ICSR News
MIT scholars awarded seed grants to probe the social implications of generative AI
The 27 finalists include many IDSS faculty and research within the IDSS Initiative on Combatting Systemic Racism.
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AI can help shape society for the better – but humans and machines must work together
IDSS core faculty D. Fox Harrell says collaboration rather than command-and-control is key to creating culturally and ethically positive systems.
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Bot detection software isn’t as accurate as it seems
A study by IDSS postdoc Zachary Schutzman and IDSS students Chris Hays, Erin Walk, and Philipp Zimmer finds that general-purpose bot-detection algorithms trained on a particular data set may be highly error-prone when applied in real-world contexts.
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In new VR, role-playing gives insight into racism // Axios
Axios lists “On the Plane,” developed by the Antiracism, Games, and Immersive Media vertical, as VR role-playing project that tackle issues such as racism and discrimination by encouraging empathy.
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Will artificial intelligence help — or hurt — medicine?
Assistant Professor Marzyeh Ghassemi examines how the increasing use of artificial intelligence could impact medical care.
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Social Media vertical wins Best Paper Award at the ACM Web Conference 2023
SES student Chris Hays received the award for the group’s publication “Simplistic Collection and Labeling Practices Limit the Utility of Benchmark Datasets for Twitter Bot Detection”.
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Design of video game characters has physical-world repercussions
A recent study from MIT researchers, including IDSS core faculty D. Fox Harrell, demonstrates that the exaggerated design of characters in fighting video games reinforces cultural stereotypes about gender, race, and ethnicity.
READ MORE Simulating discrimination in virtual reality
The role-playing game “On the Plane,” developed by researchers within the IDSS Initiative on Combatting Systemic Racism, simulates xenophobia to foster greater understanding and reflection via virtual experiences.
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Subtle biases in AI can influence emergency decisions
However, harm can be minimized if the advice it delivers is properly framed, an MIT team including SES student Hammaad Adam and IDSS faculty member Fotini Christia has shown.
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Mitigating the impact of biased artificial intelligence in emergency decision-making
The Healthcare vertical team evaluated the impact of AI models on human decision-making in an emergency setting. Descriptive rather than prescriptive advise from such models can help mitigate poor outcomes for minority groups.
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