Center for Information Integrity

AI and Society: CII Workshop 2025

The 2025 workshop will focus on exploring opportunities for CII’s contribution to the multiple initiatives taking shape at UB as part of the State wide Empire AI project, including the emerging plan for a new interdisciplinary Department, AI and Society.

NEH to fund John Fiege's film project, "Valley of Ashes"

10/18/24

CII member John Fiege received a $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support development of a new feature documentary, “The Valley of Ashes,” that focuses on the disposal of solid waste in New York City.

Community Health Speaks

2/18/24

Community Health Speaks is an initiative that has brought together a diverse group of individuals, including dedicated faculty from UB's Center for Information Integrity, Buffalo's key community centers, and residents from various backgrounds. Our mission is clear: to bridge the divide between the scientific community and those from historically marginalized communities.

Our primary goal is to raise awareness about health disparities and the transformative potential of research within our community. We understand that the power of research can only be fully harnessed when everyone has a seat at the table. That's why we are dedicated to engaging individuals from all walks of life, encouraging them to actively participate in discussions about research designs, implementation strategies, and outcomes.

Journalists turn to AI expert Lyu to spot deepfakes

11/20/23

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The Center for Information Integrity at the University at Buffalo is rooted in the shared conviction that accurate information is required for vigorous public debate within a democracy.

CII is devoted to the identification, amelioration, and combatting of unreliable information that pollutes the public sphere. Our members take on this existential threat from multidisciplinary approaches derived from fields as varied as history, literature, art, media study, information science, psychology, computer engineering, political science, geography, communication, law, and biomedical sciences.

Events

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Ophir-Five Lessons (3/26/25)
3/24/25
Five Lessons from Studying Thousands of Years of Misinformation (3/26/25)
Humans have never been motivated by accuracy. What's different today? Join us as Prof. Yotam Ophir explores misinforma,tion in the digital age. [Learn More]
How do We Search for Truth in a World Saturated with Illusions? (1/24/25)
3/24/25
How do We Search for Truth in a World Saturated with Illusions? There's a Puppet Show for that, and the Author of Don Quixote Wrote it! with Professor David Castillo. [Learn More]
S1M0NE (11/21/24)
1/15/25
A producer's film is endangered when his star walks off, so he decides to digitally create an actress to substitute for the star, becoming an overnight sensation that everyone thinks is a real person. Starring Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, and Rachel Roberts.
The Congress (11/5/24)
9/18/24
Robin Wright plays an aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider. Directed by Ari Folman.
Coded Bias (10/1/24)
1/15/25
An American documentary directed by Shalini Kantayya about artificial intelligence and the biases that can be embedded into this technology.
Learn More About DART (6/15/24 & 6/20/24)
6/13/24
We would like to invite you to two upcoming opportunities to learn more about our DART project:
The Promise and Peril of AI (6/19/24)
6/13/24
This summer’s UB Newman Center Summer 2024 Bridge Lecture Series will feature CII Members E. Bruce Pitman and David Castillo along with VP for University Libraries Evviva Weinraub Lajoie.
2024 CII Member Workshop
3/13/24
The 2024 CII workshop invites informal, open-ended discussions on how to cultivate informational resilience in the age of AI. We hope for these conversations to point the way forward and lay the groundwork for community-oriented research and collaborations across the range of fields represented by our membership. [Learn More]
Ethics of Science Communication (12/6/23)
11/20/23
Community Health Speaks (Oct. 4-Nov. 1, 2023)
10/23/23
Building Data Infrastructure for Justice (11/1/23)
10/23/23
Loyal Blues Book Club (Fall 2023)
10/23/23
Media Literacy in the Classroom and Beyond (11/3/23)
11/20/23

