(Fri) February 28, 2025, 5:00pm — 7:00pm
AC1-150
Free parking and open to the public.
Lies, deception, and propaganda are familiar issues in politics. We now must confront the addition of new technologies that threaten the role of truth in democratic society: deepfakes and large language models. The ability to create fabricated videos, accurate audio recordings, and highly realistic images with machine learning is considered by some to signal an "information apocalypse". An apocalypse is a powerful but ambiguous image. Does it express a deluge of information so great that we cannot tell truth from fiction? Or, alternatively, does it conjure up an image of a mushroom cloud perched overtop the ruins of a political culture? While it has been nearly a decade since the term "post-truth" entered everyday speech, new developments in AI technology continue to present evolving threats to our ability to have a healthy political community.
This talk will provide an introduction to deepfake technology and then explore the political epistemology of AI. In particular, we will discuss how deepfakes and LLMs overlap with concerns about ideological polarisation online through recommender algorithms (more familiarly known as 'filter bubbles' and 'echo chambers').
Hanna Kiri Gunn is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Merced. Dr. Gunn's research combines applied ethics with social and political epistemology, with a focus on issues around new media and technology. Recent publications include, "Listening for Epistemic Community", on the topic of political polarization and the stability of democratic political culture, and, "Can Retributivism and Risk Assessment be Reconciled?", a paper co-authored with Dr. Toby Napoletano on the use of data modelling in criminal sentencing.
If you have questions about the event or need any accomadations, please contact Dr. Adam Chin.
