This article was originally published on the Knight Institute website at Columbia University. The distribution of online speech today is almost wholly algorithm-mediated. To talk about speech, then, we have to talk about algorithms. In computer science, the algorithms driving social media are called recommendation systems, and they are the secret sauce behind Facebook and […]
How the National AI Research Resource can steward the datasets it hosts
April 12, 2022 by
Last week I participated on a panel about the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR), a proposed computing and data resource for academic AI researchers. The NAIRR’s goal is to subsidize the spiraling costs of many types of AI research that have put them out of reach of most academic groups. My comments on the panel […]
Faculty search in information technology policy
November 19, 2021 by
I’m happy to announce that Princeton University is recruiting a faculty member in information technology policy. The position is open rank — assistant, associate, or full professor — and we welcome applicants from any relevant discipline. The successful candidate will likely be jointly appointed in the School of Public and International Affairs and a disciplinary […]
Studying the societal impact of recommender systems using simulation
August 4, 2021 by
By Eli Lucherini, Matthew Sun, Amy Winecoff, and Arvind Narayanan. For those interested in the impact of recommender systems on society, we are happy to share several new pieces: a software tool for studying this interface via simulation the accompanying paper a short piece on methodological concerns in simulation research a talk offering a critical […]
Can the exfiltration of personal data by web trackers be stopped?
July 14, 2020 by
by Günes Acar, Steven Englehardt, and Arvind Narayanan. In a series of posts on this blog in 2017/18, we revealed how web trackers exfiltrate personal information from web pages, browser password managers, form inputs, and the Facebook Login API. Our findings resulted in many fixes and privacy improvements to browsers, websites, third parties, and privacy […]
