TeχnēCon Conference

Tech Ethics eXchange NorthEast (teχnē), a collaboration between the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, the Ethics Institute at Northeastern University, and the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics and Embedded EthiCS @ Harvard University, is pleased to announce the third TeχnēCON, an interdisciplinary conference on research and teaching on the ethics of technology.

TeχnēCON unites leading minds at the intersection of ethics and AI for a critical examination of technology’s future. From AI alignment and automated decision-making to digital immortality and responsible NLP development, this conference bridges theoretical insight with practical implementation. Distinguished speakers will explore how we preserve important values while advancing innovation, tackling urgent challenges in generative AI, misinformation, and digital ethics. Join educators, researchers, and practitioners in shaping the future of responsible computing.
 
TeχnēCON 2025 will be held on the MIT campus, February 1 & 2, 2025, 9 am-5 pm, at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing building, at 51 Vassar Street, 8th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139. Breakfast and lunch will be provided, but pre-registration is required.

Keynote Speakers

February 1 – Cathy O’Neil

Cathy O’Neil earned a Ph.D. in math from Harvard and worked as a math professor at Barnard College before switching over to the private sector, working as a quant for the hedge fund D.E. Shaw and as a data scientist in the New York start-up scene. She is a regular contributor to Bloomberg Opinion and in 2016 wrote the book Weapons of Math Destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. She is the CEO of ORCAA, an algorithmic auditing company, is a member of the Public Interest Tech Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her new book The Shame Machine: who profits in the new age of humiliation came out in March 2022.

February 2 – Seth Lazar

Seth Lazar is Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University, an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, a Distinguished Research Fellow of the University of Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI, a fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a member of the Executive Committee of the ACM Fairness, Accountability and Transparency Conference. For AY 2024/25 he is also a Senior AI Advisor at the Knight First Amendment Institute, Columbia University. He has worked and published widely on the ethics of war, risk, and AI, and now leads the Machine Intelligence and Normative Theory (MINT) Lab, where he leads research projects in normative philosophy of computing and Sociotechnical AI Safety, funded by the Australian Research Council, the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Insurance Australia Group, Schmidt Sciences, the Survival and Flourishing Fund, Google and OpenAI. His book, *Connected by Code: How AI Structures, and Governs, the Ways We Relate*, based on his 2023 Tanner Lecture on AI and Human Values, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Seth also edits the Normative Philosophy of Computing newsletter.

TeχnēCON 2025 Schedule

February 1, 2025

  • 9:00–9:05 am | Opening Remarks
    Welcome and Introduction to the Conference
  • 9:05–10:00 am | Research Talk 1
    Steve Coyne
    Alignment is Not Enough: Non-Instrumental Values and AI Alignment
  • 10:00–10:15 am | Break
  • 10:15–11:10 am | Research Talk 2
    Christine Susienka
    Bearing the Moral Weight: What’s Lost When AI Decides
  • 11:10–11:30 pm | Break
  • 11:30–12:25 pm | Research Talk 3
    Yonathan Fiat
    Generative AI & Plagiarism
  • 12:25–1:30 pm | Lunch
  • 1:30–3:00 pm | Keynote 1
    Cathy O’Neil
    The Ethics of Algorithmic Auditing
  • 3:00–3:15 | Break
  • 3:15–4:00 pm | Pedagogy Talk 1
    Jaqueline Rowe*, James Garforth*, Amanda Horzyk*,  Osman Batur İnce, Cyndie Demeocq, James Garforth, Hannah Rohde, Benedetta Catanzariti, Fabio Tollon
    *equal contributers
    Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing: Translating Responsibility in AI Through Interdisciplinary Reflection
  • 4:00–5:00 pm | SERC Seed Grant Talk 1
    Dr. Lula Chen, Research Director for MIT GOV/LAB
    Experiments on Generative AI and the Future of Digital Democracy

February 2, 2025

  • 9:00–9:55 am | Research Talk 4
    Kenny Peng
    Misinformation & Counter speech on Social Media
  • 9:55–10:15 am | Break
  • 10:15–11:10 am | Research Talk 5
    Alexandra Gillespie and Stacy Doore
    Digital Immortality Technologies: Social Media Platforms for the Dead to Exploit the Living
  • 11:10–11:30 am | Break
  • 11:30–12:25 pm | Research Talk 6
    Pengbo Liu
    Preservation or Transformation: A Daoist Guide to Griefbots
  • 12:25–1:30 pm | Lunch
  • 1:30–3:00 pm | Keynote 2
    Seth Lazar
    On AI Personhood Without Sentience
    Authors: Seth Lazar (ANU and HKU) and Ned Howells-Whitaker (Pittsburgh)
  • 3:00–3:15 | Break
  • 3:15–4:15 pm | Seed Grant Talk 2
    Susan Silbey, Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, Sociology and Anthropology, and Aspen Kennedy Hopkins, PhD student in EECS and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
    Designing and Evaluating Regulatory Mechanisms to Empower and Constrain AI Supply Chains
  • 4:15–4:30 pm | Closing Remarks