CTEC in the News: September 25, 2020
Welcome back to CTEC in the News - your weekly source for information on our latest publications, media appearances, research, and more! This was a particularly quiet week for CTEC, with just a couple pieces of news to share. Here’s what our experts have been up to this week:
AI
First up: Our recent publication on GPT-3, researched and written by Deputy Director Kris McGuffie and Digital Research Lead Alex Newhouse, was referenced in an article published by The Atlantic that assessed the impact of AI on future disinformation campaigns. Renée DiResta, Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, wrote of the AI model’s capability to mimic a range of writing styles and used our study to exemplify its potential for abuse by nefarious actors.
Extreme Nationalism
Alex was also interviewed by The Guardian for an article detailing the contents of leaked chat logs between a group of Portland-area pro-Trump extremists. He was quoted describing their entrenchment in extreme nationalism as the belief that “a few strong men with guns can together take out an evil that is at once imagined as an existential threat, and pathetically weak”. He also pointed to their desensitization to political violence as the key factor that makes communities like this dangerous.
That’s all we have for now! Join us next week for another round of CTEC in the News.