Christian Sandvig is the Director of the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC) and Collegiate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan. His research investigates the consequences of AI, recently focusing on how to detect unlawful or harmful AI behavior.
He was the named plaintiff in Sandvig v. Barr, a lawsuit that changed the definition of hacking in the US. His books include Auditing AI (MIT Press, 2026), Auditing Algorithms (Now Publishers, 2021), and Digital Research Confidential (MIT Press, 2015). Sandvig's research has been featured by outlets including The Economist, The New York Times, Le Monde, NPR, the BBC, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, while his own writing has appeared in The Guardian and Wired.
Sandvig received the NSF CAREER award, was named a "next-generation leader in science and technology policy" by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, named a "must-follow" in science by Wired, and recognized as a researcher making sure AI is a force for good by Time. He has held visiting appointments at McGill, the Institute for Advanced Study, Intel, and Microsoft; formerly held positions at Oxford University and the University of Illinois; and worked as a software engineer at a San Francisco Bay Area startup.