Mona Bhan, associate professor of anthropology and Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies, has been named the leader of the Lender Faculty Fellowship project for 2022-2024. The fellowship project involves working with selected student fellows on a focused project.

Bhan will direct a research-based advocacy project, carried out in collaboration with Haley Duschinski, associate professor of anthropology at Ohio University; Syracuse University faculty partners; centers such as the Autonomous Systems Policy Institute; and Lender Student Fellows to investigate how artificial intelligence weapons systems transform war and surveillance and accentuate people’s social and political vulnerabilities to violence.

While many defense analysts celebrate artificial intelligence (AI) weapons as ethical alternatives to conventional warfare, the project will examine how new military techno-infrastructures transform conceptions of autonomy, accountability, human rights and justice. The Lender Faculty Fellowship project will create an interdisciplinary team of students and faculty who will engage in collaborative documentation, research, analysis and dissemination on the social justice implications of AI weapons in Syracuse and beyond through GIS-enabled mapping and immersive media techniques.