Dr. Juan F. Medina Lee, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez campus (RUM), received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, which goes to early-career faculty with the potential to lead significant advances in research and education. The $517,000 grant will fund over five years his project, "A Computational Framework for Integrating Trust, Shared Awareness, and Joint Action in Human-AI Driving Teams."
The research develops collaboration strategies between people and artificial intelligence in highly automated vehicles, treating both as members of one team that share information, coordinate decisions and support each other to strengthen driving safety, rather than viewing AI as a tool that simply follows instructions or one that is trusted absolutely. Medina Lee said the aim is to build autonomous vehicles that interact with occupants, make decisions jointly and assess human-machine trust, including the risks of too little trust or overreliance.
The team will develop computational models estimating the trust people place in AI and the trust AI systems can assign to human collaborators. The funds will pay for summer workshops for high school and university students, robotics competitions and support for master’s and doctoral students. Interim RUM Chancellor Dr. Miguel A. Muñoz called Medina Lee a representative of the campus’s young generation of scientists.