Project description
Trustworthy, privacy-secure and user-centric AI-powered search engine
The recent advancements of large language models (LLMs) and AI solutions has led to the increased use of AI-powered search engines (AIPSEs) such as Perplexity. AIPSEs could significantly advance the European Green Deal by synthesising key information from multiple sources. However, current AIPSEs pose serious risks, including privacy concerns and biased responses, making them unsuitable for these important tasks. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the AURORA project will design a trustworthy, user-centric, and privacy-preserving prototype that complies with the GDPR and the EU AI Act. To achieve this, it will conduct key studies and design models and privacy schemes to block misinformation and protect user privacy.
Objective
The European Green Deal aims to build a resource-efficient, competitive EU economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, clean energy and sustainable industries. Achieving this requires quick and reliable access to information on climate change, energy production, and technological developments. AI-powered search engines (AIPSEs) like Perplexity, can automatically retrieve information from multiple sources and deliver synthesized answers to users—saving them time browsing various websites.
However, AIPSEs are still in their infancy and face critical security challenges, including generating biased or malicious responses, privacy leaks, and limited research in this area. For instance, Google’s AI Overviews generated dangerous responses like suggesting user eat rocks and glue (2024), and attackers can trick AIPSE into citing malicious content from phishing websites. Some AIPSEs track user histories for personalization, raising privacy risks; notably, a ChatGPT glitch exposed users' private conversations (2023).
AURORA (Advanced User-centric, tRustwOrthy and pRivacy-preserving AI-powered search engine) is my proposal to mitigate these challenges, which aims to develop a user-centric AIPSE that provides trustworthy responses while protecting user privacy, and adhering to GDPR and EU AI Act. AURORA includes: 1). a user study on how users perceive malicious responses generated by existing AIPSEs, to guide user-centric design (WP1); 2). a multi-agent debate model with ML-based filters to automatically block fabricated and malicious content (WP2), which is expected to block around 90% of malicious sources, and to reduce hallucinations by about 10%; 3). a local differential privacy scheme to protect user data (WP3). By preventing the spread of misinformation, blocking malicious responses, and protecting privacy, AURORA enables policymakers, researchers, and citizens to make informed decisions about energy, environmental policies, and sustainable practices.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
- social sciences economics and business economics sustainable economy
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
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