Event Date
On Friday, February 28, 2025, a UC Davis-wide collaboration hosted the successful daylong conference "Engineering Our Experimental AI Futures." The conference drew together a gathering of over 65 scholars spanning the humanities, the social sciences, and computer science and engineering. Throughout the event, attendees witnessed 18 distinctive presentations representing the research of 15 diverse UC Davis programs.
The conference was organized and hosted by the UC Davis Designated Emphasis in Computational Social Science, spearheded by professors Martin Hilbert and Seth Frey. It was co-sponsored by the newly founded UC Davis Center for AI and Experimental Futures (CAIEF) and the UC Davis AI Center in Engineering. The co-sponsors also provided $1,000 in prize awards for the best AI research papers.
The quality of the AI research presented at the conference was so high that 6 projects were recognized, three for "Best Research" and another three for the "Most Innovative" ideas for high potential impact. A clear pattern emerged with awards honoring research that studies large language models (LLMs) as subjects of study, and innovative proposals that embrace AI for social impacts, including in health, education, and wellness.
Rachael Kee, a 2nd-year PhD student in communication and one of the award winners, reflected that the conference "fostered a unique opportunity for networking and collaboration for graduate students which is otherwise difficult to find. I've attended this escape for two years now, and I highly encourage any interested scholars to take up this invaluable, local opportunity to catapult their work quality and name in the field." Emily McKinley, also a PhD candidate in communication and another one of the award winners, summed up the event by concluding, "At a time when generative AI is rapidly reshaping communication research, I left inspired by the diverse network of researchers and grateful for the insightful feedback that will help refine my own work."
Best Research Awards
Emily McKinley (PhD student, UCD CMN), Abdulaziz Alhumaidy, Jingwen Zhang: Using LLMs to Synthesize Human Responses in Persuasive Context
Jennifer M. Krebsbach (PhD student, UCD Sociology): Analyzing Gendered Job Description Narrative Outputs by LLMs
Arezoo Ghasemzadeh, Arnav Akula, Sruthy Sabesan, Pearl Vishen (all UCD Undergraduate AI Student Collective), Martin Hilbert: Is Intimacy the New Attention? Audit of LLMs Intimacy
Best Innovation Awards
Allyson L. Snyder (PhD student, UCD CMN), Millie Fong, Ana Cervantes, Katherine Ong: Too Scared to Talk to Peers, Too Efficient to Meaningfully Engage with a Chatbot: AI for Math Tutoring
Emily Thatcher (PhD student, UCD Nursing Science & Healthcare Leadership): Drone vs. EMS Response Times for Naloxone Delivery in Rural Settings
Rachael Kee (PhD student, UCD CMN): A New Tool for Sleep Science