New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Can you change the world with a homemade DeepFake?

Kenza Sabri (kenzasabri5@gmail.com) Zuzanna Kędzia (zuzanna.k0987@gmail.com) Daria Kochetkova (daria.kochetkova.08@gmail.com) “At the most basic level, deepfakes are lies disguised to look like truth. If we take them as truth or evidence, we can easily make false conclusions with potentially disastrous...

By Kenza Sabri on 10/21/20 Comments Off

Who gets previewed? Racial Bias and User Experiments within Twitter’s Algorithmic Image Cropping

Recently Twitter users have been discovering the algorithmic bias of Twitter's image cropping system. How have they experimented and what do we do with the results? Why is Twitter selecting white faces? Why does it prefer Ted Cruz with...

By on 09/27/20 Comments Off

A(m)I beautiful? – Questioning AI through a Biometric Mirror

As AI integrates its way into everyday life, it raises more and more questions on whether to see this technology as assisting or oppressive. Facial recognition art installation Biometric Mirror (2018) contributes to this critical approach, challenging the ethics...

By on 09/26/20 Comments Off

A bridge between worlds – Robots as a physical platform for the digital

Robots – gimmick or game changer? The current picture one has, when the words “robot” or “robotics” are dropped, can vary widely. While most would probably imagine either Science-fiction-like, humanoid beings or simplistic and gimmicky robots that are commercially...

By on 09/23/19 Comments Off

Free Trial Surfing or how to reshape affordances through institutional legitimization

DoNotPay is a company that announced a new app called ‘Free Trial Surfing’ which generates fake credit card details that users can use to sign up for free trials of (web) services without risking having to pay after the...

By Dimitri Koehorst on 09/22/19 Comments Off

The Illusion of Choice: On the Datafication of User Interactivity in AI Storytelling

AI technologies have found their way to yet another field in the media landscape: film & television. While some claim AI technologies are revolutionising storytelling, others are critical of the implications involving user participation and interactivity. “The fascination with...

By on 09/22/19 Comments Off

A.I. Influencers: Preaching to the Choir?

As virtual influencers are gaining popularity on social media platforms such as Instagram, an increasing amount of money is being invested into the development of so-called A.I. influencers. Will such influencers cause a shift in the relationship between different...

By Dieuwertje Luitse on 09/22/19 Comments Off

How to be thoughtful without thinking, new app promises stronger relationships

The latest trend for the digitally immersed is having an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant app teach how to be a more thoughtful human. ‘Monaru’ is a start-up app that intends to overcome the disconnection that has resulted from constant...

By on 09/22/19 Comments Off

Picnic – tapping into the comfort of platforms

Cars that drive themselves, a robot serving you at a restaurant, and even skyping someone over the phone while you are commuting. Ten years ago, many of these things were unimaginable. Now in some places they are a staple...

By Silke Mulder on 09/22/19 Comments Off

The wisdom of Wysa – Mental health apps, the (AI) friend who is always there

Introduction Ever felt lonely depressed or anxious at four AM and didn’t feel like you had anyone to talk to? Mental health issues are a daily struggle for many people. In recent years people have started coming forward and...

By Annabel on 09/22/19 Comments Off

AI Fact Checking: Artificial? Yes. Intelligent?

The phenomenon of ‘Fake news’ is now a household discussion, journalists and fact-checking platforms working solely to analyze and debunk these false pieces of information are now becoming increasingly visible. While it’s becoming harder than ever to tackle the...

By Sagar Hugar on 09/22/19 Comments Off

The case of Landr: will AI affect music production creativity?

As AI-based technology has already slowly entered in many sectors of our digitally reshaped world, correspondingly it is increasingly being employed also in different fields of music production. (Fiebrink and Caramiaux, 2) The most popular of its applications is...

By Daniel Leix Palumbo on 09/24/18 Comments Off

Facebook “M assistant”: a power of suggestion

It was never a secret that Facebook for a long time was trying to engage AI technology to expand the activity on their social media services. From their introduction of functions to identify people who are depressed and who...

By Katarzyna Wiercioch on 09/23/18 Comments Off

Reading News From Knowhere in the Post-Truth World

Misinformation is one of the global risks outlined by the World Economic Forum in their Global Risks 2013 report. The world is grappling with the viral spread of unvetted information in a hyperconnected world. News media are implicated in...

By Darsana Vijay on 09/23/18 Comments Off

Facebook AI protects life from Live Streaming

In an era when everyone lives online, Facebook, the biggest social platform, adds constantly new tools for the user. One attractive feature is live streaming. Despite chatting and concerts that we are used to see, live video shows us...

By Anna Vallianatou on 09/23/18 Comments Off

AI IS WATCHING YOU

Artificial Intelligence is, and actually always has been, a hot topic of debate. In the computational sciences AI is conceptualized as the study of intelligent agents. The computer perceives the environment and consequently performs actions that are expected to...

By Robine Hartman on 09/23/18 Comments Off

‘M’ Assistant – a New Territory For Advertising

‘M’ is an Artificial Intelligent virtual assistant inside Messenger which aims to be helpful to its users when appropriate. M Assistant analyzes their normal conversation on Messenger and pops up to suggest one of the features within the app...

By Gergana Ivanova on 09/24/17 Comments Off

AI: is it just buzz or is it really changing the web design world?

“A.I. Websites. Build for Humans.” It has been quite a while since the non-stop futuristic flashy banners began showing up on my browser. The Grid is an AI web-builder that will build a website for you in a couple...

By Izumi Otsuka on 09/16/15 Comments Off

Artificial intelligence for everyone: indico.io

Image: Still from Amazon Machine Learning introduction video Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed alongside with computing since its earliest days. Today when thinking about AI the famous Kasparov beating chess computer Deep Blue, smartphone personal assistants like Siri or the...

By Clemens Buchegger on 09/14/15 Comments Off

Eternal life?

Eternal life is a fairytale. It is not possible to live forever. Or at least, this is the case these days. But what if it really becomes possible to live forever? According to three scientists, Anders Sandberg, Aubrey de...

By Laura van der Vlies on 10/19/07 2