Michaela Benk

Research Interests

Increasingly capable artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies are transforming the way humans work and collaborate in a multitude of society-impacting applications. However, their widespread implementation and acceptance faces resistance across domains. Such resistance is often attributed to the opaque nature of AI technologies and a lack of trust in AI, particularly in high-stake settings, where errors may have devastating consequences
In this context, my research investigates if and how explainable AI can serve as a remedy to these challenges. Specifically, I strive to develop a comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms of trust in AI, as well as identify practical implications that can inform the design of explainable AI methods. To do so, I draw on interdisciplinary methods of and prior research in the fields of Psychology, Cognitive Science, Natural Language Processing, and Computer Science.

I am a PhD candidate and researcher at the Mobiliar Lab for Analytics at ETH.

Supervising Master's theses related to: explainable AI, trust in human-computer interactions, human-centered empirical approaches in AI, transparency in trustworthy AI ecosystems, ethical concerns of AI use and general marketing topics.