[CS] TODAY: Shawn Shan Dissertation Defense/Jul 7, 2025

[via cs]

This is an announcement of Shawn Shan's Dissertation Defense.
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Candidate: Shawn Shan

Date: Monday, July 07, 2025

Time:  1 pm CST

Remote Location: https://uchicago.zoom.us/my/shawnshan?pwd=S2tkejNTM3pHNkNsbytJTGtKVWFBQT09

Location: JCL 346

Title: Protecting and Empowering Stakeholders in Today’s AI ecosystem

Abstract: The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has created a complex ecosystem where competing interests—governments, creators, AI companies, and users—intersect. This power dynamic has sparked tension between innovation, regulation, and individual rights. Balancing and accommodating the power tussle among stakeholders is essential for the sustainable development of AI. Today, the current ecosystem concentrates most power and control in the hands of a few entities, resulting in unintended harms and suboptimal development. 

My research tackles these challenges by developing technical solutions to mitigate the harms of AI misuse and restore power balance among stakeholders. I will present my work on a proactive data protection system that employs clean-label data poisoning techniques to prevent unwanted data scraping. Then, I will discuss a stronger type of attack leveraging vulnerabilities in data labeling pipeline of diffusion models. Finally, I will discuss maximizing external impact of my work and my vision for building a more collaborative AI ecosystem.

Advisors: Ben Zhao and Heather Zheng

Committee Members: Ben Zhao, Heather Zheng, Grant Ho, and Stefan Savage