Responsible leadership in the age of AI

Nathanael Fast is an associate professor of management and organization and Director of the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making at the USC Marshall School of Business. He is also co-founder and co-director of the Psychology of Technology Institute. Fast’s research examines ethical power and leadership, exploring how individuals change — and are changed — by hierarchies, networks, and artificially intelligent technologies. He regularly advises companies and government leaders on AI ethics, and his award-winning research has been featured in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, NPR, The Economist, ABC News, CNN, and New York Times. He received his Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Stanford University and has been a member of the USC faculty since 2009.

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NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES WORKSHOP ON AI RISK MANAGEMENT

How Can We Broaden Participation in the Development and Design of AI?

Fast was selected to serve on a committee for the National Academies of Sciences (sponsored by NIST) to organize and lead a series of workshops aimed at identifying and investigating human and organizational risk factors in AI systems. The hope of this work is to build off of the recently published "AI Risk Management Framework" from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with a deeper exploration into human factors of AI risks. “Broadening Stakeholder Participation” took place virtually on June 11th. Watch the talks here and learn more about the full series here.

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To Understand Technology, We Must Look to Psychology

In a recent op-ed, Fast argues that if we want to understand and improve the future, we’ll need to focus on how psychology shapes the adoption and use of technology and how technology shapes human psychology.

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Humans Judge, Algorithms Nudge

Research published in OBHDP with Roshi Raveendhran shows that people are more willing to be tracked when the behavior tracking is done by autonomous tech rather than by humans. The reason is that tech can’t judge us negatively.

JOURNAL ARTICLE

How is Technology Changing Humans' Experience of Power?

An article published in Current Opinion in Psychology with Juliana Schroeder explores various possibilities for how power might change in the age of artificial intelligence and outlines new directions for research on the psychology of power.