Updates on our work

Continued from Home Page…

• May 26 - Tech Layoffs Ravage the Teams That Fight Online Misinformation and Hate Speech - Despite the increasing threats of cyberbullying, misinformation, and potential for the abuse of AI, tech giants, including Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, have made extensive layoffs in recent months, especially in departments dedicated to trust and safety and AI ethics. In this CNBC article, Ravi Iyer, Neely Center’s Managing Director, remarks that if platforms are not going to invest in reconsidering design choices that have been proven to be harmful, then there is indeed cause for concern.

• May 23 - 4 Ways AI Safety Efforts Could Learn from Expereince with Social Media - This week we have published an article on how our experiences with social media can inform our efforts to safeguard against any undesirable upshots of generative AI. We also wanted to share a few other press pieces highlighting our work.

• May 18 - How Do We Fix It? AI Revolution: Disaster or Great Leap Forward? - In this podcast, Nathanael Fast, the Director of the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making and the Co-founder of PTI, shared his thoughts on whether AI represents a looming disaster or a great leap forward.

• May 7 - Elon Musk’s Goal for Twitter: ‘Unregretted User-Minutes’ - This recent Wall Street Journal article about Elon Musk’s proposal to optimize for unregretted time spent quoted our substack article on the topic, where we leverage the extensive research on regret for acts of commission vs. omission.

• May 6 - Few Are Addressing One of Social Media’s Greatest Perils - Both PTI member Kiran Garimella’s work on fear speech and algorithmic design ideas from our working paper on the algorithmic management of polarization and violence were featured in this recent New York Times article by Julia Angwin on the fact that the proliferation of fear speech is an under-appreciated online concern.

• May 4 - PeaceCon 2023: Reimagining Technology - We spoke on a panel on “The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Promoting Social Cohesion” leveraging the paper we wrote for the Knight First Amendment Institute.

• April 27-28 - Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society - We presented a paper on The Algorithmic Management of Polarization and Violence on Social Media, to be published by Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute, in collaboration with colleagues from UC Berkeley’s Center for Human Compatible AI and the peacebuilding organization BuildUp. A YouTube recording of the event is available here.

• April 21 - AirTalk Discussion of What We have to Gain or Lose From AI - PTI Co-founder Nathanael Fast discusses how technology has changed our behavior in the past and how we can therefore expect AI to change us as well.

• April 14 - Article 14 Article - Following our presentation on Social Media & Society in India at the University of Michigan, we were asked to comment on the rise of hate influencers in India and were quoted in this article concerning platform responsibility and how algorithmic design can help hate influencers build audiences.

• April 9 - Tech Policy Press Podcast - Following our appearance on Lawfare’s podcast, several podcast hosts (starting around 20:40) discuss our ideas about using design, rather than content moderation, to improve social media’s impact on society.

• April 7-8 - Social Media & Society in India - We presented work on how design can be a way to create a healthier online ecosystem across international contexts, such as in India.

• March 31 - Buzzfeed article on AI Therapy - We commented on the dangers of using AI technologies for mental health therapy for this Buzzfeed article.

• March 30-31 - Social Media Governance Initiative Spring Conference: Beyond Moderation - We organized a panel on “Design and Architecting of Healthy Online Ecosystems” as well as sponsoring part of the event, which was held at Yale Law school in collaboration with The Justice Collaboratory.

• March 27- - Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth Podcast on how to improve technology’s impact on society through design, rather than via content moderation.

• March 24 - Anticipating the Metaverse - This workshop, held at the University of Southern California on Friday, March 24 brought together leading experts in AR and VR to discuss the latest developments in the field of mixed reality as well as discuss the exciting opportunities and ethical challenges these technologies present. The USC Marshall Neely Center for Ethics and the Psychology of Technology Institute partnered to organize a gathering of influential leaders and scholars to share personal insights and develop practices and principles that will be included in a white paper on the opportunities and ethics surrounding mixed reality. 

• February 23-24 - Tech + Social Cohesion Conference - This conference provided a unique space for tech innovators, Trust & Safety staff, and practitioners with community bridge building and global peacebuilding experience to explore a new generation of tech products that offer design affordances and algorithms optimized for social cohesion. Psych of Tech spoke at the conference and sponsored parts of it as well, in collaboration with numerous partner organizations.

• February 8 - A Call for More Research on the Psychology of Technology - Co-Director Nate Fast published an op-ed at Fast Company making the case for our need to study not only AI but also psychology. He wrote, “In the past 20 years, we embraced social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter with open arms. Only now, when it’s too late to turn back the clock, do we comprehend their power to influence our worldviews, spread misinformation and hate speech, and even sway elections.” By advancing our understanding of the psychology of technology we can identify and address harms of new tech sooner, while keeping the benefits.

• Februrary 7 - Dissertation Award deadline - Winners were announced in April.

• January 5 - Wall Street Journal covers Removing Engagement Incentives for Political Content - Managing Director Ravi Iyer is quoted in this article that shows how removing engagement incentives can be a content-neutral way to improve the societal impact of technology, as measured by reduced anger, bullying and misinformation. Also covered in this episode of The Gist podcast.

• December 9-10, 2022 - HumanTech Summit - Co-Director Nate Fast gave a keynote address on “The Psychology of Technology at Work: Anticipating Organizations in the Age of AI” at the HumanTech Summit in Warsaw, Poland.

• November 11-12, 2022 - PTI’s 6th Annual Conference

  The sixth annual “New Directions in Research on the Psychology of Technology” conference was held at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania on November 11-12, 2022, and was co-hosted by the Wharton Human-Centered Technology Initiative, Neely Center for Ethical Leadership, and the Psychology of Technology Institute. Recordings coming soon.

• November 4, 2022 - Online Workshop on Technology, Trust, and Democracy

  How is tech influencing our ability to trust each other and maintain a healthy democracy? To discuss the answer to this critical question, we convened a set of experts to discuss: Jonathan Haidt, Frances Haugen, Shankar Vedantam, Pia Shah, Talia Stroud, and Kamy Akhavan. No recording is available, but you can read some of the highlights and quotes in this Twitter thread.

7th Annual “New Directions in Research” Conference 2023 Schedule