Lain Nelson

Lain Nelson

Project Title: Inclusive Natural Language Processing

Project Description: How are human biases reflected in language? What does it mean for language to be inclusive? How do biased or inclusive language get perpetuated by artificial intelligence? What is the impact of the language disseminated? Understanding manifestations of human biases and inclusivity in language, as well as potential impacts, is an interdisciplinary pursuit involving linguistics; cognitive science; feminist, gender and sexuality studies; history; and cultural studies, among other fields. To then comprehend how biased language is incorporated into artificial intelligence, it is necessary to examine concepts from various disciplines such as computer science, information science, and mathematics. Through my research, I hope to examine and guide how artificial language models are formulated and applied.

Most Important Accomplishment: Staying in touch with my friends and supporting them over time. While I appreciate my academic accomplishments, I am most proud of establishing community and solidarity.

Reflections on the College Scholar Program: The College Scholar Program has provided me with a network of engaged and interested peers who share insight from fields in our seminar course that I otherwise would not have interacted with at Cornell. The staff and faculty of the program are very uplifting, encouraging me to pursue opportunities and helping me to make concrete my ideas. The program has also allowed me to focus on the courses that most excite me. For instance, this semester I am taking Language and Power, which prior to being a part of the program I would not have taken, as it did not satisfy any of my distribution requirements.

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