AI and Society
Duke scholars are exploring the societal and cultural implications of AI while developing guardrails to ensure its responsible development and use. By integrating technical expertise with critical inquiry, Duke advances approaches to AI that are grounded in both scientific innovation and a human-entered vision for AI’s future.
The Society-Centered AI Initiative
The Society-Centered AI Initiative at Duke (SCAI) incubates research on the co-evolution of artificial intelligence and human behavior. SCAI brings together scholars from every part of campus to explore the myriad ways in which AI will influence human behavior — but also how social factors will shape the future of technology.
Research Spotlights: Duke Scholars Discuss AI’s Ethical Challenges
Should AI Express Emotions?: Duke Experts Weigh In
Household robots and AI assistants illustrate how personality can make technology more approachable, while also amplifying ethical dilemmas. Researchers at Duke are exploring the implications of AI systems expressing emotions and asking the hard questions about how to develop AI that functions effectively while ensuring guardrails are in place to protect human privacy and security.
Nita Farahany Wants to Protect Our Brain Data
Consumer wearables are not just tracking fitness; they are becoming increasingly capable of collecting and analyzing intimate human biometrics. Duke Law Professor Nita Farahany is one of the leading voices advocating stronger laws to protect mental privacy or the right to control how one’s brain data is used.
AI and Policy: Duke Initiative for Science & Society
Duke Science & Society advances responsible progress in science and technology that benefits humanity. Through research, education and engagement, it explores responsible innovation, deepens public understanding of emerging technologies and helps shape policy and governance in areas including artificial intelligence.
AI and Society Initiatives and Projects
Check out initiatives focused on the impacts of AI on society, ranging from ethics and morality to data privacy to AI’s implications for human creativity and art.
Technology Policy Lab
The Sanford School of Public Policy’s Technology Policy Lab connects scholarship to real-world application, with its AI & Creative Economy theme exploring how AI is reshaping creative industries.
The Cognitive Futures Lab
The Cognitive Futures lab advances and safeguards cognitive liberty — the right to self-determination over our brains and mental processes — through research on the ethical, legal and societal implications of factors that shape human cognition, including AI and emerging technologies.
The Rhodes Computational Humanities Center
The Rhodes Computational Humanities Center combines computational and humanistic approaches to to break new ground in long-standing areas of research, with projects exploring AI’s relationship to culture.
MADLAB: Kenan Institute for Ethics
MADLAB is built around the broad theme of how social, cultural, neurological, and biological factors shape our moral attitudes, decisions, and judgments and conducts research on AI and morality.
Bass Connections
Bass Connections is a university-wide academic program that supports collaborative, interdisciplinary research at Duke and has supported/supports a variety of projects at the intersection of AI and society.
InSPIre Lab
The InSPIre lab explores the intersection of people, technology, and policy. Their projects are specifically aimed to empower all people to have secure and informed interactions with technologies.
AI and Sustainability: Exploring Solutions to AI’s Environmental Impacts
Duke research is focused on understanding the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence, while working to develop solutions to the most pressing climate challenges and advance more sustainable approaches to computing. This work spans energy systems, data center efficiency, climate modeling and next-generation hardware, alongside broader analysis of AI’s role in shaping environmental outcomes. Learn more about Duke’s broader commitments to climate and sustainability at climate.duke.edu.
