Portrait of AJung Moon

AJung Moon

Core Academic Member
moonajung@mila.quebec
Assistant Professor, McGill University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Topics
Recommender Systems
Website
Google Scholar

Biography

Ajung Moon is an experimental roboticist who investigates how robots and AI systems influence the way people move, behave and make decisions in order to help us design and deploy such autonomous intelligent systems more responsibly.

At McGill University, she is the director of the McGill Responsible Autonomy and Intelligent System Ethics (RAISE) lab. This is an interdisciplinary initiative that investigates the social and ethical implications of robots and AI systems, and explores what it means for engineers to be designing and deploying such systems responsibly for a better, technological future.

Current Students

Tanaka Akiyama
Master's Research - McGill University
Github
Rahatul Amin Ananto
PhD - McGill University
Sandrine Bédard
Master's Research - McGill University
Principal supervisor :
Jin Guo
Kadambari Bhujbal
Master's Research - McGill University
Ava Gilmour
Research Intern - McGill University
Github
Leah Leah Davis
Collaborating researcher - None
ledavis@bell.net
Website
Github
Bonam Mingole
Collaborating researcher
Tamara Paris Paris
Master's Research - McGill University
Principal supervisor :
Jin Guo
tamaraprs21@gmail.com
Shalaleh Rismani
PhD - McGill University
Website
Google Scholar
Gauri Sharma
Master's Research - McGill University
Co-supervisor :
Samira Abbasgholizadeh-Rahimi
Github
Google Scholar
Kiara Wimbush
Collaborating researcher
Github
Jocelyn Wong
Research Intern - McGill University
Christopher Yee Wong
Collaborating researcher - McGill University
Website
Github
Google Scholar
Lixiao (Sean) Zhu
PhD - McGill University

