Assistant Professor, School of Social Work and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo
On April 15, 2024, Dr. Maria Y. Rodriguez drew on her unique background in social work and computational social science to explore systems of care and applications of technology in human services. From offline child welfare systems to online social media platforms, her work examines the systems we build to care for marginalized groups, particularly how we make decisions about who those groups are. Based on a central tenet of ethical social work practice, Dr. Rodriguez aims to support the reorientation of systems toward working best for outlier cases. In her work, Dr. Rodriguez explores if and how the values that define systems can come from the lived experience of the system involved.
During this talk, Dr. Rodriguez guided attendees through her work traversing the fields of computational social science, applied demography, and social work. Reflecting on a body of work spanning over 10 years, her talk culminated in the principal lesson Dr. Rodriguez has learned about AI and ethics, at least thus far: the most important resource of any given system is the people within it.