SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An associate professor in the Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool) will use a $600,000 federal grant to research human experiences of artificial intelligence (AI). The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Jaime Banks the grant funding for an research project focused on human interaction with AI. NSF is funding the grant […]
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An associate professor in the Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool) will use a $600,000 federal grant to research human experiences of artificial intelligence (AI).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Jaime Banks the grant funding for an research project focused on human interaction with AI.
NSF is funding the grant through its Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate and more specifically, the Human-Centered Computing funding arm. The money is for research into the project, “Mind Perception in AI Companionship: Testing the Assumptions of Social Theories,” per a Syracuse University announcement.
As principal investigator, Banks (pictured) will lead an investigation into how language and social cognition shape the understanding of AI. She will work with Caleb Carr, a professor of communications at Illinois State University, as co-principal investigator. iSchool Ph.D. student Zhixin Li will support their work.
Over the next four years, Banks and her team will explore the psychological and social dimensions of AI, addressing questions about how people humanize and relate to the technologies.
The study looks at the social-cognitive processes involved in companion machines, from the way they are even referred to as “companions,” to the way they are designed to interact with users, to how they make users feel, Banks said in the Syracuse announcement.
“We want to understand the subjective experience of seeing an AI companion as someone, and how that experience links to the positive or negative effects,” she added.
Syracuse University also noted that the funding marks a “significant milestone after two years of dedicated work in securing the grant, paving the way for a deep dive into social AI’s role in human lives.”
