Reimagining AI answer systems for critical AI literacy in Australia

This scholarship will be offered to outstanding doctoral candidates affiliated with the ARC Future Fellowship project, “Reimagining AI answer systems for critical AI literacy in Australia” led by Professor Heather Ford. The scholarship provides a stipend for 3.5 years, and covers tuition fees for up to 4 years.

“AI answer systems” are technologies embedded in virtual assistants and their smart speaker applications like Siri and chatbots like ChatGPT that enable us to ask questions about the world. Projects are invited from the fields (with example research questions) below:

Human Machine Communication:

- How do different publics come to use and/or trust automated knowledge discovery tools (e.g. search engines, digital assistants and generative AI chatbots) in their everyday lives?

- What local datasets do automated knowledge discovery tools rely on and how are these being maintained in Australia?

Design:

- How can the public come to understand how AI technologies are built and how they operate via exhibitions, workshops and other public programs?

- How might we build alternative interfaces, hardware and processes in the AI model lifecycle to support critical AI literacy and minimal greenhouse gas emissions?

- How has the design of question answering machine technology represented by chatbots and virtual assistants evolved over time and what are its historical precedents?

Library and Information Management and Systems:

- How can libraries contribute to furthering public AI literacy in Australia?

- How might librarians enable public AI literacy in Australia?