{"id":5190,"date":"2026-02-20T21:22:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/groups.cs.umass.edu\/pit\/?page_id=5190"},"modified":"2026-03-25T18:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:10:22","slug":"spring-2026-pit-events","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/groups.cs.umass.edu\/pit\/spring-2026-pit-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring 2026 PIT Events"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Bill Cole, Chief Technology Officer EOTSS, Karthik Yajurvedi, Chief Data Officer, EOTSS, Emily Nutwell, UMass PIT Pathways Director during a State Panel on AI<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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How Tech is Supercharging ICE<\/span>
<\/strong>March 12, 2026, from 6:00-7:00pm, UMass Downtown
With Fran Berman Director of the Public Interest Technology Initiative, Stuart Rice Honorary Research Professor and Laura Haas Professor and former Dean, Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass<\/p>

Facial recognition, AI, and data analysis are powerful tools that are being used by ICE to target both immigrants and protestors. Join UMass faculty Francine Berman and Laura Haas for an exploration of how these technologies are enabling ICE and what societal guardrails might contain them. The session will start with a short presentation on the technology, followed by discussion and Q&A.<\/p>

Sponsored by the <\/em>Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences<\/em><\/a> and the <\/em>Public Interest Technology Initiative<\/em><\/a> at UMass.<\/em><\/p>

PIT Faculty Fellows\u2019 AI Speaker Series | AI as Normal Technology with Arvind Narayanan<\/span>
<\/strong>March 23, 2026, from 3:30 \u2013 5:00 pm, In-person CSL, E120 (refreshments provided) and Zoom
With Arvind Narayanan, Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University<\/p>

Arvind will be joining us over zoom and we have a room in the new computer science building where participants can gather to watch and participate in person. Register to attend here<\/a> and let us know if you will be in-person or online.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

In this talk, based on an essay<\/a> and ongoing book project with Sayash Kapoor, Arvind Narayanan will articulate\u00a0a vision of artificial intelligence as \u201cnormal technology,\u201d in contrast to both utopian and dystopian visions that treat AI as a potentially superintelligent entity. Our framework predicts that the impacts of advanced AI, even if transformative, will unfold slowly, making a critical distinction between AI methods, AI applications, and AI adoption. I will discuss a potential division of labor between people and AI in the world with advanced AI and examine the implications of AI as normal technology for AI policy, AI safety, and human progress.<\/p>

Arvind Narayanan<\/strong> is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. He is a co-author of the book\u00a0AI Snake Oil<\/em>, the essay\u00a0AI as Normal Technology<\/em>, and a newsletter of the same name which is read by over 60,000 researchers, policy makers, journalists, and AI enthusiasts. He previously co-authored two widely used computer science textbooks:\u00a0Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Fairness in Machine Learning<\/em>. Narayanan led the Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability Project to uncover how companies collect and use our personal information. His work was among the first to show how machine learning reflects cultural stereotypes. Narayanan was one of TIME’s inaugural list of 100 most influential people in AI. He is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).<\/p>

Presented by the <\/em>Public Interest Technology Initiative<\/em><\/a> at UMass and co-sponsored by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences <\/em>AI and Us<\/em><\/a> Series<\/em><\/p>

PIT Faculty Fellows\u2019 AI Speaker Series | Building Alternative Tech Futures with Timnit Gebru<\/span>
<\/strong>April 1, 2026, from 1:00 – 2:30pm, In-person CSL E144 (refreshments provided) and Zoom
With Timnit Gebru, founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR<\/a>) and co-founder of Black in AI<\/a><\/p>

Timnit will be joining us over zoom and we have a room in the new computer science building where participants can gather to watch and participate in person. Register to attend here<\/a> and let us know if you will be in-person or online.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

