Stanford University

30 Years After the Nuclear Tests: Lessons Learnt By India | Amitabh Mattoo

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Seminar Recording

About the Event: This talk will look at the experience of India in terms of its security, identity, and the command of nuclear weapons since 1998.

About the Speaker: Professor Amitabh Mattoo is Professor of Disarmament Studies at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. He has been an Advisor of Cabinet-Rank to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and a Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu. He has been a member of India’s National Security Council’s Advisory Board and a member of the Prime Minister’s National Knowledge Commission. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India for his contribution to public life.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Amitabh Mattoo
Seminars
Research Seminar Series
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Stanford Health Policy Seminar: Anna Grummon

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Anna Grummon, Stanford Pediatrics

Anna H. Grummon is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine. She is a behavioral scientist whose work seeks to identify and evaluate policies that encourage healthy eating and help us live long, healthy lives. In her work, Grummon uses randomized trials, quasi-experiments, and simulation modeling to examine how food policies like warning labels, beverage taxes, and food assistance programs affect what we eat and how healthy we are. She also studies strategies for encouraging people to choose foods that are more environmentally sustainable. Grummon holds a PhD and MSPH in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a BA with Honors in Human Biology from Stanford. She completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard.

Talk Title: Improving Diet Through Food Policy

Abstract: Unhealthy diet is a leading cause of death in the US. Policy changes could improve diet and help prevent the 500,000 deaths attributable to unhealthy diet in the US each year. This talk will provide evidence about the potential for three policies to improve diet: warning labels for sugary drinks, mandatory calorie disclosures on restaurant menus, and minimum price laws for sugary drinks. Using data from randomized controlled trials, quasi-experiments, and simulation models, we examine how these policies are likely to affect consumer behavior, the food supply, and population health outcomes like obesity.   

 

 

 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Registration

Hybrid Seminar: Lunch will be provided for on-campus participants.
Please register if you plan to attend, both for in-person and via Zoom.

Log in on your computer, or join us in person:
Encina Commons, Room 119
615 Crothers Way
Stanford, CA 94305

Seminars

Interactive Simulacra of Human Opinions and Behavior

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image of Michael Bernstein, associate professor of computer science on a blue bcakground

Join the Cyber Policy Center, together with the Program on Democracy and the Internet, on Tuesday May 9th from Noon – 1 PM Pacific, for Interactive Simulacra of Human Opinions and Behavior, a conversation with Michael Bernstein, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. This session is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center with the Program on Democracy and the Internet. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance. Registration is required. Session will take place in McClatchy Hall #S40. McClatchy Hall is near the Oval, a short distance from Encina Hall.

Believable proxies of human attitudes and behavior can empower interactive applications ranging from immersive environments to improved content moderation tools. Bernstein will illustrate this concept through two applications. The first is generative agents: computational software agents that simulate believable human behavior. Generative agents wake up, cook breakfast, and head to work; artists paint, while authors write; they form opinions, notice each other, and initiate conversations; they remember and reflect on days past as they plan the next day. We instantiate generative agents to populate an interactive sandbox environment inspired by The Sims, where end users can interact with a small town of twenty five agents using natural language. The second is jury learning: an AI architecture intended for tasks that feature substantial disagreement between people, which resolves these disagreements explicitly through the metaphor of a jury: defining which people or groups, in what proportion, determine the classifier's prediction.
 

About the Speaker

Michael Bernstein is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he is a Bass University Fellow and STMicroelectronics Faculty Scholar. His research in human-computer interaction focuses on the design of social computing systems. This research has won best paper awards at top conferences in human-computer interaction, including CHI, CSCW, ICWSM, and UIST, and has been reported in venues such as The New York Times, Science, Wired, and The Guardian. Michael has been recognized with an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, UIST Lasting Impact Award, and the Patrick J. McGovern Tech for Humanity Prize. He holds a bachelor's degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, as well as a master's degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT.

McClatchy Hall #S40

Michael Bernstein
Seminars

Stanford Health Policy Seminar: Wesley Yin

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Wesley Yin

Wesley Yin is an Associate Professor of Economics at UCLA, in the Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Anderson School of Management. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and currently a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Yin’s research focuses on health care, consumer finance, and economic inequality. Previously, he served in the Obama Administration as Acting Chief Economist and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Microeconomic Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department, and in the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Abstract: One in six Americans has unpaid medical debt in collections amounting to more than $140 billion nationally, yet there is limited understanding of its impacts on households. This study examines the effect of randomized medical debt relief totaling $175 million across more than 80,000 households. We examine outcomes from three data sources: (1) administrative data on future debt sent to collections; (2) quarterly credit report data spanning at least two years before and after debt relief; and (3) survey measures of self-reported health (clinically-validated screenings for depression, anxiety, and general health), health care utilization, and financial well-being elicited one year after treatment. 

