AI and Ethics (Re-release) | Yunus Telliel | Humanities and Arts

  A-I, they may be the two most popular valves in technology today. You can’t open a news site, attend a conference, or sit in a classroom without hearing about artificial intelligence and how it’s reshaping nearly every part of our world. But behind every AI system, every algorithm, every model, every decision is a human being and the world needs professionals who understand not only how to build these technologies, but how to build them responsibly. As we’ve seen in industries from healthcare, to finance to manufacturing, AI’s influence is growing fast, but so are the questions around fairness, transparency, accountability, and impact.  Given the mounting importance of those questions coupled with new reports of the rogue AI agents and other unintended acts of technology we are revisiting our conversation with Yunus Telliel that originally aired in January 2026.   Yunus, welcome. I’m just going to have you introduce yourself, your department, your areas of study.

Yunus: That’s actually the most difficult question. I didn’t start with a softball. I’m an anthropologist and I’m not in an anthropology department. I’m in the humanities and arts department, and I have affiliations with interactive media and game development program and robotics engineering department, and I’m saying difficult because I like this difficulty of describing myself because it really helps me highlight the complexity of the work I’m doing and all the interdisciplinary connections. So, um, so I’m an interdisciplinary scholar at WPI and I think WPI is a perfect place to be an interdisciplinary scholar, especially thinking about AI today. 

Colleen: Yeah, I was going to say that if there is a time and place for someone interdisciplinary, it’s WPI when it comes to AI So. My first actual question is what is ethics in AI? 

Yunus: I think that is the million dollar question, perhaps, because that’s the most important question, but it’s also really difficult to wrap our minds around it. One of the, I think, difficulties is the scaling. You can think about ethics from the perspective of the user. Me turning on, let’s say chat, GPT, and entering a prompt and thinking about what comes out of it. You can ask a lot of ethical questions about the accuracy of the information and the kind of maybe cheating. That’s obviously a concern in the US and also globally right now. And that’s one scale. And then if you actually zoom out and then think about the internet networks and the data infrastructure, data storage. Now you also talk about physical spaces, environmental impact, and so that’s a different scale. And then if you think about the chips that actually go into these physical spaces that are used in the data storage places, then you actually talk about extraction and mining. So ethics in that way. It’s perhaps the most important question about the biggest challenge for ai, but it’s also really one of the most difficult questions for us to tackle, perhaps because of this multi-scale orientation of the problem.

Colleen: Yeah, it’s like that game, whack-a-mole, just when you have one figured out, something else pops up. Exactly, yes. When did you start studying ethics?

Yunus:  I have always been interested in politics and ethics of science, especially as it relates to religious communities. I was interested in the perception of science and that obviously you might remember COVID-19 vaccine debates, and you see a lot of ethical concerns about public health that are framed in religious like idioms. So that was the kind of my interest in ethics and science. But my main interest in technology, AI, robotics started when I arrived at WPI. I met a lot of really bright folks, graduate students, working on perhaps still technology of the future. And they kept asking me questions about the ethics, social implications. So in life we make a lot of choices as we go through certain difficult situations. And then we do perhaps a cost benefit analysis to navigate between different costs, this damage, maybe that damage which one is more reasonable, right? Yeah. And my problem was why don’t we actually think about the design and development of AI technologies and robotic technologies so we can actually make things designed not to harm people. So bringing ethics as a design principle, building design in the system rather than as an afterthought, rather than as an analysis of something that has something bad that has already happened. Why not actually think about the ethics? Before you even build, if you think about ethics in design, in the very development in the lab. So that to me was my main, I think the push point. That’s how I became a scholar of AI ethics. Mm-hmm. And, uh, the work I do is shaped by that interest and in how we do things differently in lab, in research and development. So that, that will be products out there. Technologies out there, services out there that do not do damage.

Colleen: Got it. Has it been frustrating, challenging, maybe even a little exciting for you as someone that looks at this technology with ethics to see how quickly AI has taken over almost every part of society and. There’s a lot of catching up to do when you’re thinking about the larger picture, as you just mentioned, and the impacts may be 5, 10, 20 years down the road, if not more.

Yunus: That’s correct. When we think about ai, we have to think about the future because. This is one of those technologies that has immense impact. If you get something wrong, if you have a problem in what you have, it could impact millions and billions of people. So we are talking about technologies that are really prevalent in our societies. So for that respect, any mistake that is in the design or any unethical issue. In the design of these technologies would change the lives of so many people. And so that to me is the ethics question, has the potential to be scaled up so immensely and AI in that way. We have to think more carefully about AI systems for that reason, because we now face a technology that could impact lives of many others so quickly and so fast. So in that way whatever we do in the present is linked to what happens to people in the future, and I think that timeframe or the time between the future and the present, uh, for these technologies is very short. 

Colleen: What has surprised you? Are students thinking about how AI can be applied, can harm, or make things easier?

Yunus: I think there are so many different ways in which these ethical concerns play out in student projects. So sometimes students are so excited about using AI technologies to solve a problem. So they say, okay, if I actually collect. Some data on some information that I can use for a nonprofit helping immigrants, but when they build an application for immigrants in a situation where those immigrants’ identities might be protected, might need to be protected. Then they have to navigate between the concern of building a system that is operating effectively. Maybe with more data, with more information put into it. And then the other concern being the privacy of these individuals. So when you have to navigate between these two conflicting concerns, two conflicting values, perhaps effectiveness of a system and privacy of individuals. How are you going to navigate this? So a lot of student projects that I advise and in my classes, I highlight that there are no easy solutions to these projects. And I think WP is a good place for students to understand that these kind of problems coming from real context. I think the project based learning is definitely a good place for students to experience this. As they do the projects, they can see these different conflicting ethical issues emerging and learn how to navigate them, learn to weigh them against each other, and then they need to make a decision about the technology they are building. So maybe they don’t need certain types of information. Right, because the data will be individual privacy issues.

