Introduction
IBM Research Scientists are charting the future of Artificial Intelligence, creating breakthroughs in quantum computing, discovering how blockchain will reshape the enterprise, and much more. Join a team that is dedicated to applying science to some of today's most complex challenges, whether it's discovering a new way for doctors to help patients, teaming with environmentalists to clean up our waterways or enabling retailers to personalize customer service.
Your Role and Responsibilities
This is for a 2025 summer internship with the following start dates: May - August or June - September for quarter system schools.
We are seeking candidates currently enrolled in a PhD or MD in the humanities and social sciences to work with a small team of interdisciplinary researchers seeking to advance critical perspectives on responsible AI. Leveraging your preferred methods and approaches, you will contribute to a collaborative project aimed at contextualizing, historicizing and theorizing prevailing discourses around AI "safety". This will include, for instance, drawing connections between discourses of safety, risk, security, trust, privacy, and transparency, or examining how safety has been mobilized in other settings. It could also entail probing the implications of safety discourses in relation to questions of race, ethnicity, class, gender, empire, etc.
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Depending on your disciplinary background, you will be expected to engage in in-depth analyses of documents (e.g. archival and legal documents), white papers, research publications, databases, and/or technical artifacts (among others), and share your insights via verbal presentations and written documentations. You will also have the opportunity to co-author articles resulting from the research and findings.
Required Technical and Professional Expertise
- Applicants should be PhD & MS students pursuing graduate studies.
- Enrolled in a PhD or MA program in the social sciences or humanities, including but not limited to: history, history of science, media studies, anthropology, sociology, english language and literature, philosophy, economics, political science, and area studies.
- Strong interest and previous experience conducting research from a humanities perspective on topics in science and technology; strong preference for researchers informed by a historical, political, or social perspective.
- Willingness to work across disciplines and communicate findings to a wide range of audiences, including technologists.
Preferred Technical and Professional Expertise
- Familiarity with scholarship in critical traditions such as feminist theory, decolonial/post-colonial theory, historical materialism, contemporary critical theory, etc.
- Ability to work independently
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Publications in academic venues or popular media (published, forthcoming, or in preparation)