Yin will be joining the seminar in person and is happy to arrange meetings with attendees.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Registration

Hybrid Seminar: Lunch will be provided for on-campus participants.
Please register if you plan to attend, both for in-person and via Zoom.

Log in on your computer, or join us in person:
Encina Commons, Room 119
615 Crothers Way
Stanford, CA 94305

Seminars

Strengthening Sanctions Against the Russian Federation: Updates in Action Plan 2.0

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Michael McFaul, director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and several other members of the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions will speak about and answer questions about the group's new white paper, "Action Plan 2.0 on Strengthening Sanctions against the Russian Federation." The event will begin with brief presentations from the following working group members, with additional commentary from other members afterwards: 
 

  • Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow, Stockholm Free World Forum
  • Andriy Boytsun, Founder and Editor of the Ukrainian SOE Weekly; Independent Corporate Governance Consultant; Former Member of the Strategic Advisory Group for Supporting Ukrainian Reforms
  • Benjamin Hilgenstock, Senior Economist, KSE Institute in Frankfurt, Germany
  • Dr. Craig Kennedy, Center Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and Former Vice Chairman, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
  • Oleksandr Novikov, Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention
  • Nataliia Shapoval, Vice President for Policy Research, Kyiv School of Economics
     

Additional comments by:
 

  • James Hodson, Director and Chief Executive Officer of AI for Good; Researcher at the Jozef Stefan Institute Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Slovenia
  • Dr. Benjamin Schmitt, Project Development Scientist at Harvard University; Senior Fellow for Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis; Rethinking Diplomacy Fellow at Duke University
  • Pavlo Verkhniatskyi, Managing Partner and Director at COSA

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

Our working group of independent, international experts aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
Learn more
Michael A. McFaul
Michael McFaul

Via Zoom

Seminars

Generative AI and the End of Trust

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headshot of Jeff Hancock, with text reading Generative AI and the end of Trust, May 2 noon pacific

Join the Cyber Policy Center, together with the Program on Democracy and the Internet, on Tuesday May 2nd from Noon – 1 PM Pacific, for Generative AI and the End of Trust, a conversation with Jeff Hancock, co-director of the CPC and director of the Stanford Social Media Lab. The session will be moderated by Nate Persily. This session is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center with the Program on Democracy and the Internet. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance. Registration is required. Session will take place in McClatchy Hall #S40. McClatchy Hall is near the Oval, a short distance from Encina Hall.

The impact of recent AI advancements has massive implications for trust in human interactions. There is not only a growing role of AI in financial decision-making, risk assessment, and fraud detection, but the introduction of generative AI will challenge the maintenance of trust and accountability in an increasingly AI-mediated world. In this talk, Hancock will cover recent research on how people perceive and detect AI in human communication, and how generative AI is likely to undermine trust in several important human domains.

About the Speaker

Jeff Hancock is the Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University, Founding Director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, and co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. He is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI). A leading expert in social media behavior and the psychology of online interaction, Professor Hancock studies the impact of social media and AI technology on social cognition, well-being, deception and trust, and how we use and understand language. Recently Professor Hancock has begun work on understanding the mental models people have about algorithms in social media, as well as working on the ethical issues associated with computational social science. He is also Founding Editor of the Journal of Trust & Safety.

Nathaniel Persily
Nathaniel Persily

McClatchy Hall #S40

Jeff Hancock
Seminars

Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia – An In-Person Conversation with Ambassador Scot Marciel

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Scot Marciel and Imperfect Partners book cover

690 million people. 11 countries.  A $3 trillion-plus GDP.  Southeast Asia is a critical region of growing strategic and economic importance. Yet in the United States it does not receive the attention and study it deserves.  Ambassador Scot Marciel, who spent the bulk of his 35-year diplomatic career working in and on the region, has written an essential new book – “Imperfect Partners:  The United States and Southeast Asia” – that combines extensive research and his first-hand experience to explore the ups and downs in U.S. relations with key partners in the region over the past 30-40 years.  The book offers practical, timely recommendations on how to strengthen U.S.-Southeast Asian ties in this new era of U.S.-China competition.

Please join APARC’s Southeast Asia Program for Ambassador Marciel’s conversation with Program Director Professor Don Emmerson.  Ambassador Marciel will discuss how and why U.S.-Southeast Asian relations have brought both benefits and disappointments on both sides of the Pacific.  He will argue that the U.S. can best advance its strategic interests by engaging the region on its own substantial merits rather than viewing it through a lens focused on China.

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Ambassador Scot Marciel is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.  He retired from the U.S. State Department in April 2022 after a 37-year career that included assignments as the first U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN, Ambassador to Indonesia and to Myanmar, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific.  He witnessed the Philippine People Power revolt as a junior foreign service officer in Manila and was the first U.S. diplomat to serve in Hanoi after the Vietnam War.

