Name
Ziv Epstein, "Re-inventing The Attention Machine"
Date & Time
Friday, October 17, 2025, 12:45 PM - 1:10 PM
Speakers
Ziv Epstein, MIT "Re-inventing The Attention Machine" Today, algorithmic systems such as social media feeds and generative AI systems increasingly mediate human interactions and experiences. But interactions with these black-boxes reflect the worst of us due to impoverished objectives that amplify problematic content, induce algorithmic overreliance and monoculture. This funhouse mirror-room in turn raises new questions about representation, agency and creativity. Whose perspective and values are being implicitly and explicitly amplified by these algorithms? Where does accountability lie and insight come from? What do users really want in the long run and how do we encode that into machines? In this talk, I will discuss two lines of work. The first explores how to reinvent the engagement-based “attention machine” of social media the interfaces and algorithms by aligning them with users’ values. I will discuss the role of attention and distraction in browsing patterns online and how to design mitigations to fight misinformation at scale by shifting attention to accuracy. Then I will discuss how to measure which human values are being algorithmically amplified by social media algorithms, and if those align with people's own values. The second explores the domain of generative AI for creative application, and how we can foster active and divergent interactions with generative models to foster “serendipity” by re-injecting randomness into the models. Together, this work underscores the promise of new forms of interactions with algorithmic systems that center human agency to produce prosocial outcomes. Ziv Epstein is a postdoctoral associate at MIT sitting between Schwarzman School of Computing (SCC) and History, Theory & Criticism (HTC) in the School of Architecture. His current research explores how to audit the values amplified by social media ranking algorithms, and how to steer these algorithms to align with human values. Beyond social media, he is also interested in the impacts of AI on creative production in settings such as visual media and interpretative labor (e.g. divination). He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University (2023-2025), and received his PhD from the MIT Media Lab (2023) where his dissertation focused on new ways to operationalize and measure attention on social media and implications for fighting misinformation online. He has published papers in venues such as the general interest journals Nature, Science and PNAS, as well as top-tier computer science proceedings such as CHI and CSCW. His work has received widespread media attention in outlets like the New York Times, Scientific American, and Fast Company. He is also a practicing multimedia artist whose work has been featured in Ars Electronica, the MIT Museum, and Burning Man.
Location Name
Kline Tower 14th Floor
Full Address
Kline Tower
219 Prospect St, 14th Floor
New Haven, CT 06511
United States
Session Type
Lecture
