Behavioral AI Research Lab

About

The human is not the conduit between the tool and the result. The human is the phenomenon.

Most AI research measures what AI does to the task — output quality, error rates, speed. Behavioral AI asks what is happening to the person on the other side of that output: their thinking, their confidence, their engagement, their relationships, their sense of who they are and what they are capable of. This is not only a story of hidden costs. AI also amplifies human capability — freeing cognitive resources, providing safe spaces for emotional rehearsal, expanding moral perspective-taking. The question is not whether AI helps or harms. It does both, often simultaneously. The question is how we design the relationship so that we strengthen what matters most.

BAI is its own field of inquiry, drawing from organizational psychology, information systems, and behavioral science. The Behavioral AI Lab sits within USF's Muma College of Business with an affiliate connection to the Bellini College of AI, Cybersecurity and Computing. Founded and directed by Triparna de Vreede.

Find the place where AI appears to be helping and ask what it is quietly costing. Find the place where AI appears to be costing and ask what it is quietly building. Find the invisible consequence — on both sides.

The BAI Research Lens