Project Description

Home / Members / Graduate Students / Nathalie DiBerardino

RESEARCH AREAS:

  • Applied Ethics (esp. AI Ethics)

  • Social and Political Philosophy

  • Feminist Philosophy

CONTACT:

ndibera@uwo.ca

NATHALIE DIBERARDINO

MA Student;
Department of Philosophy, Western University

I am a Masters student in the Philosophy Department at Western University. I completed my BA in Philosophy at Western, where I worked as a research assistant on topics in the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. I am particularly concerned with the harms that these technologies can and are producing in the increasingly numerous contexts in which they appear. In addition to my work in AI ethics, I’m interested in applied ethics more broadly, social and political philosophy, and feminist philosophy. My ongoing projects, working alongside Rotman members and supported in part by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Research Scholarship, concern the nature of algorithmic harm, the ethics of emotion-recognition AI in education, the value of labour activism for AI governance, and the ethical use of AI-driven homelessness support systems.

My research is motivated by the claim that AI technologies have the potential to produce, and in some cases already are producing, serious harm. Given that these technologies are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our everyday lives, there is an urgent need to critically assess their use. To this end, my work explores the ethical risks associated with new AI technologies in both private and public sector contexts. One of my projects has centered around the use of emotion-detecting AI in classrooms, where I argue that understanding the philosophical theories of emotion embedded in these technologies is crucial to understanding their risk of causing harm. In particular, I suggest that the background theoretical commitments of ‘emotion AI’ could facilitate the disempowerment of students in classrooms, and that these technologies therefore should not be used. Another current project assesses ethical issues associated with AI-powered regional homelessness management tools. I argue that insights from feminist philosophy of science can help us to understand the value-laden nature of these tools, and can carve a pathway for us to define and promote more inclusive and just algorithmic technologies more broadly. In general, I approach AI ethics from a feminist perspective, and am committed to recognizing the interconnectedness of these technologies to broader social power networks and structural injustices.

DiBerardino, N. and L. Stark. (2023). (Anti)-Intentional Harms: The Conceptual Pitfalls of Emotion AI in Education. In 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’23), June 12–15, 2023, Chicago, IL, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 10 pages.

https://doi.org/10.1145/3593013.3594088 DiBerardino, N. and L. Stark. (2023). Algorithmic Harms and Algorithmic Wrongs. Medium.

https://points.datasociety.net/algorithmic-harms-and-algorithmic-wrongs-768825a612ad

DiBerardino, N. (2022). Default (Dis)trust and the Medical Profession. 2022 Undergraduate Awards. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/undergradawards_2022/5

DiBerardino, Nathalie and Luke Stark. (2023, June). (Anti)-Intentional Harms: The Conceptual Pitfalls of Emotion AI in Education. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT). Hosted by ACM, Chicago, Illinois, USA. https://facctconference.org/2023/index.html

DiBerardino, Nathalie and Emily Cichocki. (2023, May). Tech, Solidarity, and Structural Injustice: Labor Action as AI Governance. (un)Stable Diffusions: An International Symposium on AI’s Publics, Publicities, and Publicizations. Hosted by Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada https://machineagencies.milieux.ca/unstable-diffusions/

DiBerardino, Nathalie and Luke Stark. (2023, May). (Anti)-Intentional Harms: The Conceptual Pitfalls of Emotion AI in Education. (un)Stable Diffusions: An International Symposium on AI’s Publics, Publicities, and Publicizations. Hosted by Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada https://machineagencies.milieux.ca/unstable-diffusions/

DiBerardino, Nathalie (2023, March). Knowns and Unknowns: Feminist Epistemologies and the Problem of Technological Harm,. Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Undergraduate Conference. Hosted by Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.

DiBerardino, Nathalie. (2022, June). Artificial Intelligence and You. Hype, Hyper or Over-Hyped: A Student Symposium on Critical AI Studies in Canada. Hosted by Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. https://machineagencies.milieux.ca/hype-hyper-or-over-hyped/

DiBerardino, Nathalie. (2022, March). Algorithmic Harms and Algorithmic Wrongs. The Social Life of Algorithmic Harms Academic Workshop. Hosted by data&society, New York, United States (virtual). https://datasociety.net/announcements/2021/10/28/the-social-life-of-algorithmic-harms/

DiBerardino, Nathalie (2021, November). Artificial Intelligence, Harm, and You. Rotman Institute of Philosophy. London, Ontario, Canada (virtual). https://www.rotman.uwo.ca/event/ai-harm-and-you/

DiBerardino, Nathalie (2021, March). Default (Dis)trust and the Medical Profession. Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Undergraduate Conference. Hosted by Western University, London, Ontario, Canada (virtual).

Fall 2023, PHIL 3720F: Normative Ethics, Western University (TA)