Model Disgorgement: The Key to Fixing AI Bias and Copyright Infringement?

In a recent paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Michael Kearns and three fellow researchers at Amazon share their perspective on the potential for model disgorgement to solve some of the issues facing AI models today.

• Computer and Information Science

Investing in AI at Penn Engineering

How did Penn Engineering become a leader in AI? It began with the support of philanthropically minded alumni and friends of Penn Engineering like Rajendra Singh (PAR’10, PAR’11), Harlan Stone (C’80, PAR’13) and Warren Center Founding Donor Fred Warren (ME’60, WG’61, PAR’87, PAR’19)

Abortion, Not Inflation, Directly Affected Congressional Voting in 2022

A new study conducted by Diana Mutz demonstrates why the role of the economy is easily misinterpreted in research on American elections, and shows that views on abortion were central to shifting votes in the midterm elections.

• Communication
• Political Science

Does simple guesswork lead to more cooperation than complicated calculus?

In two papers, one published in PLoS Computational Biology and the other in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, Erol Akçay and other researchers explored how reasoning strategies can be effectively modeled and applied to enhance biologists’ understanding of social dynamics.

• Biology

Largest Quantitative Synthesis to Date Reveals What Predicts Human Behavior and How to Change It

Dolores Albarracín and her team dug through years of research on the science behind behavior change to determine the best ways to promote changes in behavior. What results is a new classification of predictors of behavior and a novel, empirical model for understanding the different ways to change behavior.

• Communication
• Health Management
• Nursing
• Psychology

4 Ways Health Officials Can Communicate Better in the Next Pandemic

In a recent research article, with the goals of reaching the public, behavioral science experts, and policy officials, Dolores Albarracín and colleagues assessed U.S. communication efforts during COVID-19 and offered 17 recommendations for conveying health messages and science more effectively in the future.

• Communication
• Health Management
• Nursing
• Psychology

Exploring AI in Engineering

Surbhi Goel and Chris Callison-Burch joined this episode of the Innovation & Impact podcast to discuss how AI is accelerating discovery in fields such as Bioengineering and Computing while also bringing unexpected new challenges in areas such as security.

• Computer and Information Science

Edgar Dobriban Wins Peter Gavin Hall IMS Early Career Prize

Edgar Dobriban has received the 2024 Peter Gavin Hall IMS Early Career Prize. Dobriban receives the award “for deep, fundamental, and wide-ranging contributions to mathematical statistics and statistical machine learning."

• Statistics

Dolores Albarracín elected 2024 AAAS Fellow

Dolores Albarracín is being recognized by the AAAS for her contributions to social psychology, public health, and particularly the spread of infectious diseases worldwide and for the effective communication of science to the public.

• Communication
• Health Management
• Nursing
• Psychology

Surbhi Goel Explains How ChatGPT Actually Works

How do large language models (LLMs), which power chatbots like ChatGPT, actually work? Few are better qualified to answer this question than Surbhi Goel, who completed her doctoral dissertation on understanding how neural networks work, of which LLMs are just one prominent example.

• Computer and Information Science