OSU's School of History, Philosophy and Religion, the College of Engineering, and OSU Libraries & Press Present: Data Poisoning: One Tool Helping Artists Fight Back Against AI
Part of the Ideas Matter Series: The Ethical Challenges of AI
In the landscape of AI, artists and creatives have radically different interests than the tech companies scraping “data” — including individual artists’ works and styles — to build and refine their tools. And in this friction lies a vastly uneven power dynamic. How can artists protect their rights to their own work in the face of forces using and distributing it indiscriminately? How can regulatory frameworks keep up with the complexities of this dynamic?
In the final talk of the Ideas Matter: Ethical Challenges of AI series, we’ll hear from computer scientist Shawn Shan, who has developed solutions, including “data poisoning” strategies, that artists can use to fight back against the AI machine. In short, this strategy enables artists to essentially corrupt the files to their art that lives online, so AI models can’t scrape them in the typical fashion. Millions of artists have used Shan's tools since he made them available. This is a step in balancing the scales and putting some agency and power back in the hands of creators. Shan will also share his vision for ultimately building a more collaborative and fair AI ecosystem.
This lecture is supported to the Thomas Jones and Mary Hart Horning Endowment. Food will be provided. Please RSVP via the button on this page so we know how many attendees to expect.
This event will be a conversation with Shawn Shan facilitated by Alicia Patterson.
Shawn Shan is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth College. His research sits at the intersection of security and machine learning, focusing on safeguarding AI systems and mitigating harms from AI misuse. He has received MIT Tech Review Innovator of the Year, MIT Tech Review 35 Under 35, Forbes 30 Under 30, the USENIX Internet Defense Prize, and Distinguished Paper Awards at USENIX Security and ACM CCS.
Alicia Patterson is an assistant professor of philosophy at OSU whose research focuses on the intersection of ethics and technology, especially AI. She is engaged in interdisciplinary teaching and research, starting with being part of the Mozilla Responsible Computer Science Grant at Georgetown University.