Scientific Work

For full list of scientific publications, see Google Scholar page and scientific resume.

Rahwan’s early scientific work explored how social media can be used to achieve unprecedented feats, such as searching an entire continent in 9 hours, or re-assembling shredded documents. He led the winning team in the US State Department's Tag Challenge, using social media to locate individuals in remote cities within 12 hours using only their mug shots.

Rahwan’s subsequent work focused on the societal impacts and ethical challenges posed by AI technology. He led the Moral Machine project, which crowdsourced 100 million decisions from people worldwide about the ethics of autonomous vehicles. Through a series of scientific and artistic projects, he also exposed tens of millions of people world-wide to new implications of AI, such as bias in machine learning, human-AI creativity and the ability of AI to induce fear and empathy in humans at scale.

Most recently, Rahwan strives to promote the science of machine behavior, and its impact on human behavior, including human-machine cooperation and trust. He demonstrated the world's first human-level strategic cooperation by an AI, and innovated new methods to anticipate the potential impact of AI on human labor. He is fascinated by the ways in which AI may impact human culture and creativity, and is spearheading the study of machine culture. His overarching goal is to help humanity thrive in the age of AI.