A humanistic look at AI

Artificial Intelligence and the Human

The Humanities Institute is committed to fostering collaboration, research, and conversation on artificial intelligence (AI) and the human. As artificial intelligence technologies, including large language model text generators like ChatGPT, become increasingly common and commercially available, we need scholars from all disciplines to help us make sense of the role they play in our world and to understand their values and pitfalls.

Science alone cannot provide the wisdom we need to navigate both the challenges and possibilities offered by artificial intelligence.

Anna Mae Duane, Director, UCHI

Events

To better analyze the role of AI in our world, we bring together scholars of different disciplines to consider topics like whether chatbots and human beings can have meaningful relationships or what it means for artists to collaborate with AI.

2025–26 Events

What are we talking about when we talk about AI?

October 9, 2025 9:30am–6:30pm, UCHI Conference Room
9:30-10:00 Welcome and intro
10:00-11:45 Panel 1: Care

How can AI care for us? What are the challenges and opportunities for integrating vulnerable patient voices in healthcare? How is AI changing how we care for one another as AI companions and therapists become more common?

11:45-12:30 Lunch and Networking
12:30-2:15 Panel 2: Literacy

What does it mean to be “literate” in AI? This panel will bring together educators, historians and literary experts to ask how the rise of AI literacy evokes comparisons to past transformations in literacy, and concomitant expansions of democratic and economic participation. What do we risk if we restrict literacy to an elite few? What skill sets are required to make us truly AI literate?

2:15-2:30 Coffee Break
2:30-4:15 Panel 3: Rights (to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?)

How will AI transform property rights, labor rights and human rights? What values are at stake, and how do we preserve them?

4:30-5:30 Keynote Speaker
5:30-6:30 Reception

2024–25 Events

Interdisciplinary Workshop on Human Centered AI: How do we connect. January 12, 2025.

Interdisciplinary Work in AI: Challenges, Opportunities, and Successes

January 13, 2025 8:00am–12:15pm, Virtual
This workshop brings together experts from various fields—computer science, philosophy, political science, literary studies, and more—to explore the multifaceted aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI), its implications, and its impact on society and innovation. It was made possible through the partnership between UConn Global Affairs, the UConn Humanities Institute, and the Université Internationale de Rabat.

Watch the recording

Reading Between the Lines: An Interdisciplinary Glossary for Human-Centered AI

June 2025, Université Internationale de Rabat
As part of a project generously funded by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and the Mellon Foundation, scholars from Africa, Asia, and North America, working in fields that included computer science, philosophy, literature, medicine, and law recorded three podcasts as part of an AI (Anti) Glossary. Together, they explored how each bring different perspectives to keywords in the field.

What does someone with a degree in Computer Science think “learning” means? How does that differ from what a Doctor of Education might think? How can we bring programmers, philosophers, and physicians into a useful debate about what justice can and should mean in the age of AI?

Listen to a clip of the episode on education here.

AI and the Human Flash Talks

Virtual
The last Friday of every month, members of our interdisciplinary working group share work in progress ranging from philosophical analysis of accent correcting software, to communications analysis of how people engage with AI on social media, to studies on cognitive offloading by college students who use Artificial Intelligence to complete their schoolwork.

2023–24 Events

Can You Fall in Love with ChatGPT? A panel discussion

October 23, 2023 4:00pm–5:30pm, Konover Auditorium
A panel discussion and live podcast recording featuring AI expert Dan Rockmore (Dartmouth College), Anna Mae Duane (Director, UCHI), Stephen Dyson (Associate Director, UCHI), and Jeffrey Dudas (UConn Political Science).

How will current and next generation AI reshape our understanding of conversation, companionship, and even love?

Artificial Intelligence and Artistic Endeavor: Pushing the Boundaries of Collaboration and Creativity

April 18, 2024, 3:00pm, Heritage Room
A roundtable discussion with Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, human rights expert and member of an artists’ collective; Kyle Booten, co-founder of a literary journal dedicated to human-AI co-authored works; and Sue Huang, a visual artist who collaborates with AI. Together, they will explore how AI challenges us to reassess and redefine the concepts of collaboration and creativity.

Humanistic AI Working Group

The Humanistic AI Working Group brings together faculty from across campus, and across disciplines, to share research, resources, and funding opportunities, and to collaborate on this vital area of research.

Those interested in joining the group should contact Nasya Al-Saidy.

UCHI’s Human Centered AI Team, a multidisciplinary team of researchers advancing AI research that integrates critical humanistic and social scientific perspectives, extends the work of the Humanistic AI Working Group, with the support of a grant from CLAS.

