All Keynotes from WebSci'24 Conference Now Online

We are pleased to announce that the five keynotes from the recent WebSci'24 Conference (May 21-24, 2024) are now available online!

For more information about the speakers' bios and their talks, please visit the WebSci website here.

Jennifer Pan - China and the Global Information Ecosystem

• Link to Recording
• While digital communication technologies have revolutionized the way information can flow across borders and national boundaries, information does not flow freely everywhere. Governments around the world impose restrictions on access to digital information, and nowhere is the effort to control the transnational flow of digital information more extensive and sustained than in China. This talk will highlight empirical findings on how information flows between China and the global information ecosystem.

Hannes Werthner - Digital Humanism

• Link to Recording
• Information Technology changes ourselves and the world, from the individual level up to the ongoing geo-political powerplay. From an ontological point of view, it influences how we perceive the world and how we think about it. This transformation process took place in an extremely short period of time, at a very high speed. We highlight some features of this process, which, besides its enormous achievements, shows also serious shortcomings. The question posed is not a simple one: IT (including AI) may help solve the world’s multiple crises and make it a better place, but at the same time it is part of the problem (some even see it as the cause). We understand Digital Humanism as an answer to this question, as an approach to developing and regulating digital technologies so that they are used for the benefit of people and nature. It is a proactive approach that focuses on the integration of technical and social innovation.

Eszter Hargittai - Older adults are more tech savvy than you think: implications for your research agenda

• Link to Recording
• Adults 60 and over make up an increasing portion of the population yet they are often excluded from studies of Internet use. This talk draws on national survey data to show how older adults compare to younger age groups in their Internet uses and skills. Findings show that many older adults are more savvy and more active than popular rhetoric would suggest, including on social media where their engagement is sometimes close to those of younger cohorts. The talk highlights the importance of including a varied population group in studies that make generalizable claims.

Dirk Hovy - Unhumanizing Models. Why we need to reconsider how we think about AI

• Link to Recording
• Can you guess how many AI models you interacted with today? Likely more than you realized: AI models manage our emails, traffic, hiring, search, and suggest shows to binge-watch. They are often difficult to detect – unless they act particularly human. AI models that code, paint, write, and play appear more human. But are they? And are we harming ourselves by humanizing these models? 
  In this talk, I will discuss our common tendency to humanize AI models. Ascribing human characteristics makes unfamiliar objects more approachable and acceptable. In the digital age, we have begun to anthropomorphize AI models. But at what cost?Giving AI models human abilities they lack mixes fact and fiction and gives them powers they do not have. This results in exaggerated claims and missed obstacles, and it obscures weaknesses, leading to AI risks and misuse. Drawing on examples from physics, psychology, philosophy, and personal stories, we will discuss what models can do without human talent and their inability to do the daily intricacies we do without thinking. I’ll also discuss AI’s real threat: human prejudices and biases.
  Finally, I hope this talk has helps you better appreciate humanity. AI models may mirror human intellect and experience. They can help us realize our full potential and enhance society, but they are not like us! Recognizing this distinction is critical to responsible, ethical, and beneficial AI use.

Jie Tang - The *ChatGLM’s Road to Artificial General Intelligence 

*ChatGLM is the Chinese Large Language Model developed by Jie Tang and team

• Link to Recording
• Large language models have substantially advanced the state of the art in various AI tasks, such as natural language understanding and text generation, and image processing, multimodal modeling. In this talk, we will first introduce the development of AI in the past decades, in particular from the angle of China. We will also talk about the opportunities, challenges, and risks of AGI in the future. In the second part of the talk, we will use ChatGLM, an alternative but open-sourced model to ChatGPT, as an example to explain our understanding and insights derived during the implementation of the model.