Popular Science

Engaging and impacting society is always a challenge and researchers have always struggled with this. However, as scientists we are devoted to communicate our findings to the people we ultimately work for, all of humanity. Given the interest on the ethics of AI I have been fortunate to collaborate with several media outlets (many of which reaching millions of citizens). I knew the average citizen does not have a clear idea of the imapact AI can have in their lives, in fact usually people are more worried about problems we have not yet encountered (e.g. sentient AI) than current extended practices by the AI industry (e.g. abusive user profiling, explainability issues, trustworthiness, AI weapons). My aim in this outreach activities was to try and change the perspective of the average citizen, to put the focus where the real imminent danger is. I've always been a believer in the power of exemplification, we more than usually use too much technical jargon and forget that people (and even research colleagues) might not know all about the topic we are discussing. Provide an example scenario put the listener in a difficult situation, show them the dangers of AI, show them how beneficial this technology can be but also the situations in which it can fail. Overall, these activities have allowed me to get familiar with how mass media work, how to manage an interview, and how to steer the conversation towards the discussions that had not yet transcended academic circles.