HCII PhD Thesis Proposal: Tzu-Sheng Kuo
When
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Description
Building Systems for Community-Driven AI Design, Evaluation, and Governance
Tzu-Sheng Kuo
CMU HCII PhD Thesis Proposal
Date & Time: Tuesday, July 8, 2025 @ 1:00 PM ET
Location: Newell-Simon Hall (NSH) 3305
Remote: Zoom Link (Meeting ID: 992 4949 4366; Passcode: 950917)
Committee:
Kenneth Holstein (co-chair), Carnegie Mellon University
Haiyi Zhu (co-chair), Carnegie Mellon University
Aniket Kittur, Carnegie Mellon University
Amy X. Zhang, University of Washington
Michael S. Bernstein, Stanford University
Abstract:
AI systems increasingly play pivotal roles in community contexts, from AI-based moderation tools used in online communities to AI-based decision-making tools used by local governments to prioritize social support. Yet today AI development and deployment processes are typically top-down and developer-centric, with little input from impacted communities. In my PhD research, I explore how we might empower community stakeholders to collaboratively drive AI design, evaluation, and governance, even if they lack technical expertise. I build on democratic scholarship to identify challenges to empowering community participation in AI and develop systems and processes that address these challenges. In my past work, I have developed systems and processes to 1) empower marginalized communities to participate in the critique and redesign of AI systems, 2) promote deliberation over simple preference aggregation for AI evaluation, and 3) improve how groups collaborate on policy design for AI governance. In my proposed work, I plan to develop and evaluate a system that helps online communities collaboratively design community AI agents. Overall, my research explores concrete solutions to align AI design, evaluation, and governance with community needs and values, and investigates their effectiveness in real community contexts.
Proposal Document: Link
Hope to see you there!
Tzu-Sheng