Computer Science Content

Muhammad Haroon on How Social Media Algorithms Can Foster Political Radicalization

Soterios J Johnson — December 13, 2022 - 12:24am

A new study from �ٺ��Ƶ suggests that artificial intelligence recommendation algorithms on sites like YouTube and TikTok can play a role in political radicalization. In this episode, �ٺ��Ƶ computer science Ph.D. student Muhammad Haroon, who led the study, discusses how the study was designed, what the team found, and a new digital tool they created to mitigate the radicalizing effect of social media platform AI algorithms.

Your Smart TV is Watching What You Watch

Andy Fell — December 18, 2024 - 2:45pm

If you’re thinking of buying a “smart” TV for the holidays, you ought to know that your new device is constantly capturing snapshots of what’s on screen and sending them back to the manufacturer — even if you are using the device as a computer monitor and not watching TV at all. The findings come from a recent study by computer scientists at the University of California, Davis; University College London; and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, published in Proceedings of the 2024 ACM on Internet Measurement Conference.

How Autocrats Control Internet Traffic Out of Sight

Andy Fell — April 10, 2024 - 12:00pm

Authoritarian regimes exert control over the internet through transit networks that operate largely out of public view, according to a recent study by researchers in the U.S. and Germany. The work, published in PNAS Nexus, also shows how more sophisticated authoritarian regimes extend their influence by providing network access in poorer but politically similar countries.

Unravelling AI Bias to Build Fair and Trustworthy Algorithms

Andy Fell — March 08, 2024 - 3:02pm

In 2017, Ian Davidson, a professor of computer science at �ٺ��Ƶ, was on sabbatical as a fellow of the Collegium de Lyon in France. The institute brings together intellectuals, philosophers, artists and academics from all over the world to live together for one year to "think about great things."

The Mystery of El Niño

Malia N Reiss — December 15, 2023 - 9:46pm

An El Niño explainer, and what �ٺ��Ƶ experts think California can expect this winter.

YouTube Video Recommendations Lead to More Extremist Content for Right-Leaning Users, Researchers Suggest

Karen Michele Nikos — December 13, 2023 - 11:30am

YouTube tends to recommend videos that are similar to what people have already watched. New research has found that those recommendations can lead users down a rabbit hole of extremist political content.

How Automated YouTube Recommendations Foster Polarization

Andy Fell — August 25, 2022 - 11:58am

�ٺ��Ƶ computer scientists create YouTube Audit site, showing how recommendation algorithms steer left- or right-leaning users to more extreme content.

Momentum Computing: the Next Cool Thing?

Andy Fell — June 22, 2022 - 10:56am

Electronic circuits generate a lot of heat, as you will have noticed if you have had a laptop actually in your lap. That represents wasted energy, and even more energy has to be used to keep racks of servers cool. This becomes a major problem – and a cost – as server farms become larger.

How Can We Use Jewelry to Communicate?

Karen Michele Nikos — April 01, 2022 - 2:59pm

A team of computer scientists is designing facial jewelry that can use signals from a person’s facial muscles to send wireless commands.

Coding for Two Audiences: Humans and Computers

Andy Fell — February 14, 2022 - 4:14pm

Software code is written to be read by both computers and humans. Machines quickly and perfectly understand the computational meaning, while humans read it the same way they read natural language: not as quickly and sometimes incorrectly. With a new $1.2M three-year NSF-funded project, a group of software engineers and social scientists at �ٺ��Ƶ will leverage this bimodality to develop tools that make writing, reading and maintaining code easier and improve the overall programming experience.