Olya Kudina

Tech Ethics | AI DeMoS Lab

Journal of Human-Technology Relations

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About

Olya Kudina is an ethicist of technology focusing on the dynamic interaction between values and technologies. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), where she helps to accompany technology development with ethical reflection and cultural sensitivity as essential counterparts.

Olya is a co-director of the AI DeMoS Lab that focuses on the relation between AI and democracy, and responsible AI development practices. She is also a co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of the diamond open access Journal of Human-Technology Relations.

Her previous work outside academia includes diplomacy, (inter)governmental work, data protection and privacy. Together with her current expertise in empirical philosophy, Olya connects ethics, design and governance in providing strategic foresight and developing technologies that are adaptable to the changing world.

Olya holds a PhD degree in Philosophy of Technology from the University of Twente and speaks English, Spanish, Dutch and Ukrainian fluently, with limited working proficiency in several other languages.

Research
Olya is an interdisciplinary researcher in philosophy/ethics of technology who explores the relation between human values and technologies. Her recent focus has been on AI and democracy in the framework of the AI DeMoS Lab that she founded and co-leads. To anticipate the ethical challenges and opportunities of technologies, Olya thinks it is essential to combine different academic practices and fields.

To this end, her philosophic work is inspired by (post)phenomenology, Dewey’s pragmatism, and bioethics and integrates qualitative empirical methods from STS and psychology.

Olya’s recent research explores the responsible use and design of Natural Language Processing and Automatic Speech Recognition algorithms, with applications in voice assistants such as Alexa and conversational agents such as ChatGPT.  As of 2023, Olya supervises 8 PhD projects and a visiting researcher from the Fulbright program.
Teaching
Olya teaches in a range of university courses across bachelor, master and PhD levels. She pursues creative teaching, inviting the students to integrate different theoretical and stakeholders perspectives in analyzing contemporary case studies and engaging them in responsible design practices. Below are the courses Olya created and teaches in:
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Robots and society
Introduction to AI and Responsible AI Engineering
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Ethics of technology and bioethics
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Empirical Methods in Philosophy of Technology
Auxiliary text
Ethics of Technology in Design (Ukrainian)
News & upcoming events

On September 4, 2023 Olya will speak at the Opening of the Academic Year at TU Delft on a theme "AI as sociotechnical systems".

New book! Something to look forward to in November 2023 is Olya's book, coming out at Rowman&Littlefield Lexington Books, titled "Moral Hermeneutics and Technology". Available also as an open access e-book!
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In fall 2023, Olya will give several talks on Responsible AI, e.g. the medical symposium "Online help for adolescents", at the Institute of Internal Auditors conference in Brussels and at the National Bank of Lithuania.

Submit your work to the Special Issue on the philosophy of Large Language Models, that Olya is co-editing with Mark Alfano in the Ethics and Information Technology Journal. The deadline is November 2023.

Contact
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o.kudina@tudelft.nl