Minji Jang

Research

My main research interests are in (1) the ethics and governance of AI, (2) brand authenticity, and (3) moral and social philosophy.

Ethics and governance of AI

AI at work

I explore how organizations should reallocate discretion, judgment, and accountability as AI systems increasingly take on a consequential role in decision pipelines, and what that reallocation does to the human members who remain.

Jang, M. “Humanness in the Loop.” Under review.

  • How can organizations address a dilemma that arises when the human errors that autonomous decision systems are meant to correct structurally overlap with the elements of humanness that we want to preserve? Examining this dilemma in hiring and lending, the paper reframes it as a standing governance challenge.

Jang, M., Lankoski, L., Ronnegard, D., & Smith, N. C. “Conceptualizing Reasonable Care in Human-AI Systems.” Working paper.

  • What does reasonable care require in complex human-AI systems? Using the recent OpenAI litigation as a case study, the paper examines current standards of reasonable care against the distinct challenges of human-AI systems and develops a systems-thinking approach that provides both ex ante action guidance and an ex post evaluation standard.

Jang, M., & Choe, Y. J. “That’s What Claude Said: AI Overreliance as Unwarranted Closure of Inquiry.” In preparation.

  • When does reliance on AI become overreliance, and how should organizations address it? The paper develops an account of AI overreliance as unwarranted closure of inquiry (Friedman, 2019, 2020), not miscalibrated trust or error, and shifts the managerial task from naïve or excessive policing of AI use to governing closure.

Jang, M. “Toward a Discretion-Based Account of AI’s Organizational Status.” In preparation.

  • What organizational status does an AI warrant when it critically shapes organizational decisions, not simply executing human orders? The paper develops a discretion-based account of AI’s status and argues that to protect the human members of organizations, we should, counterintuitively, elevate the status of eligible machines.

Meaning and justice in the age of AI

In two companion papers, we explore the questions of meaning and justice in the age of automation—or what we call the “age of abundant intelligence,” in which intelligence once deemed the hallmark of humanity becomes as cheap and plentiful as grain became with mechanized agriculture.

Jang, M. & Tsetlin, I. “Staying Human: Meaning in Life in the Age of Abundant Intelligence.” In preparation.

  • Will the rapid advancement of AI threaten the human pursuit of meaning? The paper develops a revised version of Wolf’s (2010) hybrid view of meaning that insulates many pursuits from the redundancy threat (a worry that a pursuit loses its meaning once AI can do it better) and reexamines AI’s role in expanding opportunities for meaning.

Jang, M. & Tsetlin, I. “Just Disruption: AI, Self-Respect, and the Difference Principle.” In preparation.

  • Do the principles of justice demand decelerating the distribution of AI capabilities? Examining AIs’ distinctive role in disrupting credential gatekeeping and redistributing what Rawls calls “the social bases of self-respect,” the paper asks what the principles of justice—especially the Difference Principle—demand in the age of AI.

Brand authenticity

We develop a thicker account of brand authenticity that can explain the widely observed yet under-explained tension between authenticity and commercialization.

Jang, M. & Smith, N. C. “The Trouble with Authenticity.” Working paper.

  • The paper grounds “thicker” brand authenticity in integrity and argues that claims to authenticity can only be falsified, never proved. It then provides a diagnostic framework of four tests that brand managers and consumers can use to see whether such claims withstand falsification.

Moral and social philosophy

I also work on normative and applied ethics, with a focus on blame and microaggressions.

Jang, M. “Moral Anger, Blame, and Microaggressions.” Under review.

  • The paper develops a meaning-based account of blame that can accommodate angry reactions to microaggressions.

Jang, M. “Passable Offense: A New Structural Account of Microaggressions.” Working paper.

  • The paper develops a structural account that defines microaggressions in light of their distinct “passability” (the ability to pass as genuinely benign) (Winner of the Minorities and Philosophy Ethicist Prize at the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress)