Ben Zhao

When the computer scientist Ben Zhao learned that artists were having their work stolen by A.I. models, he invented a tool to thwart the machines. He also knows how to foil an eavesdropping Alexa and how to guard your online footprint. The big news, he says, is that the A.I. bubble is bursting.   SOURCES:Erik Brynjolfsson, professor of economics at Stanford University Ben Zhao, professor of computer science at the University of Chicago   RESOURCES:"The AI lab waging a guerrilla war over exploitative AI," by Melissa Heikkilä (MIT Technology Review, 2024) "Glaze: Protecting Artists from Style Mimicry by Text-to-Image Models," by Shawn Shan, Jenna Cryan, Emily Wenger, Haitao Zheng, Rana Hanocka, and Ben Y. Zhao (Cornell University, 2023) "Nightshade: Prompt-Specific Poisoning Attacks on Text-to-Image Generative Models," by Shawn Shan, Wenxin Ding, Josephine Passananti, Stanley Wu, Haitao Zheng, and Ben Y. Zhao (Cornell University, 2023) "A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: What It Is, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going," by Michael Woodridge (2021)   EXTRAS:"Nuclear Power Isn’t Perfect. Is It Good Enough?" by Freakonomics Radio (2022) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ben Zhao

Neubauer Professor of Computer Science

University of Chicago

Erik Brynjolfsson

Economist and Professor

Stanford UniversityMIT Initiative on the Digital EconomyStanford Digital Economy Lab

Today we’re joined by Ben Zhao, a Neubauer professor of computer science at the University of Chicago. In our conversation, we explore his research at the intersection of security and generative AI. We focus on Ben’s recent Fawkes, Glaze, and Nightshade projects, which use “poisoning” approaches to provide users with security and protection against AI encroachments. The first tool we discuss, Fawkes, imperceptibly “cloaks” images in such a way that models perceive them as highly distorted, effectively shielding individuals from recognition by facial recognition models. We then dig into Glaze, a tool that employs machine learning algorithms to compute subtle alterations that are indiscernible to human eyes but adept at tricking the models into perceiving a significant shift in art style, giving artists a unique defense against style mimicry. Lastly, we cover Nightshade, a strategic defense tool for artists akin to a 'poison pill' which allows artists to apply imperceptible changes to their images that effectively “breaks” generative AI models that are trained on them. The complete show notes for this episode can be found at twimlai.com/go/668.

Ben Zhao

Neubauer Professor of Computer Science

University of Chicago