Alva J.K. Markelius

AI Ethics | Social Robotics | Cognitive Science

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Photo: Berk Yazar

Seoul National University Campus

S. Korea 2022

I am an AI Ethics & Society MSt student at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. I am also a research engineer at the DICE - lab at the Institution for Applied IT, University of Gothenburg and recipient of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ award 2024.

My main research interests are the ethics of social AI and robotics, embodied cognition, affect and emotion, gender and intersectionality, global AI narratives and socio-technical imaginaries.

I am also president of Cambridge University AI Ethics Society - a student run society aimed at creating a space to critically explore how AI and emerging technologies can best secure and further the ideals of social justice and democracy at local, national, and international scales. Furthermore, I am part of the Centre for Human Inspired AI Early Career Community Committee.

I obtained my bachelor degree in cognitive science at the University of Gothenburg and Seoul National University where I specialised in AI and robotics.

news

Dec 22, 2023 Very pleased that our paper, “Differential Outcomes Training of Visuospatial Memory: A Gamified Approach Using a Socially Assistive Robot”, has been published in the International Journal of Social Robotics. It is open access so don’t hesitate to give it a read!
Dec 8, 2023 My recent publication “A Human-Robot Mutual Learning System with Affect-Grounded Language Acquisition and Differential Outcomes Training” is now published in the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2023, Doha, Qatar, December 3–7 and can be read here. The paper was finalist for best paper award at the conference. :tada:
Dec 4, 2023 :star2: I am truly humbled and honoured to share that I have been selected for the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ award for 2024. It is a tremendous privilege to be acknowledged among such inspiring and talented women in AI Ethics, many of whom have been my role models since the very start of my career. I wish to recognise this as a reminder of the collective responsibility we share in creating technology that respects and upholds human dignity and rights and to lift and encourage those whose voices are often left unheard in this space.
Nov 20, 2023 I am co-organising the workshop Co-Researching with the Humans-In-The-Loop: Using Participatory Methods, Research and Co-Design in HRI, at the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) 2023 in Doha, Qatar, December 7th. We warmly welcome you to contribute and attend our workshop, either in person or online.
Oct 17, 2023 See me at International Conference of Social Robotics in Doha Qatar 4-7 December 2023! I will be presenting the paper “A Human-Robot Mutual Learning System with Affect-Grounded Language Acquisition and Differential Outcomes Training” :sparkles:

selected publications

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    The Mechanisms of AI Hype and its Planetary and Social Costs
    Alva Markelius, Connor Wright, Joahna Kuiper, and 2 more authors
    AI and Ethics, 2024
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    Differential Outcomes Training of Visuospatial Memory: A Gamified Approach Using a Socially Assistive Robot
    Alva Markelius, Sofia Sjöberg, Martin Bergström, and 4 more authors
    International Journal of Social Robotics, 2023
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    Harms from Increasingly Agentic Algorithmic Systems
    Alan Chan, Rebecca Salganik, Alva Markelius, and 8 more authors
    In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 2023
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    A Human-Robot Mutual Learning System with Affect-Grounded Language Acquisition and Differential Outcomes Training
    Alva Markelius, Sofia Sjöberg, Zakaria Lemhauori, and 4 more authors
    Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2023, 2023
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