How do we deal with the social implications of AI’s rapid advance? — This week, Timnit Gebru, a prominent researcher in machine learning, the former co-lead of the Ethical AI team at Google, and the co-founder of Black in AI, gave a talk at the University of Chicago’s Center for Data and Computing Distinguished Lecture Series. Academic researchers listen to a lot of…

What makes a good Ph.D. dissertation? How do you find a topic? When should you propose? — The crowning achievement of a Ph.D. degree is the dissertation—a document that captures a coherent body of research that contributes to overall knowledge in a particular field. To many Ph.D. students, a dissertation can sound daunting—it’s a long document (usually at least 100 pages, often approaching 200 pages) that encompasses…

There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. — I grew up in northern California, where 40 degrees was considered cold weather. When I moved to Boston for college, I knew I was in for a (literal) phase change when my walks across the Charles River in October felt cold. Now, I live in Chicago, where it’s 15 degrees…

I visited Chicago Public Schools as part of CS Ed Week to talk about our research on Internet censorship, the urban digital divide, and ethics in computer science. — More than 60 countries around the world perform some form of Internet censorship, according to reports from Freedom on the Net. Those numbers can often be much higher, depending on how censorship is defined, of course. To ensure that the Internet remains free and open for all people, our research…

Over the past several years, our research group has been exposing the various privacy risks of Domain Name System (DNS) traffic and developing mechanisms to improve DNS privacy. Briefly, the DNS is the Internet protocol that maps a domain name like uchicago.edu to an Internet address, such as 34.200.129.209. The…

Professor Feamster gave a keynote to AFRICOMM 2020 today entitled “The Past, Present, and Future of DNS Privacy”. The talk covered the research group’s work on DNS over the past five years, including: The privacy risks associated with DNS, including the fact that DNS can be used to infer Web…

Many consumers use online speed tests to track the download and upload speeds of their home Internet connections. But these tools offer more than just a measurement for how fast one’s network can download files or stream video. The data they gather are also used by policymakers — from city…

Professor Nick Feamster was featured on WTTW Chicago Tonight last Wednesday evening discussing online content moderation. Watch the interview below (interview starts at 7:26), and read on to see Professor Feamster’s take on various questions posed by WTTW. Is there any approach the companies can take that will satisfy both sides? There seems to be widespread agreement that content moderation platforms are…

Thinking of applying for a Ph.D. in Computer Science? Here’s how to figure out where to apply, find potential advisors, and put together a strong application. — Perhaps you’re thinking of applying to Ph.D. programs in computer science. Before you decide to fill out all of those applications, I’d first encourage you to read my post on whether you need a Ph.D. in the first place. If, after reading about the benefits (and drawbacks) of Ph.D. programs…