Publications

Roboethics as a Design Challenge: Lessons Learned from the Roboethics to Design and Development Competition
Jimin Rhim
Cheng Lin
Alexander Werner
Brandon DeHart
Vivian Qiang
Shalaleh Rismani
AJung Moon
How do we make concrete progress towards de-signing robots that can navigate ethically sensitive contexts? Almost two decades after the word… (see more) ‘roboethics’ was coined, translating interdisciplinary roboethics discussions into techni-cal design still remains a daunting task. This paper describes our first attempt at addressing these challenges through a roboethics-themed design competition. The design competition setting allowed us to (a) formulate ethical considerations as an engineering design task that anyone with basic programming skills can tackle; and (b) develop a prototype evaluation scheme that incorporates diverse normative perspectives of multiple stakeholders. The initial implementation of the competition was held online at the RO-MAN 2021 conference. The competition task involved programming a simulated mobile robot (TIAGo) that delivers items for individuals in the home environment, where many of these tasks involve ethically sensitive con-texts (e.g., an underage family member asks for an alcoholic drink). This paper outlines our experiences implementing the competition and the lessons we learned. We highlight design competitions as a promising mechanism to enable a new wave of roboethics research equipped with technical design solutions.
2022-05-23
2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (published)
doi.org
The Role of Robotics in Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - The Experts' Meeting at the 2021 IEEE/RSJ IROS Workshop [Industry Activities]
Vincent Mai
Bram Vanderborght
Tamás Haidegger
Alaa Khamis
Niraj Bhargava
Dominik B.O. Boesl
Katleen Gabriels
An Jacobs
AJung Moon
Robin Murphy
Yasushi Nakauchi
Edson Prestes
Bhavani Rao R.
Ricardo Vinuesa
Carl-Maria Mörch
The development and deployment of robotic technologies can have an important role in efforts to achieve the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainab… (see more)le Development Goals (SDGs)—with both enabling and inhibiting impacts. During a workshop at the 2021 IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2021), experts from various disciplines analyzed the role of robotics in achieving the SDGs. This article provides a summary of the most important outcomes of the workshop. During the workshop panels, the variety of roles that robots can play in enabling the SDGs was underlined. The panelists discussed the challenges to the adoption of robots and to their deployment at their full potential. The probable undesirable effects of robots were also considered, and the panelists suggested approaches to correctly design SDG-relevant robotic solutions. Governance frameworks were also discussed, with respect to their contents as well as the challenges to build them. The role of military funding was briefly analyzed. Finally, several proposals for actions and policies were made. The contents of the workshop, including contributing papers and videos from the panelists, as well as additional information about future initiatives regarding robotics and the SDGs, are available at www.sustainablerobotics.org.
2022-03-01
IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag. (published)
doi.org
The Role of Robotics in Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - The Experts' Meeting at the 2021 IEEE/RSJ IROS Workshop [Industry Activities]
Vincent Mai
Bram Vanderborght
Tamás P. Haidegger
Alaa M. Khamis
Niraj Bhargava
Dominik B. O. Boesl
K. Gabriels
An Jacobs
AJung Moon
R. Murphy
Yasushi Nakauchi
Edson Prestes
Bhavani Rao R.
Ricardo Vinuesa
Carl-Maria Mörch
2022-03-01
IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag. (published)
doi.org
Sociotechnical Harms: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction
Renee Shelby
Shalaleh Rismani
Kathryn Henne
AJung Moon
Negar Rostamzadeh
Paul Nicholas
N'mah Fodiatu Yilla
Jess Gallegos
Andrew J Smart
Emilio Garcia
Gurleen Virk
2022-01-01
arXiv.org (preprint)
doi.org
What does it mean to be an AI Ethicist: An ontology of existing roles
Shalaleh Rismani
AJung Moon
With the increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence systems (AIS) in various application and the growing efforts to regulate such system… (see more)s, a new set of occupations has emerged in the industry. This new set of roles take different titles and hold varying responsibilities. However, the individuals in these roles are tasked with interpreting and operationalizing best practices for developing ethical and safe AI systems. We will broadly refer to this new set of occupations as AI ethicists and recognize that they often hold a specific role in the intersection of technology development, business needs, and societal implications. In this work, we examine what it means to be an AI ethicist in the industry and propose an ontology of existing roles under this broad title along with their required competencies. We create this ontology by examining the job postings for such roles over the past two years and conduct expert interviews with fourteen individuals who currently hold such a role in the industry. The proposed ontology will inform executives and leaders who are looking to build responsible AI teams and provide educators the necessary information for creating new learning objectives and curriculum.
2022-01-01
arXiv.org (preprint)
doi.org
What does it mean to be an AI Ethicist: An ontology of existing roles
Shalaleh Rismani
AJung Moon
With the increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence systems (AIS) in various application and the growing efforts to regulate such system… (see more)s, a new set of occupations has emerged in the industry. This new set of roles take different titles and hold varying responsibilities. However, the individuals in these roles are tasked with interpreting and operationalizing best practices for developing ethical and safe AI systems. We will broadly refer to this new set of occupations as AI ethicists and recognize that they often hold a specific role in the intersection of technology development, business needs, and societal implications. In this work, we examine what it means to be an AI ethicist in the industry and propose an ontology of existing roles under this broad title along with their required competencies. We create this ontology by examining the job postings for such roles over the past two years and conduct expert interviews with fourteen individuals who currently hold such a role in the industry. The proposed ontology will inform executives and leaders who are looking to build responsible AI teams and provide educators the necessary information for creating new learning objectives and curriculum.
2022-01-01
arXiv.org (preprint)
doi.org
How do AI systems fail socially?: an engineering risk analysis approach
Shalaleh Rismani
AJung Moon
