Carina Ines Hausladen PRO
I am an Assistant Professor for Computational Social Science at the University of Konstanz, Germany.
Fairness and Collective
Decision-Making in AI
Carina I Hausladen
Research Project
graded, 70%
Discussant Role
graded, 30%
Reading Notes
ungraded
Activities
Schedule
Week 1
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Week 7
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Week 10
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Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Topics
Lecture ends
Research Project
graded, 70%
Discussant Role
graded, 30%
Reading Notes
ungraded
Activities
- starting April 22
- sign-up: April 16
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Lecture ends
Economic Impacts
of AI
Social Choice and
AI Alignment
Defining and Measuring Fairness
in AI
Democracy
and LLMs
Topics
Defining and Measuring Fairness
in AI
Topics
- Fairness foundations
- Fairness metrics
- Bias evaluation datasets
- Fairness, causality, and data limitations
Economic Impacts
of AI
Social Choice and
AI Alignment
Defining and Measuring Fairness
in AI
Democracy
and LLMs
Topics
Social Choice and
AI Alignment
Fairness, for whom?
- From individual to collective choice
- Different voting methods
- Fairness and proportionality principles
- Key properties (e.g. monotonicity)
- Human-centered LLMs
- Learning from human preferences (RLHF)
- Alignment by written principles
Economic Impacts
of AI
Social Choice and
AI Alignment
Defining and Measuring Fairness
in AI
Democracy
and LLMs
Topics
Economic Impacts
of AI
Topics
- Unequal Distribution of Benefits
- Labor Market Effects
- Global Inequality
Economic Impacts
of AI
Social Choice and
AI Alignment
Defining and Measuring Fairness
in AI
Democracy
and LLMs
Topics
Democracy
and LLMs
Topics
- LLMs as proxies for humans
- LLMs struggle to represent human diversity
- Participation = human well-being & dignity
- Supporting participation
(instead of replacement)
Economic Impacts
of AI
Social Choice and
AI Alignment
Defining and Measuring Fairness
in AI
Democracy
and LLMs
Topics
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Lecture ends
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Lecture ends
Guest
Lectures
Thomas Müller
Sachit Mahajan
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8 ___ Abstract
Week 9 ___ Intro & Literature
Week 10 ___ Present Initial Results
Week 11 ___ Submit first full draft
Week 12 ___ Slides, practice presentation, social media summary
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Lecture ends
Guest
Lectures
Final Presentation
Submit Paper
Current Ethics Debates
The
Department of War Controversy
The
Department of War Controversy
The
Department of War Controversy
The
Department of War Controversy
- Profits are not consumer-driven—powered by states, capital, and geopolitics.
- Is Claude/another private LLM really the “Ethical Alternative” ?
- A power issue reduced to a lifestyle choice: Like the “personal carbon footprint” shift in the 2000s.
- Instead ask: Who controls the infrastructure? Public compute; Data rules; Oversight; Digital sovereignty.
With which points do you agree?
Why or why not?
Privacy and AI
Public launch of Meta Ray-Ban in September 2025
Privacy and AI
- A U.S. class-action lawsuit (filed March 2026) alleging false advertising and privacy violations.
- Investigations by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and Kenyan authorities.
- Widespread social-media backlash and media coverage in March 2026.
Privacy and AI
Meta Ray-Ban Glasses
|
| video frames + mic audio
v
Gemini Live API (WebSocket)
|
|-- Audio response
|-- Tool calls (execute)
Privacy and AI
The glasses have a recording light. Is that enough to protect privacy? Should bystanders have a legal right to demand you remove the glasses?
The glasses give blind users the ability to cook, shop, and read independently for the first time in decades, and deaf users real-time captions in conversations.
Should we slow down or restrict this technology because of privacy risks to the general population?
Infrastructure & resources
America’s leading electricity research think tank EPRI released anew analysis:
- Data centers currently use 4–5% of U.S. electricity.
- By 2030, they could consume 9–17% of total U.S. electricity generation.
- New projections are 60% higher compared to 2024: massive surge in data center construction over the past 18 months
Infrastructure & resources
Infrastructure & resources
Do you see realistic environmental benefits?
Is this a fair and useful comparison?
Some uses of AI are highly valuable (medical research, climate science, accessibility tools), while others are mostly for entertainment or minor productivity gains.
Should we prioritize or regulate different types of AI usage based on their energy cost versus societal benefit?
Vibe Research and its consequences
The rejection rate of arXiv papers relative to those accepted doubled between
January 2024 and 2026.
Vibe Research and its consequences
- ICML 2026 received more than 24,000 submissions — more than double the previous year.
- Science has always relied on peer review as its quality filter. But the current system was never designed for this volume.
- trust in scientific research faces a substantial risk of erosion
Vibe Research and its consequences
"The issue is not whether my students are valuable. In the long run, they are invaluable. The issue is that their value emerges slowly, whereas AI delivers immediate returns. I feel somewhat embarrassed to admit how tempting this is.
Yet I see these calculations shaping the labs around me. Close colleagues are quietly refraining from taking on as many students as they used to. When they do take students, they are noticeably pickier."
Vibe Research and its consequences
-
Is Science Breaking Down?
-
Do you trust published papers less due to AI?
-
Does This Change Your Desire to Pursue a PhD?
Appendix
Schedule
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Topics
Guest
Lectures
Scientific Contribution
Present Project
Lecture ends
Submit Paper
Privacy and AI
Privacy and AI
Vibe Research and its consequences
Fairness and Collective Decision-Making in AI
By Carina Ines Hausladen
Fairness and Collective Decision-Making in AI
Learn about the intersection of fairness and collective decision-making in AI.