We’re living in the imagination of tech billionaires consolidating power at a rate that has \u201c<\/span>perhaps never been seen in history<\/a>,\u201d and governments investing trillions into weapons attempting to kill more people more efficiently. Instead of merely waiting for others to build technologies of surveillance and warfare and then critiquing those technologies after the fact, we should prototype the technological futures we want. In this talk, I discuss how we at DAIR do that by following the seven principles outlined in our non exploitative research philosophy<\/a>: community, trust and time, knowledge co-production, redistribution, accountability, interrogating power, and imagination. Examples of the work I’ll cover include resource efficient tech that\u00a0supports victims of genocide in holding social media companies into account, maps companies surveilling our communities and their funders worldwide, helps reverse the impacts of spatial apartheid in South Africa, and helps speakers of under-resourced languages safely communicate digitally.<\/p>

Dr. Timnit Gebru<\/strong> is the founder and executive director the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR). Prior to that she was fired by Google in December 2020 for raising issues of discrimination in the workplace, where she was serving as co-lead of the Ethical AI research team. Timnit also co-founded\u00a0<\/span>Black in AI<\/a>, a nonprofit that works to increase the presence, inclusion, visibility and health of Black people in the field of AI, and is on the board of\u00a0<\/span>AddisCoder<\/a>, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching algorithms and computer programming to Ethiopian and Jamaican highschool students. She has received a number of accolades including being named one of\u00a0<\/span>Nature\u2019s Ten people who helped shape science<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and one of\u00a0<\/span>TIME 100\u2019s most influential people<\/a>. She is currently writing\u00a0<\/span>a memoir + manifesto arguing for a technological future that serves our communities instead of one that is used for surveillance, warfare, and the centralization of power by Silicon Valley.<\/p>

Presented by the <\/em>Public Interest Technology Initiative<\/em><\/a> at UMass and co-sponsored by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences <\/em>AI and Us<\/em><\/a> Series and Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies.<\/em><\/p>

Weapon and Shield: AI in the Age of\u00a0 Tech Conflict with Nicholas Butts<\/span>
<\/strong>April 1, 2026, from 11:00 – 12:30 pm, Old Chapel
With Nicholas Butts, Director of AI and Cybersecurity Policy at Microsoft<\/p>

In this talk, Nicholas Butts examines how AI is increasingly used both as an offensive tool and a defensive asset. He explores how an emerging tech cold war is reshaping global technology infrastructure, with far-reaching consequences for security, innovation, and the global economy.<\/p>

Nicholas Butts<\/strong>\u00a0is Director of AI and Cybersecurity Policy at Microsoft, where he leads global efforts to address the adversarial and offensive use of AI, harness AI for cybersecurity defense, and secure AI systems, models, data, and infrastructure. Previously, Nicholas held senior commercial roles at one of Europe\u2019s leading AI startups, developing applied AI solutions for government and national security clients. Outside of Microsoft, Nicholas is a published author and geopolitical analyst. His latest book, Tech Cold War (Lynne Rienner, 2025), explores the intersection of geopolitics and technology and their implications for private-sector actors.<\/p>

This keynote is part of our continuing AI and Us: Rethinking Research, Work, and Society <\/a>series hosted by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) and supported by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, The College of Education, The Marieb College of Nursing, The Commonwealth Honors College, the College of Natural Sciences, The Graduate School, The Manning College of Information & Computer Science, the Riccio College of Engineering, the Center for Teaching and Learning, CSSI, DACSS, and the\u00a0UMass Office of Equity and Inclusion.<\/em><\/p>

PIT Faculty Fellows\u2019 AI Lightning Talks | AI & Us<\/span>
<\/strong>April 21, 2026, from 12:00 – 1:30 pm, In-person and Zoom<\/p>

This session of the AI & Us SBS Series will showcase the work of the 2025\u20132026 PIT Faculty Fellows as they present early outcomes from their Responsible AI seed-funded projects. Each team will deliver a 15-minute lightning talk, followed by 5 minutes of audience Q&A. Lunch will be provided.<\/p>