AI & Societal Issues
Addressing Natural Disasters and Public Health Challenges
The AI Institute for Societal Decision Making (AI-SDM) brings together researchers in AI and the social sciences to develop human-centric AI that improves how we forecast and respond to natural disasters and public health challenges. The AI-SDM research team is contributing to projects that use causal discovery to improve climate analysis and decision making regarding vaccination and blood donation. In addition, our AI-SDM researchers are developing low-barrier data analysis platforms to improve the study of data science. This effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, is driven by faculty in CMU’s Dietrich College and School of Computer Science who collaborate with colleagues at other universities, government agencies, NGOs, private companies, community colleges and K-12 schools.
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Understading Social Dynamics Online and in Real Life
The Institute for Complex Social Dynamics (ICSD) brings together scholars who develop and apply mathematical and computational models to study social phenomena, such as Twitter/X, criminal organizations, modern scientific practice and economic institutions. Current projects explore the role of social networks in how social dynamics unfold; how humans respond to the wisdom of the crowd; and what gives rise to social behaviors that might lead to abrupt social change.
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Understanding the Mind of a Cyber Attacker
Cleotilde Gonzalez, research professor in Dietrich College, pairs AI with cognitive models to understand the psychology of the person behind a cyber attack. Her project is grounded in an AI approach developed more than five decades ago by Herb Simon and John R. Anderson, two CMU faculty members who have taught in the Department of Psychology. Gonzalez’s team has partnered with Peraton Labs, an applied research organization that addresses cybersecurity, electronic warfare, mobility, analytics and networking for government and commercial customers worldwide as part of an award from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).