The Center for Humanities and Artificial Intelligence (CHAI) is a joint initiative of the Technion and the University of Haifa with the aim of creating an inter-academic center focusing on the ethical, social and environmental implications of developing and implementing AI systems. Among the staff members of the center are senior members of both institutions, from various faculties such as computer science, engineering, the humanities and more.

CHAI is an inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary academic, as well as a research, center. On the academic level, we aim to establish a common academic space for consolidating research and teaching in graduate degrees in several academic tracks, including AI and Ethics, Philosophy of AI, AI and Governance and more. On the research level, we offer research opportunities and hold several cross-university joint research programs on fields such as human-machine interaction, applications of AI in healthcare and medicine, Explainable AI (specifically, as related to decision making), artificial moral agents and machine ethics, new advanced methods in deep learning, and more.

One of the main goals of the center is maintaining a tight collaboration with the hi-tech industry. The need to integrate the humanities in general, and philosophy and ethics in particular, into the development of artificial intelligence in numerous domains is evident. AI based technologies have the power to benefit society and its individuals. However, it is as obvious that without the necessary inter-disciplinary preemptive groundwork, development and implementation of AI based applications and systems can negatively affect life on earth: Centralization, invasion of privacy, violation of individual freedom, social biases, widening of social disparities, and other potential environmental damage. One example of such preemptive groundwork can take the form of integrating ethical considerations into the decision making process of learning systems.

In light of all this, the University of Haifa and the Technion view the establishment of CHAI as a first rate challenge with profound technological, social, community and academic implications. We seek collaborations with relevant key players in the hi-tech industry to promote education, academic research and safe and proper development and implementation of AI systems and algorithms in order to create the appropriate infrastructure for the future, for the well-being and prosperity of human society.