Metagov x Future of Science Seminar: Navigating AI Risk - From Awareness to Accountability with Shiran Dudy
AI systems have woven themselves into the fabric of our daily lives at an unprecedented pace. Even when we recognize their presence in our search results, content recommendations, or workplace tools, we often underestimate their influence and remain blind to the full spectrum of risks these systems pose. This talk examines these critical risks, particularly those associated with the recently emerging generative AI tools.
At the individual level, users face risks including algorithmic bias, privacy violations, misinformation, and over-reliance on flawed outputs. At the societal level, we confront challenges like labor displacement, the amplification of inequality, environmental costs, and the erosion of critical thinking skills. As AI adoption accelerates without adequate safeguards, these risks are no longer theoretical—they're actively shaping outcomes in education, healthcare, criminal justice, and beyond.
So what can we do about it? I'll explore concrete pathways toward accountability, including regulatory frameworks for transparency and auditing, industry standards for responsible development, mechanisms for user education and informed consent, and the role of public pressure in demanding ethical AI practices.
This talk is designed for anyone who wants to move beyond abstract concerns and understand both the tangible harms of AI systems and the actionable steps we can take to ensure these powerful tools serve the public interest.
Shiran Dudy is a Research Scientist at Northeastern University’s Institute for Experiential AI, where I specialize in NLP and speech processing with a focus on Responsible AI specifically focusing on AI auditing, and AI literacy, and participatory AI approaches.
More about Metagov Seminar:
The Metagov Seminar invites individuals working in online governance to present their work to a community of other researchers and practitioners. Seminar topics include, but are not limited to, computational tools for governance, governance incidents and case studies from online communities, topics in cryptoeconomics, and the design of digital constitutions.
The seminar is intended for researchers and practitioners in online governance, broadly defined. We welcome guests and curious members of the public. Note that the discussion is moderated.
The seminar is planned through the #metagov-seminar channel on the Metagov Slack. Participate by joining our community.
Time: every Wednesday at 12:00pm ET (GMT-4)
Location: Online. See our Research Seminars Series for meeting information
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Full archive of past talks: hosted at Internet Archive
See also our archive organized into 20+ topical playlists
More about the Future of Science Seminar:
The Future of Science Seminar is reopening in collaboration with the Metagov Seminar after a one-year hiatus.
The Seminar invites researchers to present their research on Metascience and how we will move towards a more modular, composable, and equitable research ecosystem.
Check out the archives of past seminars and podcast episodes on their website.