CMU Leads NSF AI Institute for Societal Decision Making - Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University
Summary
"Artificial intelligence holds extraordinary potential, and at this critical stage in its development, stakeholders from across disciplinary boundaries must come together to responsibly apply these generational breakthroughs to the real world," said Theresa Mayer, CMUs vice president for research. In addition, she will work with Christopher Dancy, an associate professor in the Penn State College of Engineering, to lead efforts to improve the understanding of human decision-making and create AI tools to assist with it. The AI-SDM will provide vital resources for the development, testing and application of AI assisted causal reasoning, which will take us one step closer to genuine artificial intelligence.Gretchen Chapman, head of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and Terri Adams-Fuller, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Howard University, will lead efforts to develop tools that will help make timely interventions in public health and disaster management.Successful management of infectious disease outbreaks and natural disasters requires that members of the public engage in behaviors such as getting vaccinated or evacuating an area. Engagement will include surveys and virtual exercises with emergency managers and public health officials to learn how they make decisions, pilot deployments in the field, and technical and personnel exchanges.To have the opportunity to build an AI-focused education network vertically integrated across K-12, community colleges, universities and the professional workforce that truly engages with and puts people and society first and foremost is unprecedented and incredibly exciting, said Rebecca Nugent, head of CMUs Department of Statistics & Data Science and the education and outreach lead for AI-SDM. Were looking forward to empowering the broader diverse population to use AI and data-informed decision-making to tackle societal challenges and in their daily lives.The goal of the AI-SDM program is the widespread adoption of AI-enabled decisions by a workforce trained on developing and using human-centric AI tools, and educating the public to understand the strengths and shortcomings of AI.These efforts will include a collaboration with Winchester Thurston School to create professional development workshops for high school educators, enrichment and leadership activities for underrepresented students, interdisciplinary degrees and courses, curriculum co-design with community colleges and educational partners such as Navajo Tech, workforce training, upskilling and public engagement activities.A big part of this is engagement with the community, Singh said.