David Danks

David Danks is the William L. Polk Jr. and Carolyn K. Polk Jefferson Scholars Foundation Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, & Data Science.

Danks’s research sits at the intersection of philosophy, cognitive science, and machine learning, drawing on methods and frameworks from each to address complex interdisciplinary challenges. His work spans ethical, psychological and policy questions surrounding artificial intelligence and robotics, with applications in transportation, health care, privacy, and security. He has also made significant contributions to computational cognitive science, and has developed novel causal discovery algorithms for complex observational and experimental data.

Previously, Danks was Professor of Data Science, Philosophy, & Policy at UC San Diego, and the L.L. Thurstone Professor of Philosophy & Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. He has served on numerous national advisory boards, including the National AI Advisory Committee, the Special Competitive Studies Project, the National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, the Partnership to Advance Responsible Technology, the Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence, and the Topos Institute. His honors include a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.

Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
A.B. in Philosophy, Princeton University