This month brings two changes. My project at Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab is complete, and I have started a new role as Field CTO for Microsoft Tech for Social Impact (TSI) in EMEA. And on January 15, I was accepted as a doctoral candidate in applied computer science.
Two years in the AI for Good Lab
In November 2021, I joined the AI for Good Lab. As a Senior Data Science Program Manager, I worked remotely from Frankfurt and joined the team in Redmond for a few weeks at a time, every quarter.
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Buy on Amazon Learn MoreThe lab showed me what data science looks like when the result has to hold up in public. One example is the 2022 report on cyberattacks in Ukraine, which drew on data analysis by the lab. Work like this is also where my research question took shape: how to protect the integrity of information when generative AI makes false content cheap to produce. Thanks to the team for two good years.
Field CTO, Microsoft Tech for Social Impact
Tech for Social Impact is the part of Microsoft that works with nonprofit organizations. As Field CTO for EMEA, I am the technical strategist for TSI’s largest customers in the region and advise them on their Azure and AI strategy. I remain based in Frankfurt.
After two years close to research, I now work directly with organizations that want to use AI in their daily work.
Starting a PhD
My doctorate runs through the Promotionszentrum Angewandte Informatik (PZAI), the joint doctoral center for applied computer science of four universities of applied sciences in Hesse. My PhD is co-supervised by Prof. Martin Kappes (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences) and Prof. Marc-Oliver Pahl (IMT Atlantique). Our conversations started last year, out of the questions I described in my post on ChatGPT and disinformation.
The topic is generative AI and disinformation: how AI-generated false news is produced, whether people and machines can recognize it, and which countermeasures actually help. The first step is a structured survey of the research literature on generative AI and fake news, to map the field before we run studies of our own.
I will do the PhD alongside my role at Microsoft. Both deal with AI and trust in information, so the two overlap more than it might seem. Where possible, I plan to publish the data and tools along with the papers.
