News
TRAILS AI Summer Academy Empowers Future AI Innovators
The two-week academy featured mentoring from UMD faculty, a field trip to an interactive museum focused on language, and group projects that covered hot topics like neural networks, machine learning and large language models (LLMs).
Novel Study Explores the Useability and Efficacy of AI Translations for Diverse Populations
UMD researchers are partnering with the Language Science Station at Planet Word to explore how people from different backgrounds rely on imperfect language translations generated by AI.
AI Could Become the ‘New Steel’ as Overcapacity Risk Goes Unnoticed
GW’s Susan Ariel Aaronson weighs in on the potential risks of excessive government investments in AI for Fortune magazine.
The Effects of Expanding Computer Science in High School
UMD’s Jing Liu co-authored a study demonstrating that expanding high-quality computer science courses in Maryland high schools significantly influenced students' college major choices towards computer science and improved their future earning potential.
AI Tool Predicts Whether Online Health Misinformation Will Cause Real-World Harm
Cornell University's Valerie Reyna co-authored a study unveiling a new AI-based technique, finding that certain language in Reddit misinformation predicted COVID vaccine hesitancy.
Furong Huang Part of New Federal Initiative to Advance AI
UMD’s Furong Huang is part of a new federal initiative that provides powerful computing resources to researchers focused on innovative research and scholarship involving AI.
TRAILS Researchers Discuss How AI Will Change the Way We Live
UMD’s Hal Daumé, Furong Huang and Katie Shilton were interviewed for a podcast series on how AI will impact education, work, culture and creativity.
UMD Researcher to Advance AI Using Powerful Federal Computing Resources
UMD’s Abhinav Shrivastava will have access to one of the world's fastest supercomputers to improve AI-based visual recognition models.
Katy Perry and Rihanna Didn’t Attend the Met Gala. But AI-Generated Images Still Fooled Fans.
GW’s David Broniatowski warns that deceptive AI-generated material poses significant risks to national and societal safety.
Goldstein Leads Team to Invention of the Year Honors
UMD’s Tom Goldstein led a team that developed a technology, called Binoculars, which can detect text generated by large language models at an almost 90% success rate.
How To Improve Post-Editing Capabilities of Large Language Models
UMD’s Marine Carpuat has shown that using external quality feedback boosts the machine translation post-editing skills of large language models.
Designing Smart Robotic Pets to Aid Autistic Youth
UMD's Hernisa Kacorri and GW's Chung Hyuk Park and Zoe Szajnfarber are studying how families can use AI robotic pets to support autistic children.
TikTok and the U.S. Government Dig in for a Legal War Over Potential Ban
GW’s Susan Ariel Aaronson tells The Washington Post how a law potentially banning TikTok or forcing its sale appears designed to penalize the popular platform, rather than focus on broader issues, such as data privacy and algorithmic transparency.
GW Engineering Professor Works to Secure Autonomous Aircraft from Bad Actors
GW’s Peng Wei is leading a $6 million funding initiative from NASA to help make the urban airspace of the future more safe and secure.
What Will the EU AI Act Mean for Ed Tech in the U.S.?
GW’s Susan Ariel Aaronson weighs in on the European Union’s new AI Act, which seeks to control how the technology is developed and deployed amid growing concerns about its risks and applications across sectors like government, health care and education.
Critics Miffed as Meta Restricts Access to Content Monitoring Tool
GW’s Rebekah Tromble and UMD’s Cody Buntain expressed mixed reactions to Meta’s plans to replace its data tool, CrowdTangle, with a new one named Meta Content Library coming this August.
How Can Government Fight Back Against Disinformation?
With deepfaked disinformation already plaguing this election year, UMD’s Soheil Feizi says not only can bad actors remove watermarks from images—they can trick deepfake detectors into flagging authentic media and wrongfully casting doubt.
GW’s Public Interest Technology Scholars Will Raise the Bar on Conversations About Tech and Civic Interest
GW’s Susan Ariel Aaronson is a member of the university’s inaugural Public Interest Technology Scholars cohort, which is committed to the study and application of technology that advances the public good by recognizing and empowering scholars contributing to that work.
AI With an Impact: UMD Team Testing Bilingual Chatbot for New Moms
TRAILS faculty member Jordan Boyd-Graber is leading the computational component of the multidisciplinary project.
Americans Benefit From WTO Rules Governing the Free Flow of Data
GW’s Susan Ariel Aaronson discusses how the free flow of data can both advance and undermine human rights such as freedom of speech and association, and good governance.