Deepfake Conference Panel II: Impact of National Security and Democratic Self-Governance

How can truth emerge in a deep-fake ridden marketplace of ideas? Are we ready for the looming challenges to national security, elections, privacy, and reputation? What role will technology, laws, and norms play in addressing deep-fake destruction?

The Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center explored these questions and others during a series of panel discussions featuring leading academic, industry and policy experts. 

Panel II features: Matt Turek (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), Jessica M. Silbey (University School of Law), Kaveh Waddell (Axios), and Kirsten Martin (George Washington University School of Business).


The Deepfake Conference was held on October 18, 2019, in Washington, D.C. The following talks were also recorded:


Speaker Bios for Panel II

Matt Turek is a program manager in DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O). His research interests include computer vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and their application to problems with significant societal impact. Prior to his position at DARPA, Turek was at Kitware, Inc., where he led a team developing computer-vision technologies. His research focused on multiple areas, including large-scale behavior recognition and modeling; object detection and tracking; activity recognition; normalcy modeling and anomaly detection; and image indexing and retrieval. Turek has made significant contributions to multiple DARPA and Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) efforts and has transitioned large-scale systems for operational use. Turek previously worked for GE Global Research, conducting research in medical imaging and industrial inspection. He is a co-inventor on 14 patents and co-author of multiple publications, primarily in computer vision. Turek earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Clarkson University, a master’s in electrical engineering from Marquette University, and his doctorate in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jessica M. Silbey is a professor of law; director of the Center for Law, Innovation, and Creativity (CLIC); and an affiliate professor in the Department of English at Northeastern University. Her research and teaching focus on law’s entanglement with other disciplines such as the humanities and social sciences. In addition to a law degree, she has a Ph.D. in comparative literature and draws on her studies of literature and film to better account for law’s force, both its effectiveness and failing as socio-political regulation. In April 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to support work on a new book, Against Progress: Intellectual Property and Fundamental Values in the Internet Age. The book argues that intellectual property law is becoming a central framework through which to discuss essential socio-political issues, extending ancient debates over our most cherished values, refiguring the substance of “progress” in terms that demonstrate the urgency of art and science to social justice today. Her previous book “The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators, and Everyday Intellectual Property” was published in 2015. Silbey earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and doctorate and juris doctorate degrees from the University of Michigan.

Kaveh Waddell covers AI, robotics, and other emerging technology for the Axios Future newsletter, based in San Francisco. In the past, he has worked as a foreign correspondent in Beirut, reported on privacy and surveillance at The Atlantic, and written about tech policy at National Journal. He earned a bachelor’s degree in international politics and economics from Middlebury College.

Kirsten Martin is an associate professor of strategic management and public policy at George Washington University’s School of Business where she researches privacy, technology, and corporate responsibility. She has written about privacy and the ethics of technology in leading academic journals across disciplines (Journal of Business Ethics, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Journal of Business Research) as well as practitioner publications. She is the research and business ethics editor for the Journal of Business Ethics and the recipient of NSF grants for her work on privacy, technology, and ethics. Martin is also a member of the advisory board for the Future Privacy Forum and the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee for her work on privacy and the ethics of Big Data. Martin is a fellow at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics for her work on stakeholder theory and trust. She earned her B.S. in engineering from the University of Michigan and her M.B.A. and doctorate degree from the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business.

October 18, 2019

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