Dr Simon Powers

I am a lecturer in trustworthy computer systems at the University of Stirling. I have previously held positions as a lecturer in computer science at Edinburgh Napier University, and as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne and the University of Bath. I obtained my PhD in 2010 from the University of Southampton.

I am an associate editor for IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, and Adaptive Behavior.

I am an interdisciplinary researcher working at the interface of computer science and the social and behavioural sciences (economics, evolutionary biology and psychology). My research has two main themes. The first is understanding human social behaviours such as cooperation and trust, using computational techniques including agent-based modelling and game theory. My work has explored how humans managed to grow cooperation and trust from small hunter-gatherer groups, where everyone knew each other around the campfire, to modern societies with millions of people where we sometimes trust strangers we will never meet again. The second theme of my research aims to take this understanding and apply it to examine the factors affecting trust between people and artificial intelligence (AI). How similar is trust between people and an AI system to trust between people and a company, for example? What types of regulations are likely to ensure that developers are incentivised to build trustworthy AI, and people in turn place warranted trust in these systems? I aim to answer these questions using computational modelling and behavioural experiments.