Artificial Intelligence: New Frontiers, Old Problems

Internet and digital technologies have greatly influenced public and personal life in the past few decades; now, artificial intelligence seems to be gearing up to be the next scientific and technological dynamic transformation that will challenge society. In this lecture by Prof Zeynep Tufekci (Princeton University) will reflect upon lessons from the internet, digital technology and mobile revolution and consider how they may apply to artificial intelligence, and also examine the new twists and challenges brought about by the latest technologies like Large Language Models such as ChatGPT and developments in machine learning.

This AISSR Lecture will be followed by an aftertalk between Zeynep Tufekci and AlgoSoc member Thomas Poell, Professor of Data, Culture & Institutions at the University of Amsterdam.

Beyond Superintelligence: Short to Mid-Term AI Concerns

While many commentators are focused on potential existential risk from “superintelligence” or the potential for these technologies to help solve human problems such as in medical sciences, the short to mid-term issues are more likely to stem from the application of these tools at scale to mundane and existing problems in decision-making primarily because of low cost and availability. In other words, the big impact will not because machines can now do facial recognition better than humans, but that they can do it well enough, cheaply and at scale of billions.

Such technologies are going to be deployed at the hands of the powerful, and can also influence the fabric of society in profound ways. Managing this transition requires a viewpoint that prioritizes the public interest at the intersection of the sociological and technological.

About

Prof. Zeynep Tufekci is a professor at Princeton University, where she is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs. She is also a columnist for the New York Times. Her work focuses on social media, media ethics, the social implications of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and big data, as well as societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic using complex and systems-based thinking. 

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, she is one of the most prominent academic voices on social media and the new public sphere. In 2022, Tufekci was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her “insightful, often prescient, columns on the pandemic and American culture”, which the committee said “brought clarity to the shifting official guidance and compelled us towards greater compassion and informed response.”

Before becoming a regular columnist, she was a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Atlantic. She has also written columns for Wired and Scientific American. Prior to Princeton, she was a professor at Columbia University's Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and an associate professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina and Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Prof. Tufekci will visit the UvA and provide her lecture "Artificial Intelligence: New Frontiers, Old Problems" on the occasion of the award of an honorary doctorate, which is granted to her during the University of Amsterdam's Dies Natalis celebration on 11 January, 2024.