Zeynep Tufekci

New York Times Columnist | Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University
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Dr. Zeynep Tufekci is an internationally renowned techno-sociologist whose work analyzes the intersections of science, technology, politics, and society. The New York Times billed her as someone who has “quietly made a habit of being right on the big things.” She asks hard questions about challenges including AI, privacy and surveillance, social movements, and public health, and answers them in ways that defy disciplinary boundaries. Aided by her background as a computer programmer, her current work as a sociologist, a penchant for complex systems-based thinking, and an international perspective as a Turkish-born American, Zeynep offers unique and often controversial insights on the topics you’re already thinking about—and the ones you should be. Dr. Tufekci is a New York Times opinion columnist and the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
With artificial intelligence on the rise, Zeynep’s longtime work on the social and moral implications of how we use machine learning, big data, and algorithmic decision-making is more important than ever. While everyone else is worried about mass technological unemployment and having existential crises about robots taking over the world, Tufekci argues that the true threat of artificial intelligence is rooted in privacy and human rights violations. She links the AI-powered erosion of privacy in processes such as facial recognition to the early stages of authoritarianism. Because of her work in this space, Zeynep appeared as a featured expert in the documentary Coded Bias, which exposed the racial and gender discrimination coded into the algorithms controlling many aspects of our lives. The film reveals that these AI systems—once thought to be neutral and impartial—are only as objective as the people who build them and the data on which they’re trained.
Tufekci is the author of Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. In it, she examines the power of using social media to mobilize large numbers of people in political protest and why many modern social movements lack the direction to foster real change once the protest is over. Of the book, Washington Post said, “It is Tufekci’s personal experience in the squares and streets, melded with her scholarly insights on technology and communication platforms, that makes Twitter and Tear Gas such an unusual and illuminating work.” The paper also named it one of its “50 Notable Works of Nonfiction” in the year of its release.
Zeynep Tufekci was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary for her “insightful, often prescient, columns on the pandemic and American culture […] that brought clarity to the shifting official guidance and compelled us towards greater compassion and informed response.” She remains a prominent voice in the public health space, publishing insights that call attention to the extensive disregard of those suffering with long COVID and that examine what we can learn from our missteps during this pandemic to better prepare for the next one.
Prior to joining the New York Times as a columnist, Tufekci spent years as a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Scientific American, and Wired. She was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, a fellow at the Princeton University Center for Information Technology, and the Inaugural Director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University.

Topics

Everyone is Having the Wrong Nightmares: AI’s True Threats

Every day we see new think pieces about robots taking our jobs and advanced AI systems taking over the world and doing away with humanity as a whole. But are we worrying about the wrong things? Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci argues that while the existential threat of AI is exciting to think about, it’s not at all based in reality. Our primary concern should center on how AI is exacerbating the already troubling issues with privacy and surveillance. Outdated laws no longer protect us. Big Tech’s influence makes it impossible to conceal both online and offline activities. Bad actors can and will utilize your data with malicious intent and impact. And AI—growing at record speed without regulation—makes this all faster and easier. In this talk, Zeynep outlines how this supercharged erosion of privacy is paving the path toward authoritarianism and what must be done to stop it.

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Back to the Basics: Educating in the Age of AI

It’s hard being a teacher today. You often wonder if your students mastered the material…or if they’ve become master ChatGPT prompt engineers. Will the content you’re teaching them and the careers you’re preparing them for be obsolete in a few years? The world is changing so fast and in such profound ways that it can be hard to keep up. Professor Zeynep Tufekci makes the unconventional case for relying on the old while embracing the new. Don’t view AI programs as the enemy; teach students how to work alongside the technology. Much like the calculator, these new tools still require knowledge for their most effective use. And though previously in-demand skills may soon be better performed by generative AI than people, it’s important to recognize that there will always be something that outperforms us. Cheetahs run faster than humans and that doesn’t keep us up at night. So rather than leaning into every passing technological fad, prepare your students for the future of work by impressing upon them the value of classic and unalienable human strengths such as logic and critical thinking. This talk offers educators insight on how to best serve students coming of age and entering the workforce in this AI-saturated era.

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Videos

One big thing missing from the AI conversation | Zeynep Tufekci | GZERO World
Zeynep Tufekci
Artificial Intelligence New Frontiers, Old Problems | AISSR Lecture by Zeynep Tufekci
Zeynep Tufekci
Machine intelligence makes human morals more important | TED
Zeynep Tufekci
Zeynep Tufekci on Facebook’s data collecting, anti-privacy business model
Zeynep Tufekci
Zeynep Tufekci on the Sociology of The Moment (Live) | Conversations with Tyler
Zeynep Tufekci
We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads | TED
Zeynep Tufekci
Online social change: easy to organize, hard to win | TED
Zeynep Tufekci
Twitter and Tear Gas - Zeynep Tufekci | The Open Mind
Zeynep Tufekci
How online social movements translate to offline results
Zeynep Tufekci

Articles

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Could Long Covid Be the Senate’s Bipartisan Cause?
New York Times
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We Need Information, Not Apologies, From Tech Companies
New York Times
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I'm Not a Fan of TikTok, but We Can't Blame It for Everything
New York Times
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A Strongman President? These Voters Crave It
New York Times
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The Truth About Airplane Safety
New York Times
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Past Lies About War in the Middle East are Getting in the Way of the Truth Today
New York Times
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Why Does the Nobel Committee Overlook Saudi Women Activists?
New York Times
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Cats With Bird Flu? The Threat Grows.
New York Times
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The Government Must Say What It Knows About Covid's Origins
New York Times
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America is Painfully Exceptional
New York Times
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Here's Why the Science Is Clear That Masks Work
New York Times
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An Even Deadlier Pandemic Could Soon Be Here
New York Times
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The Shameful Open Secret Behind Southwest's Failure
New York Times
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What Would Plato Say About ChatGPT?
New York Times
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I Was Wrong About Why Protests Work
New York Times
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Why ‘Smart’ Objects May Be a Dumb Idea
New York Times

Podcasts

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Activism & Advocacy
Big Data & Data Science
Technology
Social Media
Artificial Intelligence
Social Commentary
Women's Voices
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