PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Qiwei Li

Also known as Li Qiwei

Qiwei Li is a human-computer interaction researcher who develops and evaluates software systems against online sexual violence, with a focus on AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery. A PhD candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information, they created the Hands-Off gesture that deters non-consensual screenshots in 2024 and analyzed more than 54,000 DMCA takedown reports in 2025. Their audit study of X, accepted at CSCW 2026, reported AI-generated nude images through copyright claims and through X's nudity policy, and the copyright reports led to removals within 25 hours. They received a 2025 Google PhD Fellowship, and their 2026 ICML position paper on deepfake research earned an Outstanding Position Paper Honorable Mention. Since August 2026, they are a Senior Researcher at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative.

Now at
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and Cornell University
Badges

Timeline

  1. 2021

    A code of conduct study

    At CSCW in 2021, they coauthor "Code of Conduct Conversations in Open Source Software Projects on GitHub" with Pavitthra Pandurangan, Hana Frluckaj and Laura Dabbish. The study describes the conversations around adopting and crafting a code of conduct and around using one for community governance.

  2. 2024

    Sociotechnical stack and Hands-Off

    Two papers coauthored with Eric Gilbert and Sarita Schoenebeck are accepted in 2024. "The Sociotechnical Stack" at CSCW introduces a framework that maps the technical stack to its social impacts for non-consensual intimate media, which includes sexually explicit deepfakes. "Feminist Interaction Techniques" at UIST presents Hands-Off, a messaging-app gesture that unlocks media with a hand movement above the device and cuts non-consensual screenshots by 67 percent in a lab study.

  3. 2025

    Measuring DMCA takedowns

    The CHI 2025 paper "A Law of One's Own: The Inefficacy of the DMCA for Non-Consensual Intimate Media" analyzes more than 54,000 DMCA reports and over 85 million infringing URLs spanning over a decade. For non-commercial requests, the median infringing URL takes more than 45 days to be removed from website hosts, and only 5.39% of URLs are removed within the first 48 hours.

  4. 2025

    Bidirectional human-AI alignment

    They are among the authors of "Position: Towards Bidirectional Human-AI Alignment," a NeurIPS 2025 position paper. A systematic review of over 400 papers across HCI, NLP and ML underlies its Bidirectional Human-AI Alignment framework, which covers aligning AI with human values and aligning humans with AI.

  5. 2025

    A Google PhD Fellowship

    They spend summer 2025 as a PhD research intern on the FATE team at Microsoft Research Montréal, working with Alexandra Olteanu and Vera Liao. In 2025, they also receive a Google PhD Fellowship in Human–Computer Interaction.

  6. 2026

    An audit of X's takedowns

    Qiwei Li leads an audit study of X, accepted at CSCW 2026, that uploads 50 AI-generated nude images and reports half through the platform's non-consensual nudity mechanism and half as DMCA copyright claims. The 25 images reported as copyright claims are removed within 25 hours. None of the images reported through X's internal non-consensual nudity system is removed during the three-week study period.

  7. July 2026

    Honorable mention at ICML

    Their ICML 2026 position paper "AI/ML Deepfake Research is Misaligned with AI Generated Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery (AIG-NCII)" is written with Wells Lucas Santo, Sarita Schoenebeck and Eric Gilbert. A landscape analysis of highly cited works finds that technical deepfake interventions almost entirely ignore AIG-NCII and limit the research ecosystem to authenticity detection tools. The paper is presented as an oral in July 2026 and receives an Outstanding Position Paper Honorable Mention.

  8. Since August 2026

    Senior Researcher at CCRI

    They join the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative as a Senior Researcher in August 2026, continuing work that develops and evaluates software systems to combat online sexual violence. A final-year PhD candidate at the University of Michigan's School of Information, advised by Eric Gilbert and Sarita Schoenebeck, they also visit Cornell Tech in New York City for the semester. In October 2026, their paper "BodyBench: Evaluating Image Defenses Against AI Nudification" is accepted to NeurIPS 2026.

Career

  1. Since 2026Cyber Civil Rights InitiativeSenior Researcher
  2. Since 2026Cornell University
  3. 2025Microsoft ResearchPhD Research Intern

Education

  1. University of MichiganPhD

From the biography.

  1. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Cornell University. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Cornell University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Cornell University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Cornell University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Qiwei Li yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Li, Qiwei gauchewy.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. [2405.03585] The Sociotechnical Stack: Opportunities for Social Computing Research in Non-consensual Intimate Media arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. [2404.18867] Feminist Interaction Techniques: Deterring Non-Consensual Screenshots with Interaction Techniques arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. [2409.13575] A Law of One's Own: The Inefficacy of the DMCA for Non-Consensual Intimate Media arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. [2406.09264] Position: Towards Bidirectional Human-AI Alignment arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Google PhD Fellowship recipients research.google. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Legal Push Crucial to Erase Non-consensual Nudity | Mirage News miragenews.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. ICML 2026 Awards icml.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. ICML Oral Position: AI/ML Deepfake Research is Misaligned with AI Generated Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery (AIG-NCII) icml.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Position: AI/ML Deepfake Research is Misaligned with AI Generated Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery (AIG-NCII) proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 22 October 2026.