SRI Seminar Series: Saffron Huang

Our weekly SRI Seminar Series welcomes Saffron Huang, a technologist, researcher, and writer whose work bridges artificial intelligence, democratic governance, and the societal structures that shape how technologies evolve. A research scientist on the Societal Impacts team at Anthropic and co-founder of the Collective Intelligence Project, Huang examines how AI systems influence human behaviour, how institutional choices direct technological development, and what it takes to build systems that genuinely reflect collective values.

Moderator: Anna Su, Faculty of Law

Talk title and abstract to be announced.

About the speaker

Saffron Huang is a technologist, researcher, and writer whose work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, democratic governance, and societal well-being. She is a research scientist on the Societal Impacts team at Anthropic, where he examines how AI systems behave, how they can be made more transparent, and how their development can better reflect collective values. As the co-founder of the Collective Intelligence Project, she has helped pioneer efforts to make technology and AI development more democratic, exploring new institutional models that broaden public participation in key governance decisions.

Her writing and research focus on understanding technology as a set of contingent choices—often shaped by undemocratic processes—that exert profound influence on society. Through this work, she investigates how to design AI systems and institutions that augment human capabilities, empower communities, and support healthier shared futures. Across her roles, she is driven by a central question: how can we steer AI to help us live together better and bring out the best in humanity?

About the SRI Seminar Series

The SRI Seminar Series brings together the Schwartz Reisman community and beyond for a robust exchange of ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars are led by a leading or emerging scholar and feature extensive discussion.

About the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society is a research institute at the University of Toronto that explores the ethical and societal implications of technology. Our mission is to deepen knowledge of technologies, societies, and humanity by integrating research across traditional boundaries to build human-centred solutions.

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