Abstract

The recent explosive advancements in both generative language models in NLP and deepfake-enabling methods in Computer Vision have greatly helped trigger a new surge in AI research and introduced a myriad of novel AI applications. However, at the same time, these new AI technologies can be used by adversaries for malicious usages, opening a window of opportunity for fake news creators and state-sponsored hackers. In this talk, I will present a few plausible scenarios where adversaries could exploit these cutting-edge AI techniques to their advantage, producing more sophisticated fake news by synthesizing realistic artifacts or evading detection of fake news from state-of-the-art detectors. I will conclude the talk by discussing the important implications of the new type of fake news (i.e., Fake News 2.0) and some future research directions.

Bio: Dongwon Lee is a professor and director of Ph.D. program in the information school (IST) at Penn State University, USA . He is also an ACM Distinguished Scientist (2019) and Fulbright Cyber Security Scholar (2022). Before starting at Penn State, he worked at AT&T Bell Labs, NJ, and obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA . From 2015 to 2017, he has also served as a Program Director at National Science Foundation (NSF), co-managing cybersecurity research and education programs and contributing to the development of national research priorities. In general, he researches on the problems in the intersections of data science, machine learning, and cybersecurity. Since 2017 he has led the SysFake project at Penn State, investigating computational and socio-technical solutions to better combat fake news. More details of his research can be found at: http://pike.psu.edu/. During the academic year of 2022-2023, he is visiting University of Cambridge as a Fulbright scholar and a fellow in Churchill college.