Trinity College Dublin’s Artificial Intelligence Accountability Lab (AIAL) is founded and led by Dr Abeba Birhane. The AIAL studies AI technologies and their downstream societal impact with the aim of fostering a greater ecology of AI accountability.
Our mission
The AIAL is dedicated to ensuring that the wider AI ecology — from research and product development, to regulation — centres public interest, particularly, the most marginalised and disenfranchised in society.
Research excellence and technical rigour are paramount to us. As is research with practical implications that serve the disproportionately negatively impacted. Thus, we partner and collaborate with research centres, civil society, and rights groups across the globe. These collaborations, active conversations, and allyship will give our work the necessary weight and inertia to advance the laboratory’s central mission of asserting rights.
Driven by concerns that affect the most marginalised, we strive to uncover, document, and study AI technologies that pervade society in order to:
- Challenge and dismantle harmful technologies;
- Inform evidence-driven policies;
- Hold responsible bodies accountable; and
- Pave the way for a future marked by just and equitable AI.
Our Work
At the AIAL, we have a comprehensive view of AI accountability. Some of the most stagnant issues we currently encounter are rooted in extractive technological ecologies and oppressive capitalist structures.
Our inquiries into AI accountability, therefore, span from studies of large systems, structures, and ecologies (such as the AI field itself and regulatory processes) to executions of audits and evaluations on specific AI models, tools, and training datasets. Read more…
Recent Publications See complete list of publications
-
Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology
Pratyusha Ria Kalluri, William Agnew, Myra Cheng, Kentrell Owens, Luca Soldaini, Abeba Birhane
Nature, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08972-6 (open-access)
Associated Media:
- News and Views: Computer-vision research is hiding its role in creating ‘Big Brother’ technologies
- Video: Is AI powering Big Brother? Surveillance research is on the rise
- News: Wake up call for AI: computer-vision research increasingly used for surveillance
- Editorial: Don’t sleepwalk from computer-vision research into surveillance
News & Events
Read and catch up on all the activities and events regarding the AIAL as well as from our collaborators and partners…
- AIAL awarded EAISF grant to Advance Justice-Oriented AI Auditing (AIAL has been awarded the grant under the European AI & Society Fund as part of its AI Accountability Grants programme to supports AIAL’s mission to develop a justice-oriented audit framework that integrates computational methods, theories of justice, and existing regulations to enhance accountability in AI systems.)
- AI Accountability Lab launch event (Launch of the AIAL in Trinity College Dublin)
Blog
Recent Posts
- AI for Good [Appearance?] (2025-07-10)
- Bending the arc of AI towards the public interest (2025-02-18)