{"691844":{"#nid":"691844","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Faculty Member Examines How AI Shapes Our Most Personal Relationships","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFrom workplace interactions to romantic relationships, artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly part of many personal aspects of people\u0027s lives.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Georgia Tech Assistant Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EVeronica Rivera\u003C\/strong\u003E, the growing role of AI in daily life raises important questions about what happens when technology designed to help people puts their privacy and safety at risk.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERivera studied AI at the University of California, Santa Cruz, but her research has increasingly focused on how people interact with technology and the risks that can emerge from these interactions. Her work examines technology-facilitated risks and abuse. She uses research and innovative design approaches to understand digital safety risks and develop tools that better protect people.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne area she is exploring through her recent \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/news.research.gatech.edu\/2026\/07\/27\/incoming-scp-faculty-member-selected-cra-trustworthy-ai-research-fellowship\u0022\u003EComputing Research Association Trustworthy AI Research Fellowship for Early Career Scholars\u003C\/a\u003E is the design of safe AI tools for labor unions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cUnions are developing AI tools to sort through complaints,\u201d she said. \u201cMany of these are built with proprietary AI models, which leads us to ask what the risks are of sharing personal information through these tools.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERivera wants to give unions more control over how workers\u2019 data is collected and used. One way she plans to explore this is through a workshop at the upcoming ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, where union leaders and technical experts collaborate to develop a secure reporting tool.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis research will build on Rivera\u2019s recent work focusing on platform-based gig workers. A \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/vrivera2017.github.io\/docs\/SOUPS26_DWN.pdf\u0022\u003Epaper\u003C\/a\u003E she published this year at the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security examined how freelance workers often use secretive \u0022digital whisper networks,\u0022 informal online communities where people warn one another about workplace abuse.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERivera and her team found that these workers often avoided formal reporting channels when they experienced wage theft, discrimination, health and safety violations, or sexual misconduct. The study highlighted the need for secure channels that allow workers to report abuse and organize without further endangering themselves.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere needs to be a way to report this abuse,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cBut how you do that in a safe and secure way is something we don\u2019t yet have answers for.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERivera is also expanding her research beyond the workplace to examine technology-based threats and abuse in romantic relationships. As a new assistant professor at Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E, she plans to study how AI can blur the line between technology and intimacy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EConsider a person who creates an AI chatbot that imitates someone they know, turning that person\u2019s likeness, personality, or private information into a virtual romantic partner without their consent. If that happens, Rivera asks, what protections does the person have? How can the chatbot be reported and removed?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EExisting policies and reporting systems may not adequately address situations like these. In fact, they can pose new challenges for people whose identities or personal information are used without their permission.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnother project Rivera would like to explore is how platforms handle abuse involving romantic chatbots. Rivera has reviewed Reddit discussions in which users expressed concerns about reporting abusive behavior and about what happens to the intimate information they share with their chatbots.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere is a lot of confusion on what these platforms know about their users\u2019 intimate details based on their chats,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is also a lot that isn\u2019t known on the back-end of abuse reporting.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERivera has identified a need to design safer reporting features so people feel comfortable reporting abuse while also knowing their personal information will remain private.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe plans to cover these topics and more this fall in her new course that explores sociotechnical security. Rivera says working within SCP\u2019s interdisciplinary structure gives her the opportunity to explore these research problems from multiple angles.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt is hard to find a place for the work I do in security and privacy,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cOur goal is to protect users from bad things, and SCP approaches it from several different angles.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Rivera, this means studying not only how technology can be secured, but how it can be designed to protect the people who rely on it.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFrom workplace interactions to romantic relationships, artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly part of many personal aspects of people\u0027s lives.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Veronica Rivera, the growing role of AI in daily life raises important questions about what happens when technology designed to help people puts their privacy and safety at risk.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"For Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Veronica Rivera, the growing role of AI in daily life raises important questions about what happens when technology designed to help people puts their privacy and safety at risk."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-08-20 19:45:06","changed_gmt":"2026-08-20 19:48:55","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-08-20T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-08-20T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680947":{"id":"680947","type":"image","title":"Veronica-Rivera.jpg","body":null,"created":"1787255228","gmt_created":"2026-08-20 19:47:08","changed":"1787255228","gmt_changed":"2026-08-20 19:47:08","alt":"A smiling woman standing in front of a wall. The wall has a unique pattern and wood frames.","file":{"fid":"265283","name":"Veronica-Rivera.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/08\/20\/Veronica-Rivera.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/08\/20\/Veronica-Rivera.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":781560,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/08\/20\/Veronica-Rivera.jpg?itok=3OcFcxlq"}}},"media_ids":["680947"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"660406","name":"School of Cybersecurity \u0026 Privacy"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}