Date and time: Wednesday 5 February 2026, 13:00 – 14:30 CET, followed by mingle
Where: Digital Futures hub, Osquars Backe 5, floor 2 at KTH main campus
Directions: https://www.digitalfutures.kth.se/contact/how-to-get-here/
To participate onsite you need to register.
“Human-in-the-loop” and “Human-centered AI” have recently proliferated in public debates about the increasing deployment of AI in the public sector. While these terms allude to the need to pay attention to the central place that humans, in particular, citizens, should have in all phases of AI development and deployment, such terms also beg the question: “Which humans are these systems centered around, and what are the implications of who is represented and who is not?” (Mihalcea et al., 2025, p.1).
This conversation aims to identify and discuss taken-for-granted assumptions about whose social problems are relevant to address in AI development and deployment, and why. This conversation seeks to raise awareness of risks and potential harms that the deployment of AI in the public sector can bring to marginalized groups in society (Haimson et al., 2025). It also aims to problematize current models of governance or service provision (Vlachokyriakos, et al., 2016) underlying digital technologies and platforms, including AI systems in the public sector.
Speakers:
- Nazanin Andalibi, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. Affiliated faculty: Center for Ethics, Computing and Society, Digital Studies Institute, and Center for Social Media Responsibility. Scholar in residence at Digital Futures.
- Oliver Haimson, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information and Scholar in residence at Digital Futures.
- Vasilis Vlachokyriakos, Reader of Human-Computer Interaction and Digital Civics at Newcastle University. Co-founder of Open Lab Athens, a non-profit research cooperative in Athens. Scholar in residence at Digital Futures.
Moderator: Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Professor at Stockholm University. Associate Director for Outreach at Digital Futures.
Readings inspiring the conversation:
- Haimson, O. L., Mayworm, S. R., Ingber, A. S., & Andalibi, N. (2025, June). AI Attitudes Among Marginalized Populations in the US: Nonbinary, Transgender, and Disabled Individuals Report More Negative AI Attitudes. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency(pp. 1224-1237).
- Mihalcea, R., Andalibi, N., Jensen, D., Turk, M., Wisniewski, P., & Yanco, H. (2025). Which Humans? Inclusivity and Representation in Human-Centered AI. arXiv:2506.14680.arXiv:2506.14680v1 [cs.CY].
- Andalibi, N., & Ingber, A. S. (2025, April). Public Perceptions About Emotion AI Use Across Contexts in the United States. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-16).
- Vlachokyriakos, V., Crivellaro, C., Le Dantec, C. A., Gordon, E., Wright, P., & Olivier, P. (2016). Digital civics: Citizen empowerment with and through technology. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference, extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1096-1099).
Questions? Please contact Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Associate Director Outreach, Digital Futures: tessy@dsv.su.se.
We invite you to be part of the conversation on digital transformation in education by suggesting topics and potential speakers to Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Associate Director Outreach, Digital Futures. Please send your suggestion to tessy@dsv.su.se. Write “Digital Futures Outreach” in the subject of your email.
Digital Futures for Education consists of conversations and events that bring together key actors from academia, civil society, and the private and public sectors. Its mission is to provide a colloquial space for discussion and reflection on the digital transformation in education and the role of universities in today’s complex societies. The goal is also to build a community with key national and international educational actors.
