CNTR Speaker Series: J. Nathan Matias
About this Event
Event Details
- Date & Time: Wednesday, November 11, 2026 | 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM EST
- Location: Data Science Institute, Room 302 (DSI 302 - Research Room)
About the Talk
The Role of Democracy in the Science of AI
What, if anything, can public involvement add to the science of AI at a time when AI research seems exclusive to a very narrow few? And is science even a useful tool for understanding and managing AI systems and their behaviors? From policing technology to the essays in a first year writing class, AI is often something that people feel has been done *to* them rather than for or with the people most affected. Because they adapt to human behaviors that they also influence, their actions have been hard to predict— representing a risk to society and a challenge for anyone who would govern their behavior.
In this talk, J. Nathan Matias will share reflections on a decade of research working alongside the public to study collective human-algorithm behavior in complex social environments. He will also share forthcoming and early stage work on ways that the widespread deployment of semi-autonomous AI systems can chill or support civil liberties.
About the speaker
Dr. J. Nathan Matias (@natematias) is a computer scientist and social scientist who organizes citizen behavioral science for a safer, fairer, more understanding Internet. A Guatemalan-American Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, Nathan is founder of the Citizens and Technology Lab, a public-interest research group that organizes citizen behavioral science and consumer protection research for digital life. He is also a pioneer in industry-independent evaluations on the impact of social technologies and artificial intelligence in society and is co-author of the MIT Press book "Auditing AI." Matias has published research in Nature, Science, PNAS, and journals and conferences across Communication, Human-Computer Interaction, and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. In 2026-27, he is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where he is working on the science and art of civil liberties, and a fellow at the Grefenstette Center at Duquesne University working on the intersection of Christianity and technology policy.
Beyond research and teaching, Matias co-founded the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, a nonprofit that supports and defends independent research on technology and society. His journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, PBS, The Guardian, FiveThirtyEight, and other international media. He has received numerous awards, including awards from the Association for Computing Machinery, FastCompany, Mozilla, and the Rising Star Faculty Award by a popular vote of Cornell University alumni. He has held positions at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy, and the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. Nathan did his PhD at the MIT Center for Civic Media and MIT Media Lab. Before MIT, Nathan worked in tech startups that have reached hundreds of millions of phones, helped start a series of education and journalistic charities, and studied English/postcolonial literature at the University of Cambridge and Elizabethtown College.
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