The Distribution of Human Natural Language

Shrey Jain, an applied scientist at Microsoft Research Special Projects, speaks with Matt Prewitt on a very timely and topical subject: AI and – more specifically – the dangers it poses to the nature of natural human communication (“context collapse”). They take a deep dive into the current threats to privacy by expanding beyond the often discussed cryptographic sense into “privacy as contextual integrity”, and the immediate opportunity to embed ethical guardrails into this ever-changing realm of generative AI through possible solutions of designated verified signatures in “plural publics”.

Shrey’s recently published paper co-authored with Divya Siddarth and E. Glen Weyl “Plural Publics” is linked in the episode notes.

Links & References: 

• Georg Simmel and The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies
• John Dewey on The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry on JSTOR
• Scamming in AI via The Washington Post - They thought loved ones were calling for help. It was an AI scam.
• "Privacy as Contextual Integrity" by Helen Nissenbaum
• Also see: Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of... (book)
• Jaron Lanier on How to Fix Twitter—And All of Social Media - The Atlantic
• AI Education - Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? - The Atlantic
• Shrey Jain, Divya Siddarth, and E. Glen Weyl. “Plural Publics.” Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University, March 20, 2023.

Bios:

Shrey Jain (he/him) is an Applied Scientist at Microsoft Research Special Projects. His research area is AI Security and Cryptography with a specific focus on information integrity in an era of generative AI. Shrey's work has been featured in CBC News, The Globe and Mail, Financial Times, National Post, CTV News, and the Toronto Star.

Shrey’s Social Links:
Twitter: @shreyjaineth
Connect with Shrey on LinkedIn
Shrey’s Substack: Glasswing

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social LInks:
Twitter: @m_t_prewitt
Matt’s Substack: Matt's Writings

Production Credits:

• Produced by G. Angela Corpus.
• Co-Produced and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides.
• Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt.
• Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

This is a RadicalxChange Production.

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