Recent Publications

The faculty in this working group produce cutting edge research on AI. Here are some recent publications:
Brad Tuttle, “Artificial intelligence and CT college admissions. Leveling playing field or using it could backfire?,” Hartford Courant.

Brad Tuttle, “AI Lured Me Into a Car Dealership. That’s Where Things Broke Down,” Barron’s.

Brat Tuttle, “Can CT kids benefit from AI? Here’s what happened when they got a chance to,” Hartford Courant.

Anna Mae Duane, “Teenagers turning to AI companions are redefining love as easy, unconditional and always there,” The Conversation.

Members

  • Anna Mae Duane, Professor, English, Director, UCHI. Duane’s work traces how metaphors of slavery characterize and shape our engagement with AI.
  • Xiang (Peter) Chen, Assistant Prof, Geography. Chen studies how geographic data can be used in the development of AI models.
  • Shiri Dori-Hacohen, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering Dori-Hacohen leads the Reducing Information Ecosystem Threats (RIET) Lab.
  • Anke Finger, Professor German and LCL, Finger work focuses on AI’s role in Human Rights discourse and communication.
  • Avijit Ghosh, Associate Researcher in the RIET Lab at the University of Connecticut. He works at the intersection of machine learning, ethics, and policy, aiming to implement fair ML algorithms into the real world.
  • Trevor Harris, Assistant Professor, Statistics. Harris’s research integrates spatial-temporal modeling, functional data analysis, anomaly detection, and deep learning to better understand climate change.
  • Ting-an Lin, Assistant Professor, Philosophy. A feminist philosopher, Lin’s work focuses how AI might reduce inequality and health disparities, as well as theorizing what it means to call an AI system “oppressive.
  • Jiyoun Suk, Assistant Professor, Communications. Affiliate faculty at CEM Lab, a collaborative research group investigating the politics of digital Suk currently examines AI’s role in cross- digital activism in a polarized media environment.
  • Brad Tuttle, Assistant Professor, Journalism. Tuttle’s work chronicles how people, companies, and organizations are using AI and tracing the points of leverage that are emerging.
  • Lijing Wang, Assistant Professor, Earth Science. Wang develops machine learning and Bayesian inference methods to calibrate hydrologic models and quantify their uncertainty.
  • Arash Zaghi, Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Zaghi’s research focuses on using AI to support neurodiverse students from K-12 to graduate school.
  • ZhenZhen Qi, Assistant Professor Digital Media and Design, An artist, educator and editor, Qi's work explores the cultural, political, ecological, and educational imprints of modern computing systems while envisioning alternative, communal and ethical technical futures.

Bringing the Past to the Future

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a two-year grant of nearly $140,000 to the University of Connecticut for the Humanities Institute (UCHI) to investigate how legacies of slavery are shaping the perception and reception of conversational artificial intelligence. This project, “Bringing the Past to the Future: Slavery and Artificial Intelligence on the Battleground of Popular Culture,” involves the development of a podcast series and scholarly book chapters analyzing how persistent narratives of slavery and servitude have influenced popular understanding of artificial intelligence and humans’ ethical engagement with emerging technologies.

Learn more

Collaborations

UCHI is a partner in the Design Justice AI Institute, a Global Humanities Institute sponsored by the CHCI and the Mellon Foundation, which took place June 30–July 13th in Pretoria. The project is led by the Rutgers Center of Cultural Analysis, along with the Humanities Research Centre at ANU, the Center for Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria. It examines the rapid diffusion of so-called generative AI–machine learning technologies that simulate human languages, communication, arts, and cultures.

UCHI and Global Affairs are partnering with Université Internationale de Rabat (UIR) in Morocco on an international working group on AI and the Humanities—part of a larger collaboration between UIR and UConn. UCHI has been awarded a grant of $25,000 by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) to create a multidisciplinary dialogue on AI and its implementation in the US and Africa, with our partners at the UIR. Watch a recording of their January 2025 workshop on International and Interdisciplinary AI.

Fellowships

Each year, UCHI offers residential fellowships for UConn faculty. As part of our mid-career faculty success initiative, one fellowship each year will be awarded to a faculty member who has held the rank of Associate Professor for at least five years. We also offer one UCHI/Faculty of Color Working Group Faculty Fellowship each year. The UCHI/FOCWG fellowship is intended for full-time UConn faculty members from historically disadvantaged minority groups and/or those whose projects specifically confront institutional blocks for BIPOC faculty. Applications for all faculty fellowships are due February 1.