The Annenberg Creator Research Network (ACoRN) is dedicated to the research, teaching, and pedagogy of creators and influencers harnessing internet technologies for economic, political and socio-cultural value. The group offers a forum for scholars, students and industry professionals to explore the complex dynamics of creator labor, management and practices, including... Read more
In the early 80s, fresh out of USC Viterbi, I found myself staring at something that seemed both monumental and oddly mundane – the desktop PC. The beige box sat on a table in front of me, humming softly, almost unnoticeable in its presence. At the time, it moved business forward, not in great strides but in a gentle shuffle – a 1x shift that promised more that didn’t quite deliver it yet....
In the 2020 Relevance Report, I made a few predictions about the impact Artificial Intelligence (AI) would have on the PR profession. Some have materialized - some have not. What I could not have predicted was the mind-boggling speed with which OpenAI’s GPT models would evolve and how profoundly they would impact all of us.
Looking Back: What Came to PassIn 2020, I emphasized the...
Four years ago, during a global pandemic and before ChatGPT became a household name, I took on the role of chief marketing officer at Optiv, a leading cybersecurity company. At that time, the world was experiencing a massive increase in cyberattacks, with rapidly rising degrees of sophistication, frequency and devastating financial impact. On top of that, the reliance on artificial...
It’s 8 a.m. on a crisp autumn day in Manhattan in 2017. I nearly drop my scalding hot cappuccino to field a call from Bloomberg asking for an immediate reaction to the arrest of an employee.
It’s 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve 2019 in Hong Kong, where the smell of tear gas is seeping into our building as protestors are directing their frustration toward several institutions. News crews are...
Asking GPT4o to “write an essay evaluating the life of Thomas Jefferson” results in seconds in a highly credible, well-structured, 6-page document outlining this historical figure’s life and impact. This demonstrates one of many provocative linguistic capabilities of generative AI (genAI), which has emerged over the last few years. These systems can quickly and effortlessly produce voluminous...
“Power shadows” are systemic biases in AI arising from the lack of diversity in the data used to train the systems. The term was coined by MIT graduate researcher Joy Buolamwini in a national contest inspired by the film Hidden Figures . According to her research, the methods used to gather data result in skewed AI algorithms and inequitable outcomes for people of color—particularly Black...
Walking to class, phone in hand, the image hits. The vice president grips a beer bong surrounded by 20-something girls. A frat party rages in the background. Real or fake? You freeze, but your thumb doesn’t. The image spreads.
That image sits at the heart of tomorrow’s politics — a complete shift upending campaigns, not by dismantling truth, but by making truth irrelevant. This system...