback and mentoring.

“Being an interdisciplinary researcher is challenging,” said Shaowen Bardzell, School of IC chair.

“We wanted the next generation to be in the room listening to the experts share their visions and also to provide our own experiences when possible on how to navigate the challenges and rewards of doing work in the intersection of AI, healthcare, sustainability, and policy.”

Pinar Keskinocak has been selected as the next leader of Georgia Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE). She will serve as the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair beginning January 1.

Keskinocak is the William W. George Chair and Professor and serves as ISyE’s associate chair for faculty development. 

She will be ISyE’s ninth permanent chair, leading a school renowned for its top-ranked graduate and undergraduate industrial engineering programs. U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked ISyE as the nation's best since the mid-1990s.

“Pinar is a proven and respected leader both on campus and within her academic and research community,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College of Engineering and Southern Company Chair. “She is well-positioned to continue advancing ISyE’s national prominence and accelerate the School’s trajectory.” 

Keskinocak is the cofounder and director Georgia Tech’s Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems, an interdisciplinary research center focused on education, outreach, and developing innovative solutions via advanced modeling, analytics, and systems engineering.

Keskinocak’s research has had broad societal impact. This includes policies and practices for improved emergency preparedness and response, disease prevention and public health, healthcare access, resource allocation, and supply chain management. 

Beatriz Palacios Abad, a computer science doctoral student in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, won both a best paper award and impact recognition award at the 2024 ACM SIGCHI conference on computer-supported cooperative work and social computing (CSCW 2024) held in San José, Costa Rica, November 9-13, 2024.

The ACM SIGCHI best paper awards honor exceptional papers published at the conference. The impact recognition award is given for strong examples of work that demonstrates or has clear potential to demonstrate real-world or practical impact. 

Her paper, “Mending the Fabric: the Contentious, Collaborative Work of Repairing Broadband Maps,” was co-authored by Elizabeth Belding at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Morgan Vigil-Hayes at Northern Arizona University, and Ellen Zegura, professor of computer science at Georgia Tech who also serves as Palacios Abad’s advisor.

Her research paper shows that the repair of broadband data maps in the U.S. involves a complex interplay between competition and collaboration among various stakeholders, mediated by the government. The process disproportionately burdens marginalized groups, who are often tasked with correcting the official records that misrepresent their communities. Accurate, repaired maps are crucial for guiding substantial investments in broadband infrastructure, emphasizing the need for better tools and support for long-term, community-driven efforts.

This study underscores the ongoing struggle for better broadband and the critical role of accurate data in shaping policy and infrastructure investments. The paper calls for a more inclusive approach to broadband map repair, recognizing the efforts and challenges faced by those working in digital inclusion.

CITATION: Beatriz Palacios Abad, Ellen Zegura, et. al. “Mending the Fabric: the Contentious, Collaborative Work of Repairing Broadband Maps” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Vol. 8, CSCW2, Article 464 (November 2024). https://doi.org/10.1145/3687003