• Explore
    • Contact Us
  • Faculty
  • Research
    • Research Areas
    • Research Centers
  • Graduate Degrees
    • Computer Science Programs
    • Current Graduate Students
  • Undergraduate Degrees
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Seminar Series
    • Distinguished Lecture Series
    • Research Showcase
  • Apply Now
    • Undergraduate Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions
    • Faculty Candidates

Professor Sameer Singh Awarded Fairness in AI Grant from NSF and Amazon

February 9, 2021

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) grow increasingly accurate, they simultaneously grow more complex, threatening to undermine their progress in fields such as healthcare, law and finance because of a lack of transparency and trust. In an effort to contribute to the trustworthiness of AI systems, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Amazon partnered together in 2019 to start funding projects through the Fairness in Artificial Intelligence program. Since the program first launched, 21 projects have been funded, including “Towards Adaptive and Interactive Post Hoc Explanations,” a collaboration between UCI, Harvard University and the University of Chicago.

The project aims to develop a novel framework for generating adaptive explanations of ML models, allowing for interactive communication, to help people better understand the decisions being made for and about them.

“UCI will be focused on creating explanations that adapt to the user’s need — that is, automatically creating custom explanations depending on what subgroups they are interested in, or what their level of expertise is in the ML application,” says Sameer Singh, assistant professor of computer science in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS).

The team will be focusing on multiple real-world application domains. For example, they plan to explore two healthcare applications: one for the early detection of seizures and another for diagnosing tumors. “For each, we will create ML explanation systems that aid medical professionals in their decision-making, adapting to their queries, domain expertise and history of interactions,” says Singh.

The work builds on previous collaborations between Singh and Assistant Professor Hima Lakkaraju of Harvard University. “Hima and I have been collaborating on papers on machine learning explanations for a while,” notes Singh. “However, one aspect we were missing were explanations that actually adapt, interact and customize to each user, which would make them much more useful.” Singh is excited that they are now partnering with Professors Chenhao Tan and Yuxin Chen from the University of Chicago to further explore this important area.

— Shani Murray

« UCI News: “UCI Institute for Future Health to harness technology to build personalized health model”
Professor Amiri Sani’s Research Group Wins 2020 Android Security and PrIvacy REsearch (ASPIRE) Award »

Latest news

  • HackUCI 2021: Award-Winning Hacks from Home March 3, 2021
  • UCI Students Cultivate Culture of Innovation with New VC Fund March 3, 2021
  • Alumni Chapter’s Lunch & Learn Panel Discussion Showcases Black Superstar Leaders in ICS February 23, 2021
  • ICS Researchers Publish Novel Paper on System Design for Virtual Beings February 18, 2021
  • Professor Amiri Sani’s Research Group Wins 2020 Android Security and PrIvacy REsearch (ASPIRE) Award February 12, 2021
  • © 2021 UC Regents
  • Feedback
  • Privacy Policy