Colleen: What about jobs? There’s a lot of threats to the future of jobs, job creation in the age of ai, but on the other side of the coin, the loss of many jobs getting taken over by ai. How do you work with both students and faculty to keep that in mind? 

Yunus: That’s a great point. What is happening with AI definitely highlights the value of social skills, understanding of communication, understanding of context, and in that way, I think with WPI general educational philosophy. there is so much emphasis on problem solving. Within specific contexts, and I think that really helps students build certain types of skills that adds onto their technical understanding of AI systems. And then on top of that, they can actually manage expectations with respect to. How to use a system for a particular purpose, because then now you can, they can bring the human factor, they can bring an understanding of the social context, they can bring an understanding of the ethical consequences of the system. So that’s a layer of skills that are wrapping around their technical skill. To me, that actually. Is distinguishing. So you are not just a technical expert, but you are an expert in the broader sense of the world. Because we are dealing with a technology that is not just technical anymore, it is social, it’s cultural, affecting politics. And that way we have to expand our understanding of expertise. And that’s what I see with our students. And I think my work and my colleagues work with students. Often focus on that holistic perspective in which the students have the excellence in building and using AI systems. That involves not only that they are really good at using or building AI systems, but also they know when not to use it. They know the limits, they understand opportunities with respect to the limits or the consequences. So to me. This is what WPI has done really well. 

Colleen: A lot of faculty here are very much committed to that holistic individual, holistic person that is at the center of STEM education in building a curriculum for ai, whatever shape or form, not only at WPI, but at other colleges and universities that might be looking into this. Should there be one course on ethics and AI? Or is this something that has to be a part of every single curriculum when you’re looking at building technology or understanding technology? 

Yunus: I think that’s really important. What I said about scaling, how AI technology scale our ethical understanding or the questions also scale and with that respect, every department, every program with respect to the work they do with AI, and that could really differ from each other. How biomedical engineers think about AI wouldn’t be the same, you know, as data scientists. I think of AI as a system of systems because there are systems that we deal with in our work, but there are also larger systems in which those individual systems operate in. So for that respect, I believe that all of us should have something valuable to bring to the table because this AI systems, AI technology right now manifest itself in many different ways, depending on our needs, depending on our context. So in that way. Ethics question should be addressing those specific manifestations in engineering, sciences, humanities, and arts. But I think what is really valuable though, not only just addressing ethical issues with individual courses in different disciplines, but how do we bring all these different concerns to each other to speak to each other? And I think that is the ideal thing. It would be the platform. Of ethics modules or courses or work done on ethics, and they come together and they talk to each other. They enhance each other’s perspectives, and I think that this is already happening at WPI. We need to do more work to build this platform to learn from each other. For instance, a lot of my knowledge in AI ethics comes from folks who are in technical disciplines. I ask questions and they help me understand. A technical issue, but I can’t see how that relates to social issues. That’s not always possible if you are an anthropologist like me, right? In a different institutional setting where you don’t actually interact with technologists, engineers, or scientists. I think WPI has that potential to highlight this conversation that can happen on ethics. So I teach on ethics. I know that my colleagues offer ethics modules in different disciplines. I think while we are trying to build a conversation in which we can learn from each other, we can’t be siloed. 

Colleen: I really like that because I came into this conversation thinking that it should be these technologists keeping ethics in mind as again, they’re developing, they’re producing, they’re adding to products, technologies, approaches, but you have to talk to one another, right? Because you can’t be explaining ethics of a technology or a future technology to them without understanding what they’re trying to accomplish. Thank you for sharing that. As we’re wrapping up, what would be your advice to a student? In high school, maybe even middle school, who’s looking at STEM fields and wants to make sure that they’re doing that responsibly. 

Yunus: I actually receive emails from high school students and they often have great CVs already. They have been in the robotics clubs, they’ve been working on AI, they’re really good, they’re ready for college. They have the skills, but they’re also really worried about the impact or the consequences of what they’re doing. So they tell me, Hey, professor, I’m interested in robotics. Can I come to your class or can we just chat because I’m working on this project, but I don’t know the consequences of what I’m doing. That to me is amazing because they do not only see AI as a tool, as a technical system, but they see it as a question. And that to me is the beginning of any ethical inquiry. Not to settle on something that is given to you, a tool, a technical system, but to turn it into a question. And I think in humanities and arts department in global and integrative studies, in social science and policy studies in in interactive media and game development, we have actually a lot of people thinking about AI in what you might call non-technical areas. Mm-hmm. And that’s actually helping us to turn AI into a question rather than a something that is already done that’s already finished. So I think keep asking questions is one thing that high school students can do. 

Colleen: Okay. I’d like to end there on a high note that as scary as this technology could be. It sounds like people are asking the right questions. Yes, hopefully many of them. Alright. That’s right. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you. 

Thanks for joining us for another edition of the WPI podcast. We hope you enjoyed this discussion on AI at wpi. To learn more about the new bachelor’s program as well as the masters and PhD offerings, visit wpi.edu and search for ai. There’s a lot of good information available. To hear more WPI podcasts, visit wpi.edu/listen. Or search for the WPI podcast on Spotify, apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. A special thanks to Yunus Telliel, as well as our audio engineer Varun Bhat. I’m Colleen Wam