On March 7, 2024, the Center for Cultural Analytics hosted its Spring lecture event. BIDS Associate Faculty Director Tim Tangherlini welcomed Tina Eliassi-Rad, a professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University, to UC Berkeley.
Professor Eliassi-Rad presented “The Complex Systems View of AI Ethics” in which she discussed the study of AI ethics from the perspective of complex systems (cultural, social, economic, and political systems).
For background and context, she provided a machine learning (ML) history overview, and she noted in her abstract: “...machine learning (ML) systems are not islands. To understand and mitigate the risks and harms associated with ML systems, we need to examine the broader complex systems in which ML systems operate. By broader complex systems, I mean our cultural, social, economic, and political systems. Thus, we must remove our optimization blinders. That is, we should not focus solely on maximizing some notion of constrained expected utility.”
Examples from her work ranged from healthcare to college admissions, followed by a question and answer session with an engaged audience.