Lunch will be provided 

Donald K. Emmerson
Donald K. Emmerson, Director, Southeast Asia Program

Scot Marciel

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Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow
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Scot Marciel was the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, affiliated with the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2022-2024. Previously, he was a 2020-22 Visiting Scholar and Visiting Practitioner Fellow on Southeast Asia at APARC.  A retired diplomat, Mr. Marciel served as U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar from March 2016 through May 2020, leading a mission of 500 employees during the difficult Rohingya crisis and a challenging time for both Myanmar’s democratic transition and the United States-Myanmar relationship.  Prior to serving in Myanmar, Ambassador Marciel served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department, where he oversaw U.S. relations with Southeast Asia.

From 2010 to 2013, Scot Marciel served as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country.  He led a mission of some 1000 employees, expanding business ties, launching a new U.S.-Indonesia partnership, and rebuilding U.S.-Indonesian military-military relations.  Prior to that, he served concurrently as the first U.S. Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia from 2007 to 2010.

Mr. Marciel is a career diplomat with 35 years of experience in Asia and around the world.  In addition to the assignments noted above, he has served at U.S. missions in Turkey, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Brazil and the Philippines.  At the State Department in Washington, he served as Director of the Office of Maritime Southeast Asia, Director of the Office of Mainland Southeast Asia, and Director of the Office of Southern European Affairs.  He also was Deputy Director of the Office of Monetary Affairs in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.

Mr. Marciel earned an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a BA in International Relations from the University of California at Davis.  He was born and raised in Fremont, California, and is married with two children.

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Scot Marciel, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow, Stanford University
Seminars

Spring Seminar Series | Candice Odgers

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Join the Cyber Policy Center, together with the Program on Democracy and the Internet for a conversation with Candice Odgers, Professor of Psychological Science and Informatics at UC Irvine, moderated by Jeff Hancock, co director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. This session is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center with the Program on Democracy and the Internet. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance. 

Further details on the seminar will be forthcoming.

Jeff Hancock
Candice Odgers
Seminars

Theory of Mind May Have Spontaneously Emerged in Large Language Models

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Michal Kosinski headshot with text reading Tuesday April 25th noon pacific, on green background

Join the Cyber Policy Center, together with the Program on Democracy and the Internet, for Theory of Mind May Have Spontaneously Emerged in Large Language Models, a conversation with Michal Kosinski moderated by Jeff Hancock, co director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. This session is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center with the Program on Democracy and the Internet. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance. 

Theory of mind (ToM), or the ability to impute unobservable mental states to others, is central to human social interactions, communication, empathy, self-consciousness, and morality. We will present results suggesting that ToM-like ability (thus far considered to be uniquely human) may have spontaneously emerged in Large Language Models, as a byproduct of their improving language skills. We will discuss the impact of these findings on our understanding of human and artificial brains and behavior.

About the Speaker:

Michal is a Professor at Stanford University. He studies humans in a digital environment using cutting-edge computational methods, AI and Big Data. He has co-authored Modern Psychometrics (a popular textbook) and published over 90 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals including Nature Scientific Reports, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Machine Learning, that have been cited over 17,000 times. He is among the Top 1% of the Highly Cited Researchers according to Clarivate. His research inspired a cover of The Economist, a 2014 theatre play “Privacy”, multiple TED talks, a video game, and was discussed in thousands of books, press articles, podcasts, and documentaries. Michal was behind the first press article warning against Cambridge Analytica. His research exposed the privacy risks that they have exploited and measured the efficiency of their methods. He holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of Cambridge and master's degrees in psychometrics and in social psychology. He used to work as a post-doctoral scholar at Stanford's Computer Science Department, the Deputy Director of the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, and a researcher at Microsoft Research (Machine Learning Group).

Jeff Hancock

Moghadam 123

Michal Kosinski
Seminars

CANCELLED | Live Free or Die: A Ukrainian Parliamentarian on Lessons from the War | Oleksiy Goncharenko

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Lunch will be served at the William J. Perry Conference Room from 12:00 PM-12:30 PM

About the Event: What is happening in Ukraine? The free world is fighting a war against dictatorship. And good news...the free world is winning.

About the Speaker: Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian politician, member of the Ukrainian parliament, member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and Vice President of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. He is a member of the "European Solidarity" group in Parliament, and head of the caucuses "For Democratic Belarus," and "For Free Caucasus." 

After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Oleksiy Goncharenko joined the country’s civilian Territorial Defense Forces for the first month. Не has fought against Russian propaganda, and he also publishes widely in international media in order to bring the truth to the world about Ukraine. He was included in the sanctioned persons lists of the Russian Federation. 

Oleksiy is a founder of Ukraine’s largest network of educational-cultural centers, the Goncharenko Centers, which since February 2022 have become volunteer hubs.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Oleksiy Goncharenko
Seminars
Research Seminar Series
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