Science Communication: Speaking About Research While Facing the General Public

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to communicate with the general public using audiovisual and print (online!) broadcast media. These opportunities have mostly drawn on my expertise in examining the societal implications of AI.

Here are a few clippings.

At the New York Academy of Sciences

• Here’s a short biographical piece on me done by the New York Academy of Sciences, describing how my childhood experiences shaped my love for science.

• In The Ethics of Developing Voice Biometrics I present my conversation with Juana Catalina Becerra Sandoval, a Ph.D. student in the History of Science department at Harvard University. In this article Juana talks about voiceprint technology and the ethical issues that arise when we integrate AI into the domain of voice biometrics.

• In Have we passed the Turing Test, and should we really be trying? I provide a brief historical account of what has come to be known as the Turing Test of machine intelligence. The key emphasis of this article is to turn everyone’s attention away from the questions of ‘whether’ and ‘can we?’ to ‘should we?’.

• In A More Scientific Approach to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning I present a Q&A with Dr. Savannah Thais on how we can make our approach to AI conform with the scientific process.

I’m currently working on another article on the legislative activity in the US Congress on regulating deepfake technology. Stay tuned.

In the press

• Last spring, I was interviewed by Politico in connection with the use of an apparently AI-generated audio being allegedly used by a local NYC politician to tarnish their counterpart’s image. Read here; I’m quoted very close to the end of the article.

On radio

• On June 26, 2024, I was interviewed by Dr. James Peterson on the program “Evening WURDs” on the Philadelphia area radio station WURD FM. You can listen to the clipping here (SoundCloud link).

On TV

• While I was finishing up my Ph.D. at UT-Austin in Summer 2023, I was interviewed by the local TV station KTBC on the potential for ChatGPT and LLMs to have an impact on the education system. Watch the interview here on YouTube; I come in at about 1:29. Nevermind the overloaded/clipped audio in this clip, I guess the crews equipment wasn’t working quite as it should have!