By Sayash Kapoor, Mihir Kshirsagar, and Arvind Narayanan Our response to the National AI Research Resource RFI highlights the significance of supporting a research infrastructure that is designed to independently test the validity of the claims of AI performance. In particular, we draw attention to the widespread phenomenon of the industry peddling what we call […]
National AI Research Infrastructure Needs to Support Independent Evaluation of Performance Claims
September 2, 2021 by
We need a personal digital advocate
August 31, 2021 by
I recently looked up a specialized medical network. For weeks following the search, I was bombarded with ads for the network and other related services: the Internet clearly thought I was on the market for a new doctor. The funny thing is that I was looking this up for someone else and all this information, […]
It’s still practically impossible to secure your computer (or voting machine) against attackers who have 30 minutes of access
August 13, 2021 by
It has been understood for decades that it’s practically impossible to secure your computer (or computer-based device such as a voting machine) from attackers who have physical access. The basic principle is that someone with physical access doesn’t have to log in using the password, they can just unscrew your hard drive (or SSD, or […]
Facebook’s Illusory Promise of Transparency
August 5, 2021 by
By Orestis Papakyriakopoulos, Ashley Gorham, Eli Lucherini, Mihir Kshirsagar, and Arvind Narayanan. Facebook’s latest move to obstruct academic research about its platform by disabling NYU’s Ad Observatory is deeply troubling. While Facebook claims to offer researchers access to its FORT Researcher Platform as an alternative, that is an illusory offer as we have recently learned […]
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 […]
