Research, Social Engagement & Training

CITP HIGHLIGHTS

• CITP hosted journalists and researchers on May 4 for Confused by All the Chatter? Journalists, Researchers & Policymakers Talk Chatbots and Other Large Language Models. Computer science professor Arvind Narayanan, a CITP associated faculty member; investigative journalist Julia Angwin and tech policy expert Sorelle Frieldler, discussed the challenges, dangers and confusion around large language models like ChatGPT, including the absence of solid explanatory journalism to help citizens understand the technology. The panel was organized by CITP Emerging Scholar Klaudia Jaźwińska and CITP Digital Witness Lab lead Surya Mattu as part of CITP's Digital Investigators Conference. Watch the full event.
• A geologist, a geographer and an environmental activist were among the panelists discussing the "Right-to-Repair" movement at CITP’s May 16 Tech in Conversation virtual event, Critical Technology Ecologies and the Future of Repair. The panelists advocated for consumers to be able to fix broken electronics, like cell phones, laptops and household electronics, instead of buying new items when the old ones break; despite resistance from some manufacturers. The panel was moderated by CITP Emerging Scholar Kenia Hale. Watch the full talk.
• Eighteen Princeton University undergraduates earned certificates as part of the Program in Technology and Society, Information Technology track, offered jointly by CITP and the Keller Center. The students’ projects ranged from studying community mesh networks as a local solution to the digital divide, to probing the impact of Airbnb on San Francisco’s housing market. CITP associated faculty member Aleksandra (Sasha) Kololova directs the program. Read more about each project.

RESEARCH & POLICY NEWS

• Estimating Incidental Collection in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance: Large-Scale Multiparty Private Set Intersection with Union and Sum, a  research by paper by CITP graduate student Anunay Kulshrestha, was cited in an April 27 Committee Judiciary hearing on Fixing FISA: How a Law Designed to Protect Americans Has Been Weaponized Against Them.
• Former CITP Fellow Orestis Papakyriakopoulos has coauthored Augmented Datasheets for Speech Datasets and Ethical Decision-Making, a research paper that introduces augmented datasets as a way of increasing diversity in the data used for speech language training, including giving consideration to dialect and speech impairment, and demographic and socioeconomic factors.
• CITP graduate student Sayash Kapoor was a panelist at Co-opting AI: Language, an April 27 virtual talk at New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge. You may watch the discussion on YouTube.
• Kapoor also led a virtual talk on How to spot AI hype for the May 3 Critical Voices on AI event at the University of London, Birkbeck.
• Emerging Scholar Christelle Tessono appeared on the April 17 panel AIDA or BETA? Discussing Canada's New Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and Beyond where she discussed challenges around AI regulation, as outlined in her paper, AI Oversight, Accountability and Protecting Human Rights.
• The importance of algorithm skills for informed Internet use, a paper coauthored by former CITP Fellow Eszter Hargittai, was published in Big Data & Society. The paper draws on interviews with 83 adults in five countries to look at whether people are aware that their personal data are collected when they search for products and services online, whether they understand that such data are used for customization, and whether they engage in any actions to sidestep such potential customization.
• CITP fellow Jordan Brensinger presented Who are You Calling ‘Normal’?: The Uses and Limits of Intuition in Identity Theft Investigations at Keystone Konnection, a regional conference of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators. His talk explored the limits of investigators’ intuition in probing fraud and what they can do about those limitations.

BOOKS AND BYLINES

• Professor of Computer Science Andrew Appel, a CITP associated faculty member, has written a 4-part series about the handling of mail-in ballots in local elections for CITP’s Freedom to Tinker research blog:
  • Part 1: Sort the mail-in ballot envelopes, or don’t?
  • Part 2: Best practices for sorting mail-in ballots
  • Part 3: Expensive and ineffective recounts in Los Angeles County
  • Part 4: Willful disregard of voter intent in Los Angeles
• Professor Appel also wrote the May 12 post Unsealing the Halderman report would be Responsible Vulnerability Disclosure.

MEDIA MENTIONS

• CITP founder Ed Felten’s paper Occupational Heterogeneity in Exposure to Generative AI was the topic of a Washington Post Opinion piece, Type in your job to see how much AI will affect it. 
• Felten’s paper was also cited in AI won’t kill our jobs, it will just change them, an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review.
• CITP Data Scientist Amy Winecoff discussed her research on barriers and opportunities for ethical entrepreneurship and technology development in artificial intelligence and Web3 organizations in Community and Culture in Computing episode of the Upload podcast.
• Computer science professor Arvind Narayanan, a member of the CITP faculty, was quoted in the following:
  • ChatGPT’s Secret Weapon Is Artificial Emotional Intelligence, the Washington Post 
  • ChatGPT has excellent ‘Emotional Intelligence,’ often prefers emotions over facts finds researcher, Firstpost.com
  • AI-generated deepfakes are moving fast. Policymakers can't keep up, NPR
• Decoding China’s Ambitious Generative AI Regulations, a post in CITP’s Freedom to Tinker blog authored by Justin Curl and Sihao Huang was cited in Can China keep generative AI under its control? Well, it contained the internet, in The Guardian.
• CITP graduate student Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan, a CITP associated faculty member, were quoted in Generative AI: regulation is important for its progress, Raconteur.
• Account Verification on Social Media: User Perceptions and Paid Enrollment, a study coauthored by CITP researchers Madelyne Xiao, Mona Wang, Anunay Kulshrestha and Jonathan Mayer that raises questions about Twitter’s blue check mark, was cited in These Guys Have Found A Way to Bring Back Legacy Verified Twitter, The Deep Dive.
• African American Studies Professor Ruha Benjamin, a CITP associated faculty member, was featured in the following:
  • ‘Everyone is a creator’: A Q&A on viral culture with Ruha Benjamin, Technical.ly
  • Common reading tackles technology’s troubles with bias—and how humans can help address them, The Daily, Case Western Reserve University

KUDOS

The Markup reported this month that Blacklight, an online tool developed by CITP Digital Witness Lab Lead Surya Mattu, reached an impressive milestone: the tool that shows people, in real time, how they were being tracked online has successfully conducted 10 million scans. Blacklight builds on the Princeton Web Transparency & Accountability Project project currently led by computer science professor Arvind Narayanan, a CITP associated faculty member. Read more in 10 Million Blacklight Scans Later, Here’s What You Found.

CALENDAR ITEMS

• Friday, May 26: Computer science professor Arvind Narayanan, a CITP associated faculty member, will participate in Generative AI: The Good, The Bad and the Precarious Edges, a panel at the Reunions 2023 Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference & Startup Competition,10:30-11:20 a.m., Friend Center for Engineering Education.
• Wednesday, June 7: Former CITP Fellow Eszter Hargittai will be keynoteing the 17th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media in Cyprus. She will discuss Digital Inequality During COVID-19 Lockdowns, drawing from her book, Connected in Isolation: Digital Privilege in Unsettled Times.

CAREER MOVES