Kyle Roth

inspired by Mike Cook’s 2026-09-22 article “Why I love AI” (MHTML archive)MHTML is a web archiving file format that combines an HTML page and its associated resources into a single file. This may be showing my youth, but I am surprised to learn that route optimization algorithms were once considered a part of AI research; I’ve always seen it treated as a highly distinct field, sometimes even outside the realm of informatics/CS. My department is named Département d’informatique et de recherche opérationelle, or “department of informatics and operations research”, where “operations research” is about such optimization algorithms. If in a different life I’d had the time to become invested in AI research for 20 years before things became the way they are in 2026, I could totally see myself feeling left behind like Cook feels. But critically, just as he was seeing his field left behind, I was seeing my field of interest, natural language processing, becoming subsumed by this latest instantiation of “AI research”.

I wrote this paper with Stephen Betts, a friend of mine doing Mormon Studies at the University of Virginia. (Click the title to download the preprint.) Our interest in the topic was initially piqued when we stumbled across the Wilford Woodruff AI Learning Experience, and this paper explores the unique intersection of Mormonism, transhumanism, and machine learning that makes such a thing possible. We’re currently looking for a venue to publish this work. Any feedback on the preprint is appreciated!

I will present this paper in the FATE (fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics) reading group tomorrow (2023-10-25). You can view the slides I’ll use here. There are unresolved tensions in the algorithmic ethics world. Here are two examples: Is inclusion always good? Gebru: “you can’t have ethical A.I. that’s not inclusive… [a]nd whoever is creating the technology is setting the standards” Nelson: “… I struggle to understand why we want to make black communities more cognizant in facial recognition systems that are disproportionately used for surveillance.” academic activism O’Neil: why is there a lack of academic efforts to inform policymakers and regulators? PERVADE: Academics have been doing this work for a while but it is underfunded, marginalized, and at odds with a US political apparatus generally favorable towards Silicon Valley. Ethics manifestos or value statements mask these tensions behind a business ethics lens.