Kush Varshney: “Individual and Collective Human Agency in the Face of ‘AI’”

4/2/2026 As part of the Soc(AI)ety Seminar Series, the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society invited Kush Varshney, an IBM Fellow based at the T. J. Watson Research Center. Varshney explored technical and governance approaches that can preserve human autonomy, including transparency tools, scoped alignment methods, and collaborative task structures. He also introduced AI platform cooperatives as a counterweight to tech‑company dominance, fostering community ownership, shared governance, and technological self-determination. The Soc(AI)ety Seminars, hosted by the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, are a collection of talks with a vision for AI's present and future impact on society and inspire a dialogue on ethical and socially responsible data & AI innovation. To learn more about the Lucy Family Institute, please visit: lucyinstitute.nd.edu