Carrie J. Cai
I am a Staff Research Scientist in Google's Responsible AI division and Manager / Area Lead of Human-AI Interaction in Google's People+AI Research group (PAIR). My research aims to improve human+AI outcomes, with a particular focus on human interaction with Large Language Models and Controllable AI.
Previously, I earned a PhD in Computer Science at MIT CSAIL's User Interface Design group, where I created interactive systems for wait-learning, which has been deployed to thousands of people and publicized in TechCrunch, The Boston Globe, and MIT News.
Before that, I earned an M.A. in Education and a B.A. in Human Biology at Stanford University. During a career transition to Computer Science at UC Berkeley, I helped develop Berkeley's first introductory CS course for non-majors. I feel that it's never too late to learn computer science, and that some of the world's best innovations come from the humanities powered by computing!
News
July, 2023
Serving on the Pulitzer Prize Board advisory panel on generative AI
April-May, 2023
Generative Agents featured on NBC News and TechCrunch
May, 2023
MakerSuite launches at Google I/O
April, 2023
Keynote talk at ACM CHI (Trust and Reliance in Human-AI Teams)
October, 2022
Keynote talk at IEEE VIZ (Visualization in Biomedical AI)
March, 2022
"PromptMaker: Prompt-based Prototyping with Large Language Models" received Best Case Study Honorable Recognition at ACM CHI
November, 2020
Wrote up Tips for Applying to CS Grad School from "Non-traditional" (non-STEM) Backgrounds
October, 2020
Interviewed with MIT Technology Review about the importance of making AI more controllable by end-users (w/ Anna Huang)
March, 2020
Keynote talk at ACM IUI (Explainable Smart Systems for Algorithmic Transparency in Emerging Technologies)
March, 2020
Wrote a Google AI blogpost about how to make machine learning frameworks more accessible to developers who are "non-specialists" or new to the field of ML.
December, 2019
Our intern Ryan Louie's paper on human-AI music co-creation has been accepted at CHI. Congrats Ryan!
August, 2019
Spoke at Berkeley Institute of Design (BiD) seminar about "Human-AI Interaction in Medicine and Beyond."
August, 2019
Wrote a Google AI blogpost on human-centric tools in medical similar-image-search.
You can also read more about it on TechCrunch.
August, 2019
"Hello AI" paper on onboarding doctors to AI accepted at CSCW.
Paper on software developers learning machine learning accepted at VL/HCC.
June, 2019
Welcoming PAIR summer interns Ryan Louie (Northwestern) and Qian Yang (CMU)!
April, 2018
Human-centered medical AI tools paper received CHI best paper honourable mention.
Example-based machine learning explanations paper awarded best short paper at IUI.
Dec, 2018
Paper on human-centered medical AI tools accepted to CHI 2019
Paper on example-based machine learning explanations accepted to IUI 2019
Nov, 2018
Serving on the CHI 2019 Program Committee
May, 2018
Paper on TCAV (new ML interpretability method) accepted to ICML 2018
Oct, 2017
Started as an HCI Research Scientist at Google
May, 2017
Received "Excellent Reviewer Award" at CHI 2017
Apr, 2017
Defended PhD Thesis!
Dec, 2016
Journal paper on WaitSuite accepted to TOCHI 2017.
Jun - Aug, 2016
Visiting student at the Stanford HCI group.
Feb 9, 2016
CHI 2016 paper on microtask chains won a Best Paper Honorable Mention award.
Dec 21, 2015
Serving on the Program Committee for CHI 2016 Late-Breaking Work.
Dec 15, 2015
Full paper on microtask chains accepted to CHI 2016.
Nov 10, 2015
Attended the Rising Stars workshop for aspiring female researchers
Nov 8, 2015
Attended the Doctoral Symposium at UIST 2015.
Jul 29, 2015
Gave DUB seminar talk at the University of Washington. | video
Jun - Sep, 2015
Summer internship at Microsoft Research, working on micro-productivity.
Apr 24, 2015
Presented wait-learning at CHI 2015 in Seoul, Korea.
Apr 23, 2015
Congrats to Anji Ren (my undergrad mentee) who won 2nd place in the CHI 2015 student research competition for her pull-to-learn project!
Dec 15, 2014
Full paper on wait-learning accepted to CHI 2015.
Oct 9, 2014
Presented my research at the Grace Hopper Conference PhD Forum in HCI
Apr 27 - May 1, 2014
Attended CHI 2014 in Toronto, Canada. Presented our work-in-progress paper on wait-learning.
Mar 20, 2014
My story of how I became a computer scientist was featured in Khan Academy's Meet the Computing Professional series
Aug 25 - Aug 31, 2013
Attended SLaTe 2013 and Interspeech 2013. Presented Enhancing Speech Recognition in Fast-Paced Educational Games using Contextual Cues
June, 2013
Submitted my masters thesis on Adapting Existing Games for Education Using Speech Recognition
Apr 27 - May 2, 2013
CHI 2013 in Paris, France. Presented my work on "Adapting Arcade Games for Learning" in the student research competition.
Jan 19, 2013
Won 1st place award in the Palantir Scholarship for Women in Technology. Featured in Palantir news story.
Jan 13 - Jan 14, 2013
Visited Palantir headquarters in Palo Alto, CA as one of 9 finalists in the Palantir Scholarship for Women in Technology. Attended Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner.
Oct 16, 2013
Presented my work on game-based learning at Lincoln Laboratories / Defense Language Institute