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) has been used as an engineering risk assessment tool since 1949. FMEAs are effective in preemptively… (see more) identifying and addressing how a device or process might fail in operation and are often used in the design of high-risk technology applications such as military, automotive industry and medical devices. In this work, we explore whether FMEAs can serve as a risk assessment tool for machine learning practitioners, especially in deploying systems for high-risk applications (e.g. algorithms for recidivism assessment). In particular, we discuss how FMEAs can be used to identify social and ethical failures of Artificial Intelligent Systemss (AISs), recognizing that FMEAs have the potential to uncover a broader range of failures. We first propose a process for developing a Social FMEAs (So-FMEAs) by building on the existing FMEAs framework and a recently published definition of Social Failure Modes by Millar. We then demonstrate a simple proof-of-concept, So-FMEAs for the COMPAS algorithm, a risk assessment tool used by judges to make recidivism-related decisions for convicted individuals. Through this preliminary investigation, we illustrate how a traditional engineering risk management tool could be adapted for analyzing social and ethical failures of AIS. Engineers and designers of AISs can use this new approach to improve their system's design and perform due diligence with respect to potential ethical and social failures.
2021-10-28
2021 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science and Technology (ETHICS) (published)
doi.org
Design of Hesitation Gestures for Nonverbal Human-Robot Negotiation of Conflicts
AJung Moon
Maneezhay Hashmi
H. F. Machiel Van Der Loos
Elizabeth A. Croft
Aude Billard
When the question of who should get access to a communal resource first is uncertain, people often negotiate via nonverbal communication to … (see more)resolve the conflict. What should a robot be programmed to do when such conflicts arise in Human-Robot Interaction? The answer to this question varies depending on the context of the situation. Learning from how humans use hesitation gestures to negotiate a solution in such conflict situations, we present a human-inspired design of nonverbal hesitation gestures that can be used for Human-Robot Negotiation. We extracted characteristic features of such negotiative hesitations humans use, and subsequently designed a trajectory generator (Negotiative Hesitation Generator) that can re-create the features in robot responses to conflicts. Our human-subjects experiment demonstrates the efficacy of the designed robot behaviour against non-negotiative stopping behaviour of a robot. With positive results from our human-robot interaction experiment, we provide a validated trajectory generator with which one can explore the dynamics of human-robot nonverbal negotiation of resource conflicts.
2021-07-11
ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (published)
doi.org
Ethics of Corporeal, Co-present Robots as Agents of Influence: a Review
AJung Moon
Shalaleh Rismani
H. V. D. Van der Loos
2021-04-14
Current Robotics Reports (published)
doi.org
Can Open Source Licenses Help Regulate Lethal Autonomous Weapons?
Cheng Lin
AJung Moon
Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS, ethal autonomous weapon also known as killer robots) are a real and emerging technology that have th… (see more)e potential to radically transform warfare. Because of the myriad of moral, legal, privacy, and security risks the technology introduces, many scholars and advocates have called for a ban on the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons [1], [2].
2021-01-01
IEEE technology & society magazine (published)
doi.org
Using Open Source Licensing to Regulate the Assembly of LAWS: A Preliminary Analysis
Cheng Lin
AJung Moon
Lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) are an emerging technology capable of automatically targeting and exercising lethal force. Many scholars an… (see more)d advocates have petitioned to ban the technology internationally for a myriad of reasons. However, there are practical challenges to implementing a ban. One such challenge is posed by the “intangible” nature of the software that LAWS depends on, which is incompatible with implementation mechanisms such as export control. Given the dual-use nature of software, and the fact that software is developed by teams of individuals, a number of soft governance mechanisms have been proposed to regulate this technology. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of one particular approach: leveraging open source licenses as a means to prohibit the use of certain software in LAWS. This approach is largely motivated by the fact that open source software underpins all of technology, especially AI. Through a review of the recent tech activism and open source activism, we evaluate whether open source licenses can feasibly limit the use of open source software to only non-LAWS applications. We distill the current challenges facing “ethics-driven” open source licensing efforts into three main obstacles: the need for clarity of licensing language, the lack of enforceability of licenses, and the lack of cohesiveness of the open source community. We propose that addressing these factors are also success criteria for future anti-LAWS open source initiatives. We find that open source licenses provide more theoretical than practical promise in regulating LAWS, and conclude that cohesion in the open source community is the key to their potential practical success in the future.
2020-11-12
2020 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS) (published)
doi.org
Driver perceptions of advanced driver assistance systems and safety
Sophie Le Page
Jason Millar
Kelly Selina Bronson
Shalaleh Rismani
AJung Moon
Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are often used in the automotive industry to highlight innovative improvements in vehicle safety. … (see more)However, today it is unclear whether certain automation (e.g., adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, parking assist) increases safety of our roads. In this paper, we investigate driver awareness, use, perceived safety, knowledge, training, and attitudes toward ADAS with different automation systems/features. Results of our online survey (n=1018) reveal that there is a significant difference in frequency of use and perceived safety for different ADAS features. Furthermore, we find that at least 70% of drivers activate an ADAS feature"most or all of the time"when driving, yet we find that at least 40% of drivers report feeling that ADAS often compromises their safety when activated. We also find that most respondents learn how to use ADAS in their vehicles by trying it out on the road by themselves, rather than through any formal driver education and training. These results may mirror how certain ADAS features are often activated by default resulting in high usage rates. These results also suggest a lack of driver training and education for safely interacting with, and operating, ADAS, such as turning off systems/features. These findings contribute to a critical discussion about the overall safety implications of current ADAS, especially as they enable higher-level automation features to creep into personal vehicles without a lockstep response in training, regulation, and policy.
2019-11-25
ArXiv (preprint)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org