2019-2020 Tech Talk Season
“Tech Talks” are presented by the Center for Technology & Society (CTS). This season features an exciting mix of technology-based topics that impact society at large. For more information, please contact Scott Tilley (stilley@cts.today).Please join us for our seven-part series on FAKE NEWS!
- Propaganda (Jan. 27)
- Dissemination (Feb. 24)
- Detection (Apr. 27)
- Journalism (June 1)
- COVID-19 (September 28)
- Elections (November 2)
- Augmented and Virtual Reality (Postponed to January 25, 2021)
Monday, November 2, 2020 at 7:00pm: "Fake News (Part 6): Elections"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
The 2020 presidential election was already set to be an unprecedented event. If you thought social media and foreign nationals were meddling in 2016, they’ve had four more years to refine their craft. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and everything changed. Except that big data is still being used to disseminate false information at scale. Who could have predicted the rise of QAnon? Come to this sixth entry in our FAKE NEWS series to discuss the controversies surrounding the current election cycle. Wear your “I Voted” badges. Bring your tinfoil hats. The Russians will be there too.
Note: Due to the novel coronavirus, this talk will be delivered using Zoom. It is still free and open to the public, but you need to be a member of CTS to receive the meeting invitation. Go to www.cts.today/join and signup.
Monday, September 28, 2020 at 7:00pm: "Fake News (Part 5): COVID-19"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic turned our lives upside-down, it’s been the source of more confusion, misleading information, and outright lies than any other recent event. When even trusted sources like the CDC keep changing their advice – seemingly on a daily basis – it’s easy to see why the general public is perplexed. Public health policy is “informed by science,” but what happens when the science is wrong? What happens when the data is flawed or incomplete? What happens when the predictive models are faulty? Come to this fifth entry in our FAKE NEWS series to discuss the controversies surrounding COVID-19. Bring along your favorite conspiracy theory.
Note: Due to the novel coronavirus, this talk will be delivered using Zoom. It is still free and open to the public, but you need to be a member of CTS to receive the meeting invitation. Go to www.cts.today/join and signup.
Monday, June 1, 2020 at 6:00pm: "Fake News (Part 4): Journalism"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
Journalism as we know it is on the ropes. Traditional print media has been losing favor for years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the financial problems experienced due to declining advertising revenue and lower overall readership. Social media giants such as Facebook and Google are gobbling up the vast majority of online advertising dollars across the globe, leaving journalists and publishers in a bind. Most people agree that local news coverage is an essential part of a vibrant and informed community, but fewer and few people are willing to pay for it. Should governments support journalism with your tax dollars as an “essential service”?
Further complicating matters is the rise of non-traditional journalism, most of it online, and much of it peddling fake news and opinion pieces marketed as fact-based reporting. What role does society play in supporting a free and investigative press? What standards should we set for journalism in the context of omnipresent fake news and personalized data-driven “news” services that pander to our pre-existing beliefs? Come to this fourth and final meeting in our FAKE NEWS series to learn more about journalism in the age of algorithms and Instagram.
Note: Due to the novel coronavirus, this talk will be delivered using Zoom. It is still free and open to the public, but you need to be a member of CTS to receive the meeting invitation. Go to www.cts.today/join and signup.
Monday, April 27, 2020 at 6:00pm: "Fake News (Part 3): Detection"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD and Tauhida Parveen, PhD
Fake news about the COVID-19 coronavirus is spreading faster than the virus itself – and that’s saying something. It’s an example of the power of deliberately weaponized misinformation using modern technology. In Part 3 of our FAKE NEWS series, we’ll talk about how artificial intelligence and machine learning are being used to identify fake news online, the policies the various social media companies regarding the dissemination of fake news on their platforms, and how to educate yourself to be a discriminating consumer of news from all sources.
WFIT Radio Interview with Terri Wright
Note: Due to the novel coronavirus, this talk will be delivered using Zoom. It is still free and open to the public, but you need to be a member of CTS to receive the meeting invitation. Go to www.cts.today/join and signup.
Monday, February 24, 2020 at 6:00pm: "Fake News (Part 2): Dissemination"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
Fake news spreads faster than the coronavirus. In fact, misinformation about the coronavirus is a very timely example of the power of modern technology, particularly social media, to weaponize data to serve a political agenda but hurt the public interest. Come to this second lecture in our series on FAKE NEWS to learn more about how fake news is disseminated in the age of Twitter and Facebook. Why let the Russians have all the fun?
The talk takes place at FIT's Evans Library, Room 204, as a joint production with Big Data Florida. The talk is free and open to the public.
Monday, January 27, 2020 at 6:00pm: "Fake News (Part 1): Propaganda"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
Fake news is not news at all. Before we had social media and other technologies to spread misinformation at scale, we had old-school propaganda. In 1960, Robert Ensor wrote: “people will believe anything, provided they are told it often enough and emphatically enough, and that contradicters are either silenced or smothered in calumny.” That’s still true today. I repeat, that’s STILL TRUE TODAY! TODAY!
This is the first lecture in our four-part series on fake news. We'll discuss the origins of propaganda, how it’s been used throughout history, and which countermeasures have been found to be effective against it.
The talk takes place at FIT's Evans Library, Room 204, as a joint production with Big Data Florida. The talk is free and open to the public.
Thursday, January 9, 2020 at 5:30pm: "The Top Tech of the 2010s"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
The end of the year. The end of the decade. As we race into the roaring 2020s, it’s time to take a look back at the last ten years and examine the top technologies that impacted our lives – both negatively and positively.
The talk takes place at The Sanctuary Clubhouse in Indialantic, FL, as part of a special meeting of INCOSE Space Coast Chapter. The talk is free and open to the public.
Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 5:30pm: "Systems Engineering in 2020 and Beyond"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
What does the future hold for systems engineering? What will be some of the major practical challenges and important research questions facing the community? Which new skills will systems engineers need to thrive in the 2020s and beyond?
The start of a new decade is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the state of the profession, and to postulate some of the key areas of interest that will shape the next phase of systems engineering, its interaction with other engineering disciplines, and its effects on society in general.
The talk takes place at FIT's Evans Library in Room 204, as part of a regular meeting of INCOSE Space Coast Chapter. The talk is free and open to the public.
Friday, November 8, 2019 at 6:30pm: "Social Silos: Digitally Connected but Increasingly Alone"
Presented by Scott Tilley, PhD
Through social media and our digital devices, we are more connected than ever before. Ironically, we also are becoming increasingly isolated. Do you have more Facebook “friends” than actual friends? Is the next generation becoming socially disconnected, living in electronic silos of their own making? Some people say that “going solo” is a healthy choice, but are more people being led down the path towards loneliness and isolation due to addictive and pervasive technology?
The movie “The Matrix,” which was released 20 years ago, depicted a post-apocalyptic world ruled by machines, where humans existed in a virtual reality, completely unaware of their surroundings or true purpose. Is that the world we want? Which would you pick, the red pill or the blue pill?
The talk takes place at FIT's Evans Library, as part of their After Hours series. The talk is free and open to the public.
