AI4Society Tuesday 10/21: Emily Black

[Kate Donahue]

Join us on Tuesday 10/21 for the next AI4Society seminar<https://ai4society.mit.edu/seminar/> featuring Emily Black<https://emblack.github.io/>, details below! If you are interested in meeting with Emily, email kpd46 at mit.edu.

Talk Date/Time: Tuesday October 21 at 4:00 PM
Location: 45-102

Title: On Generative AI Harms: Evaluating them, and Relevant Law

Abstract: In this talk, I’ll present my recent work on technical pitfalls and legal tensions around the evaluation of GenAI harms. Through four case studies, I’ll show how misalignment between regulatory goals and fairness testing techniques can lead to regulation that admits discriminatory behavior. For example, I’ll show how different forms of GenAI evaluation instability---for example, instability in observed discrimination over multi-turn interactions--exacerbate existing regulatory challenges such as creating reliable evidence of discrimination testing and mitigation, and tensions between developer and deployer responsibilities. In addition, I’ll discuss ongoing work showing how some long-standing consumer protection laws might be a useful tool in preventing harms from GenAI hallucinations. Finally, time permitting, I’ll discuss ongoing work with prior EEOC chairs Charlotte Burrows and Jenny Yang, as well as Pauline Kim (Washington University - St Louis Law School) on the legality of common debiasing techniques in AI and GenAI systems.

Bio: Emily Black is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at New York University. Her work centers around how to make AI systems more fair, transparent, and accountable to the public. Her research develops tools to identify when automated systems may cause harm, investigates how AI affects equity in areas like employment and government, and connects technical insights to law and policy to guide real-world regulation. Working across disciplines—with lawyers, policymakers, and civil society groups—she aims to make AI systems more just and more reliable in practice. Before NYU, she was briefly at Barnard College, did her postdoc at Stanford Law School, and got her PhD in CS from Carnegie Mellon University.

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