The Ethics and Technology Lab at Queen’s University is an interdisciplinary setting where computer scientists trade skills with cognitive scientists, ethicists, and artists. We use data science tools, artificial intelligence models, philosophical analysis, and artistic praxis to address social and ethical issues in computing.
Current areas of focus include investigating connections between AI and military contracts, critiquing chatbot therapy tools, supporting data justice initiatives, and challenging racism, ableism and cishet bias in AI algorithms.
We welcome participation by Queen’s students interested not only in deeply understanding technical problems, but also co-constructing knowledge within their communities, and communicating effectively with policy makers and the public. If you are interested in joining the lab, please write a brief personal email expressing in your own words what you are interested in working on. AI-written form letters will not receive a reply. No need to include TOEFL scores or transcripts in an initial email. We do not develop fairness metrics, de-biasing tools, ethical AI frameworks, or technosolutionist applications.
Research Highlights
The paper Beyond the Imitation Game: Quantifying and extrapolating the capabilities of language models (https://openreview.net/forum?id=uyTL5Bvosj) was recognized as a finalist for Outstanding Certification at Transactions in Machine Learning Research, and invited for presentation at ICLR 2025.
ET Lab recently released a policy report called Large Language Models and the Disappearing Private Sphere. Check out the report, a timeline of privacy leaks and patches, our list of policy recommendations, and explore an interactive demo here: https://llmprivacy.ca/.
ET Lab collaborates on a Carleton University led law enforcement data and transparency project called Tracking (In)justice that collects data about police-involved deaths in Canada, and makes this information openly available to researchers, affected families and the public. Check out the data and analysis here: https://trackinginjustice.ca/.
Job opening
I’m hiring 1 PhD student in Critical Computing for a project called Necro-extractivism: Algorithmic Warfare, “Kill Clouds”, and the Racial Political Economy of Security Imperialism. See the ad here.
