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IDeaS Center Spring 2025 Seminar Series

Upcoming Seminars:

Tuesday February 25th, 4:30pm US Eastern -  virtual on Zoom  

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AI and Social Media Manipulation: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Disinformation can be very harmful. AI provides us with tools to mitigate these harms, such as methods to detect inauthentic accounts and coordinated information operations. Large language models (LLMs) can also help rate the reliability of information sources and aid in fact-checking tasks. However, attempts to scale up these AI-supported interventions must account for unintended consequences when people interact with AI. In some cases, fact-checking information generated by an LLM can actually decrease news discernment. In the hands of bad actors, AI can become a dangerous weapon. Aside from much-discussed deepfakes, generative AI can be used to easily and cheaply create fake but credible profiles and content at scale. These capabilities enable the infiltration and manipulation of vulnerable online communities. Given the near-impossibility of detecting AI-generated content, research is needed to develop new ways of challenging the provenance of content before wide exposure through distribution channels like social media and search engines.

Bio: Filippo Menczer is a university distinguished professor, the Luddy professor of informatics and computer science, and the Director of the Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has courtesy appointments in cognitive science and physics. Dr. Menczer is a Fellow of the ACM, a Fellow of the Center for Computer-Mediated Communication, a Senior Research Fellow of The Kinsey Institute, and a member of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research (CNetS). He has been the recipient of Fulbright, Rotary Foundation, and NATO fellowships, a Career Award from the National Science Foundation, and the ICWSM Test of Time Award from AAAI. His research interests span Web and data science, computational social science, science of science, and modeling of complex information networks. In the last fifteen years, his lab has led efforts to study online misinformation spread and to develop tools to detect and counter social media manipulation. This work has been covered in many US and international news sources, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, PBS, CNN, BBC, Economist, Guardian, Atlantic, Reuters, Science, and Nature. Menczer received multiple service awards and currently serves as associate editor of the Network Science journal and on the editorial boards of EPJ Data Science, PeerJ Computer Science, and HKS Misinformation Review.

**Attendees must register in advance and after registering will receive a confirmation email containing zoom line information about joining the seminar. You do not need a zoom account to attend or register.

UPCOMING SEMINARS:

April 15 - Alessandro Acquisti, Trustees Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at Ò»±¾µÀÎÞÂë's Heinz College

The IDeaS Seminar series are held during Spring and Fall semesters. Most seminars are live streamed and available on our page after the event. 

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If you have questions about upcoming seminars, please use the contact us link below.

**Unless noted all seminars will be held virtually via Zoom. Additional talk details and registration links will be posted online prior to seminar dates. Email centerforideas@andrew.cmu.edu to be added to the mailing list.