This research investigates how AI-generated dating profiles influence romantic attraction. An experimental study found that people were less willing to date someone they believed had used AI than someone who received similar help from a friend, suggesting AI-assisted dating may undermine authenticity and reduce social appeal despite its growing popularity.

This thesis examines who turns to AI for mental health support, rather than whether AI can be a therapist. Drawing on TherapyGPT forum analysis and ongoing experiments, the research identifies fear of judgment, trust in AI and past therapist failures as possible drivers of AI therapy use.

This PhD defense presents research at the intersection of machine learning, reinforcement learning, social learning, affective computing, and human-AI interaction. The thesis is that social learning is a powerful mechanism for intelligence and explores how AI agents can learn from one another and from humans. Projects include intrinsic social influence rewards for multi-agent coordination, communication protocols emerging through influence, conversational agents trained from implicit human feedback such as sentiment, generative models improved through facial-expression feedback, and personalized well-being prediction from behavioral and physiological data. The thesis concludes that socially informed learning can improve coordination, adaptability, and human alignment.

This research investigates how reliance on AI systems affects human cognition and reasoning. Using concepts from cognitive offloading, the study compares AI-assisted and independent problem solving, measuring verification behavior, reasoning depth, and decision confidence. The work explores whether increasingly capable AI tools may unintentionally reduce critical thinking and human expertise.

This research explores how generative AI can create personalized reading materials based on autistic children’s special interests. Using AI-generated stories tailored to individual passions, the study examines effects on engagement and story retelling, suggesting that personalized, strength-based educational tools may improve reading experiences and accessibility for neurodivergent learners.