ASSISTANT PROFESSOR--Social and Political Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, AI Ethics Youjin Kong is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Georgia. Located at the nexus of Social-Political Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI), her research aims to analyze and challenge social injustice through philosophical frameworks. This research manifests in two key areas: Bias and Fairness in AI: Dr. Kong analyzes how AI can reproduce and exacerbate gender and racial injustice, and develops philosophical frameworks for improving justice in socio-technical systems. Her work in this area examines the dominant interpretations of fairness and intersectionality in the AI fairness literature (ACM FAccT 2022), and proposes a paradigm shift towards a more robust notion of AI fairness, which she calls "strong" fairness (APA Blog 2022). Social Identity and Power: Dr. Kong examines the nature and meaning of social identity (such as race, ethnicity, and gender), particularly how it is shaped by and shapes societal power dynamics. Her article in ERGO (2023) addresses the relationship between social identity and power by engaging in a case study of Asian American experiences during COVID-19. Currently, She is working on building a non-idealizing, decolonial ontology of social identity that could serve as a bridge between AI fairness research and women of color feminism. She has won a Best Paper Prize from the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. To learn more about Dr. Kong’s work, please visit her website: www.youjinkong.com. Education Education: Ph.D., Philosophy, Michigan State University M.A., Philosophy, Seoul National University B.A., Philosophy, Seoul National University Research Research Interests: Social and Political Philosophy Feminist Philosophy AI Ethics Selected Publications Selected Publications: “Social Identity at the Margins: A Decolonial Approach.” Routledge Handbook of Non-Ideal Theory (forthcoming in 2024) “Recreating Asian Identity: Yellow Peril, Model Minority, and Black and Asian Solidarities.” APA Studies on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies (2023) “Intersectional Feminist Theory as a Non-Ideal Theory: Asian American Women Navigating Identity and Power.” Ergo (2023) “(Un)Fairness in AI: An Intersectional Feminist Analysis.” Blog of the American Philosophical Association, Women in Philosophy Series (2022) “Are ‘Intersectionally Fair’ AI Algorithms Really Fair to Women of Color? A Philosophical Analysis.” FAccT: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (2022) “Evolutionary Psychology, Rape, and the Naturalistic Fallacy.” Journal of the Society of Philosophical Studies (2021) “‘Non-Idealizing Abstraction’ as Ideology: Non-Ideal Theory, Intersectionality, and the Power Dynamics of Oppression.” Social Philosophy Today (2017) “Feminism and Historicist Universalism: A Critical Analysis of Richard Rorty’s Anti- Universalism.” The Pluralist (2017) Awards, Honors and Recognitions Of note: Keynote Panelist, ACM FAccT: Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (2022) Finalist (co-PI), Facebook Research Award for Building Tools to Enhance Transparency in Fairness and Privacy (2021) Outstanding Service Award, Oregon State University (2021) Teaching Excellence Award, Michigan State University (2019) Best Paper Prize, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (2017)
