Please join us for our next speaker in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences Seminar Series. Wednesday March 4th at 12:30pm, Kush Varshney, Research Scientist, IBM will give a seminar titled:

Individual and Collective Human Agency in the Face of ‘AI’

This seminar will be offered as a hybrid session. Below please find the abstract and information about joining in-person or on Zoom.

As AI systems increasingly shape our personal, professional, and societal lives, the question is not only what machines can do, but who controls the values and outcomes they produce. This talk examines both individual agency — the capacity to think, judge, and act — and collective agency, where communities define norms, resist imposed standards, and guide AI deployment. Drawing on research in trustworthy AI, decolonial alignment, and human–AI collaboration, I will explore technical and governance approaches that preserve human autonomy, including transparency tools, scoped alignment methods, and collaborative task structures. I will introduce AI platform cooperatives as a counterweight to tech‑company dominance, fostering community ownership, shared governance, and technological self-determination. Ultimately, AI should be a tool that empowers humans, singly and together.

LOCATION: 409 Savery Hall or  Zoom Link & Meeting ID: 916 1200 4486

Questions?
csss@uw.edu
https://csss.uw.edu/