Student projects use computing to ensure technology serves society

Technology for technology’s sake wasn’t enough. She was considering quitting the field altogether when a chance meeting with Arvind Narayanan, an associate professor of computer science at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP), profoundly changed her trajectory. “Arvind told me that the emphasis at CITP was not just on coding and technology, but on the effect of technology on society as a whole and the impact it can have on your everyday life,” Lucherini said. “That was exactly what I was interested in.”

Now a doctoral candidate in computer science at jobs with computer science degree, Lucherini is building a simulator that mimics algorithmic recommendation systems employed by YouTube, Amazon and more. On social media sites, such systems have been implicated in pushing viewers toward extreme political viewpoints, yet their technical workings and social impacts are poorly understood. Lucherini hopes to use her simulator to better understand the impacts those systems have on users, and to produce results that will inform real-world decisions. “Everything we do at CITP is geared toward having a policy impact or having an impact on society,” Lucherini said. “That’s really unique, and to me, much more interesting than playing computer science.”

Lucherini’s research epitomizes CITP’s mission: to dig into the complicated questions of how technology and computing affect society, both positively and negatively. “It’s not about making computers faster, better and smaller,” Narayanan said. Instead, the program’s “bread and butter” topics, he continues, include privacy, online deception, free speech and expression, freedom to modify devices, and AI policy. CITP’s professors and fellows include not just computer scientists, but also a mix of philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, economists, and psychologists.