Background
The AI Safety Interest Group (AIS) was established at the 2025 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of New Zealand (HFESNZ) conference in response to the growing recognition that advanced AI systems are among the most societally consequential systems ever created. Moreover, getting the development and deployment of these systems right, making them safe, beneficial, useful, and well governed, is by its very definition a human factors priority.
Purpose
The purpose of AIS is to position human factors as central to AI safety in New Zealand. The group aims to develop shared knowledge, capability, and collaboration to ensure AI systems are designed and deployed in ways that are safe and that positively serve human intent and purpose.
Objectives
The objectives of AIS are to develop capability in human factors approaches to AI safety and to support members in understanding where and how their expertise can contribute. This includes creation and dissemination of knowledge about the human factors of AI systems, as well as promoting discussion about what AI systems should do, how they should function, and how they should be tested and improved.
AIS also seeks to build and deepen relationships across sectors so that HFESNZ members can effectively contribute to AI-related projects, policy discussions, organisational decision-making, and help steer local, regional, and national AI priorities. In doing so, the group aims to advocate for human factors as the principal discipline for ensuring that AI augments rather than diminishes human values.
Contact
AIS is open to all HFESNZ members interested in human factors and AI safety. Members from a wide range of disciplines, backgrounds, and levels of expertise are encouraged to join.
For more information or to join, please contact society admin at admin@hfesnz.org.nz