Organizational Team & Special Issue Editors
Center for AI in Society and Ethics
Understanding and Shaping the Future of AI to Benefit Everyone
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We are a group of researchers at NC State interested in the challenges of ethics, safety, and acceptability that surface at the intersection of AI and society. We believe that if society does not sufficiently understand the ethical, political, and social dimensions of AI, we will neither be able to take advantage of AI’s benefits nor respond to its potential harms. Our work is deliberately interdisciplinary; to seek an understanding of the issues, we utilize tools, methods, and concepts from computer science, engineering, philosophy, the social sciences, and beyond.
We have been studying the above challenges from the perspective of sociotechnical systems. We held an interdisciplinary expert workshop in which we applied multi-criteria decision analysis to generate ratings regarding several policy options for the implementation of AVs into society. Additionally, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with Uber and Lyft drivers and professional truckers to study their perceptions on the impact of AVs on their lives and livelihoods.
Our research has been supported by an internal Research and Innovation Seed Funding grant, the R. L. Rabb Symposium fund, and the National Science Foundation.
We welcome inquiries about our work and are happy to consider requests for collaboration from colleagues in all disciplines with a serious interest in AI ethics. Please contact us at aisocietyncstate@gmail.com.
Program Director
Dr. Veljko Dubljević, Ph.D., D.Phil
Dr. Veljko Dubljević, Ph.D., D.Phil
Professor of Philosophy and Science, Technology & Society, University Faculty Scholar at NC State
Professor of Philosophy and Science, Technology & Society, University Faculty Scholar at NC State
Dr. Dubljević is a Professor of Philosophy and Science, Technology & Society (STS) and a University Faculty Scholar at NC State. Before arriving in Raleigh, he spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Neuroethics Research Unit at IRCM and McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He studied philosophy (University of Novi Sad) and economics (Educons University), and obtained a PhD in Political Science (University of Belgrade). After that, he joined the research Training Group 'Bioethics' at University of Tuebingen, and after studying philosophy, bioethics, and neuroscience there, obtained a doctorate in philosophy (University of Stuttgart). He currently leads the NeuroComputational Ethics Research Group at NC State.
Senior Faculty
Dr. William A. Bauer, Ph.D.
Dr. William A. Bauer, Ph.D.
Teaching Associate Professor of Philosophy at NC State
Teaching Associate Professor of Philosophy at NC State
William Bauer is a Teaching Associate Professor in Philosophy at NC State. He works primarily in applied ethics and the metaphysics of science, and has published journal articles on the nature of fundamental properties (defending a causal powers view of reality), personal identity, animal minds, and the social and ethical implications of AI. Concerning AI ethics, he is especially interested in the ontology and ethics of AI assistants, the impact of AVs on society, and machine ethics. William regularly teaches Biomedical Ethics, Thinking Logically, and Introduction to Philosophy, and was privileged to serve as the Scholar in Residence at the University Honors Village for three years (2011-14). He completed his doctoral work in Philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to that, he completed an MA in Philosophy at Miami University (Ohio), an MA in Humanities at California State University-Dominguez Hills, served as a U.S. Army medical services officer, and earned a BA w/Honors in biology at Illinois Institute of Technology.
Dr. George List, Ph.D., PE
Dr. George List, Ph.D., PE
Professor and Former Head Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at NC State
Professor and Former Head Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at NC State
Dr. List is a professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at NC State University. He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University (BSEE, 1971), the University of Delaware (MEE, 1976), and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D., CE, 1984). Dr. List is a systems engineer with more than 40 years experience in the control and design of transportation systems. His interests are diverse from the ethics of AI-based control to the coupling between infrastructure investment and economic growth. His recent projects focus on travel time reliability, system performance enhancement using connected and autonomous vehicles, guidelines for simulation-based transportation system modeling, prediction of performance for mixed traffic on freeways, and rural highway network investment strategies. He has served as both a department head and a center director. In 2007 he was a co-recipient of the ITS-America “Best of ITS” award in Research and Innovation; he was a recipient of the project of the year award from ITS-New York three times; and in 1999 he was a Finalist in the Edelman Prize Competition (INFORMS). He is a past chair of the TRB Joint Traffic Simulation Subcommittee (SimSub and the TRB Traffic Flow Theory Committee, a former member of the Highway Capacity and Quality of Service Committee, and a former member and chair of the Intermodal Freight Transportation Committee. Dr. List is a Fellow of ASCE and a member of ITE, TRB, IEEE, and INFORMS.
Darby Orcutt, M.A., M.S.
Darby Orcutt, M.A., M.S.
Director of Interdisciplinary Partnerships at NC State University Libraries
Director of Interdisciplinary Partnerships at NC State University Libraries
Darby Orcutt is the Assistant Head for Collections & Research Strategy at NC State University Libraries. He is a national leader in developing library support for content mining and computational research, and much of his work revolves around creating and supporting interdisciplinary research teams to solve complex problems. He is affiliated with several interdisciplinary research centers, co-PI of a National Science Foundation grant, co-PI of an NSF I-Corps commercialization project in AI-augmented learning, and teaches in the University Honors and Science, Technology, and Society Programs at NC State. He is also Adjunct Faculty at the School of Information and Library Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Munindar P. Singh, Ph.D.
Dr. Munindar P. Singh, Ph.D.
Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor of Computer Science at NC State
Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor of Computer Science at NC State
Dr. Munindar P. Singh is Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. He is a codirector of the DoD-sponsored Science of Security Lablet at NCSU, one of six nationwide. Munindar's research interests include computational aspects of sociotechnical systems. He focuses on challenges such as ethics, safety, resilience, autonomy and heterogeneity, trust, privacy, and security. His research concerns various aspects of AI and multiagent systems and allied topics in social computing and software engineering.
Munindar is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). He has won the ACM SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award and the IFAAMAS Influential Paper Award for his 1998 paper on agent communication. He won NC State University's Outstanding Research Achievement Award in 2015 and 2017, was selected as an Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor in 2016, and is a member of NCSU's Research Leadership Academy.
Munindar was the editor-in-chief of the ACM Transactions on Internet Technology from 2012 to 2018 and the editor-in-chief of IEEE Internet Computing from 1999 to 2002. His current editorial service includes IEEE Internet Computing, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, and ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology. Munindar served on the founding board of directors of IFAAMAS, the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems. He previously served on the editorial board of the Journal of Web Semantics. He also served on the founding steering committee for the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. Munindar was a general cochair for the 2005 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems and of the 2016 International Conference on Service-Oriented Computing.
Munindar's research has been recognized with awards and sponsorship by (alphabetically) Army Research Lab, Army Research Office, Cisco Systems, Consortium for Ocean Leadership, DARPA, Department of Defense, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, National Science Foundation, and Xerox.
Twenty-seven students have received PhD degrees and thirty-two students MS degrees under Munindar's direction.
Student Team Members and Research Assistants
Student Team Members and Research Assistants
Sean Brantley
Sean Brantley
Sean recently finished a Biological BS from North Carolina State University following the integrative physiology and neurobiology concentration degree pathway. During his undergraduate degree, he assisted with research in NC State's Human Factors and Applied Cognitive Science laboratory, accessing aspects of human psychology, like expectation effects, time perception, and frustration, using various virtual environments. Before his undergrad, Sean was a US Navy Boatswain's Mate. He is now attending courses to acquire a post-baccalaureate computer programming certificate from NCSU in hopes of pursuing a Cognitive Science Ph.D. afterward. His future research interests are to explore the mind-body problem and the measurement problem, using a combination of virtual environments, geometric pattern analysis of player motility, and neural imaging.
Michael Pflanzer, M.A.
Michael Pflanzer, M.A.
Michael is the Group Coordinator for the NeuroComputational Ethics Research Group. He is a PhD student at NCSU in the Communications, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program. He hopes to examine science literacy and the public perception of the credibility of science in his research. He is interested in learning not simply how to communicate science effectively to laypeople, but also how to teach scientists to communicate their research effectively. He believes this will foster greater public engagement and increased conversational equity in emerging bioethics, tech ethics, and neuroethics debates. He is a former U.S. Navy nuclear operator and before joining the group earned a BS in Psychology, a BS in Neuroscience, and an MA in Bioethics, Tech Ethics, and Science Policy.
Alumni
Alumni
Sean Douglas
Sean Douglas is an undergraduate student at NC State studying Philosophy and Psychology. As a research assistant, his interests include AI Ethics and German Idealism.
Nora Edgren, M.A.
Nora Edgren, M.A.
Nora is the former group coordinator for the NeuroComputational Ethics Research Group. A recent graduate from the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at NC State University, she is currently pursuing a career in Science Communication. Nora's current research interests include science communication and misinformation and the intersections between science, technology, and society. Her latest paper, titled "The Ubiquity of the Fallacy of Composition in Cognitive Enhancement and in Education" and co-written with Dr. Dubljević, has recently been accepted for publication. She previously graduated from NC State University with a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science and worked as a veterinary assistant for two years.
August Fasel
August Fasel
August Fasel is an Undergraduate at NC State University studying Psychology, Communication with a Media Concentration, and French. They work as a research assistant in the Department of Psychology and their interests include Audio Editing and Mental Health within the LGBTQIA Community.
August Fasel is an Undergraduate at NC State University studying Psychology, Communication with a Media Concentration, and French. They work as a research assistant in the Department of Psychology and their interests include Audio Editing and Mental Health within the LGBTQIA Community.
Logan Kemp
Logan Kemp
Logan Kemp is an undergraduate student at NC State studying Civil Engineering with a Spanish minor. As a research assistant, her research interests include the effects of AI in transportation and infrastructure.
Charlotte Sleeper
Charlotte Sleeper
Charlotte Sleeper is currently in her 4th year at NCSU obtaining degrees in Anthropology and French. She works as a Digital Media Consultant at the NCSU libraries, which is how she was offered the opportunity to work on Zoom logistics and planning for the RABB Symposium. She has enjoyed learning more about AI ethics throughout her time working on the symposium team.
Ian Vallejo
Ian Vallejo
Ian Vallejo is an undergraduate student at NC State majoring in Science, Technology, & Society, Graphics Communications, and Science History & Philosophy. Ian works at NC State University Libraries as a Digital Media Consultant, Twitch Team Member, and Ask Us Help Desk employee. As an STS major and prospective graduate student, Ian is excited to be a part of supporting the RABB Symposium and looks forward to learning about the complex interactions between Society and AI.
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