Virtual Event
Expertise on Demand: AI in Journalism, Academia, and Thought Leadership
With support from the Future of Life Institute.
A quiet crisis may be unfolding within the foundations of expertise and thought leadership. While artificial intelligence promises increased efficiency in almost every industry, evidence of AI usage is increasingly occurring in peer-reviewed academic works, and databases are starting to show evidence of AI hallucinations. The media industry is being further weakened by a reliance on generated posts, LLMs are already affecting polling data, and the debate is raging over how to incorporate AI into government decision-making processes.
We may become a society where experts not only use AI, but increasingly rely on it.
At what point does algorithmic assistance become an intellectual liability? How can the public distinguish between expertise built on a career of education and experience, against an armchair expert using AI tools?
Join the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as we explore how AI may lead to a hollowing out of experience, and eventually to a crisis of leadership.
Alexandra Bell is the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Prior to this, Bell served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Affairs in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability (ADS) at the U.S. Department of State. From 2017 to 2021, she was the Senior Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and the Council for a Livable World. Previously, Bell served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and as an Advisor in ADS, then named the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance. She also worked on nuclear policy issues at the Ploughshares Fund and the Center for American Progress. She received a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the New School, and a Bachelor’s degree in Peace, War and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Joan Donovan is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media Studies at Boston University. She focuses on media manipulation, sociology of knowledge and expertise, and networked social movements. Previously she was the Research Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media Politics and Public Policy, where she directed the Technology and Social Change Research Project. She coauthored Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America, and has been published in outlets including MIT Technology Review, NPR, Washington Post, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The Atlantic. She completed her PhD in Sociology and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics.
Andrew Gray is a librarian at University College London, specializing in the use of bibliometric tools and methods. In 2024, he published some of the first analyses indicating the widespread undisclosed use of AI tools in published research.
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