Assistant Professor of Instruction Tasfia Mashiat attended the AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES) 2025 Conference in Spain.
Mashiat presented her recent paper "Who Pays the RENT? Implications of Spatial Inequality for Prediction-Based Allocation Policies". The paper focuses on understanding when AI-based individual-level targeting is more effective than neighborhood-level targeting for allocating scarce social-service resources, such as eviction-prevention outreach. It addresses the problem of conflicting prior results by introducing a framework (and the RENT metric) showing that the effectiveness of targeting depends on how spatially concentrated high-risk households are and on the real-world costs of deployment.
What was your experience like at AIES 2025?
The conference was very fun and interactive. I care about ethics and AI, so the work presented made a lot of sense to me, and it was nice to see what the most recent research looks like in this area. Because this is an international conference, it was interesting to see how other countries are taking initiatives in AI.
I also presented on my paper about using AI in rental assistance programs. It examined the benefits of AI systems when allocating limited resources. The paper compared door-to-door outreach with predictive modeling to identify metrics around equal opportunity. Predictive targeting offered more benefits because it identified tenants who needed immediate support. Since risk varies by region, resource allocation must adapt accordingly. Inequality of risk across regions means targeted outreach often works better than non-targeted approaches. The paper essentially questioned how to provide help faster.
Was there a moment at AIES 2025 that stuck out to you the most?
We had a keynote called “Responsible AI and the Urgent Challenge of Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence” by Miriam Fernandez, who is a Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University in the UK. It was fascinating to see how other countries address AI ethics. We not only looked at AI systems from the perspective of biased data, but also the unlawful and unethical uses of AI, such as gender-based violence. This includes not just online harassment and toxicity, but also more personal harms through mobile applications, such as stalking. With advances in AI, there are more innovative ways to exploit data systems to commit gender-based violence. These issues are no longer UK-specific; they are common in my home country as well. She emphasized the potential harms to marginalized groups—specifically women—which I found very thought-provoking.
There was also a paper that discussed biased treatment that emerges when people are not perceived as demonstrating the same abilities. I enjoy how these papers highlight societal problems and propose possible solutions to help people in need.
Another paper focused on integrating AI into school curricula. It raised the question of whether we should incorporate AI into regular lectures or create separate courses dedicated to AI and AI ethics. When we train computer science graduates, they should understand what is ethical and unethical when building AI software or systems. As an instructor, this stood out to me because it considered who the stakeholders are and how these methods and frameworks appear in corporate settings.
I feel that students would be more motivated to learn and understand these topics if they could see real applications, which can be demonstrated through stakeholder involvement.
What advice would you give to someone attending or presenting AIES conference in 2026?
For anyone curious about ethics and how new AI systems can be integrated and evaluated through ethical frameworks, I think this is a great conference. It doesn’t only focus on model preprocessing; it also emphasizes the applications and impacts of AI systems. Often, we focus on whether our data or predictions are biased, but the use of AI itself can also be biased. This conference isn’t just methodological—it brings society into the conversation and examines how different groups interact through technology.
What was your experience like in Spain?
This was my second time in Europe. Spain is architecturally, culturally, and historically rich, so I really enjoyed my time there. The history is so old and vibrant that it felt wonderful to experience it firsthand. We visited the Plaza de Mar in Madrid, and the public transportation was amazing.
What's one thing you'd recommend to anyone traveling to Spain for the first time?
Traveling and trying different foods was a highlight. I loved eating churros with hot chocolate—I highly recommend trying them there.