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Member News

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Neiheisel on Early-Voters Numbers
1/15/25
Jacob Neiheisel, Associate Professor in political science, was recently quoted in The Economist magazine.
Siwei Lyu quoted by Reuters
1/15/25
The article debunks an image of French President Emmanuel Macron shaking hands with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It turns out that this image was generated using Artificial Intelligence. Lyu, an expert in detecting deepfakes, told Reuters that a visual artifact in the image suggests it is AI-generated.
Gardner on Musk's $1M Sweepstakes
1/15/25
James Gardner, SUNY Distinguished Professor; Bridget and Thomas Black Professor, was recently quoted in an article by ABC News. The article was about America PAC, owned by Elon Musk, which was targeting registered voters in swing-state by running a $1 million sweepstakes.
Ophir on Misinformation in Hurricane Response
1/15/25
Yotam Ophir, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, was recently quoted in The Hill for his insights on how misinformation complicates disaster response, particularly during hurricanes.
David Castillo Featured in UB''s State of the University Video
1/15/25
In a moment of pride for the Center for Information Integrity (CII), David Castillo, was prominently featured in his role as Co-Director of CII, in the Video “Going All In on AI” presented during the President’s State of the University address.
Julien on Growing Threat of Misinformation in Disaster Response
1/15/25
Heidi Julien, professor of information science at the University at Buffalo's Graduate School of Education, was recently featured in The New Republic for her expert insights on the alarming rise of online misinformation and its impact on disaster response efforts.
NEH to fund Fiege's Film Project
10/18/24
CII member John Fiege received a $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support development of a new feature documentary, “The Valley of Ashes,” that focuses on the disposal of solid waste in New York City.
Mark Frank gives talk in Portugal
10/18/24
On Oct. 11, 2024, Mark Frank gave a talk at the World Conference on Facial Expression of Emotion on "Expressions within Expressions: Rapport, Deception, and Facial Expression of Emotion.
Deepfake-O-Meter
10/18/24
As it becomes easier and cheaper to use AI to create fake media, journalists and social media users are faced with the impossible task of trying to determine what to believe. Many turn to experts like CII Co-Director Siwei Lyu, who routinely obliges such requests. But the volume of requests can be overwhelming. That inspired Lyu and his Media Forensics Lab to develop DeepFake-o-Meter, a free, open-source, web-based platform that combines several state-of-the-art, deepfake-detection algorithms.
AI Task Force
6/14/24
UB’s Generative AI Task Force reported the findings of its yearlong, campuswide initiative to explore the possible uses of generative AI (GAI) in the classroom at a forum last month that also featured a wide-ranging discussion on the technology.
McCarron $84K Grant
6/14/24
Melissa McCarron was awarded a SUNY IITG grant to develop a mobile app with AI conversation support for culturally competent communication in Spanish across health professions, “Promoting culturally competent communication in Spanish across healthcare professions: A mobile application utilizing AI conversational tools”.
New Article by CII's David Castillo, E. Bruce Pitman, and Siwei Lyu
6/13/24
"Democracies everywhere are at risk unless we figure out how to promote and reward proactive action in the vital area of information integrity and discourage not just individual misbehavior but self-interested corporate inaction."
New Work by Matt Kenyon reflects on Climate Change
6/13/24
Climate change is often the target of unreliable information, especially in social media and in politically charged debates. Kenyon's work attempts to provide reliable, fact-based information and education on the topic, while also underscoring the urgency of the situation with visceral, even mythical, imagery.

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Partnerships

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Community Health Speaks
2/18/24
CII is proud to partner with Community Health Speaks, an initiative that has brought together a diverse group of individuals, including dedicated faculty from UB's Center for Information Integrity, Buffalo's key community centers, and residents from various backgrounds. Their mission is clear: to bridge the divide between the scientific community and those from historically marginalized communities.
Buffalo Museum of Science
10/11/22
A series of events organized by CII will be hosted at the Buffalo Museum of Science for a diverse audience including families. Topics from across the spectrum of mis/disinformation.
DART: Deception Awareness and Resilience Training
2/13/24
DART is a cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional, user-centered effort to develop games to help older adults recognize and navigate scams.
Education Collaborative of WNY
10/21/23
CII is partnering with the Education Collaborative of WNY to host a year long program with area high school teachers from Buffalo Public Schools and surrounding districts in collaboration with the News Literacy Project (NLP).
Connect with Us
7/10/23

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Unreliable Information in the News

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World-Class Researchers from 40+ Disciplines Seeking Socio-Technological Solutions to Combat Unreliable and Misleading Information

CII brings together renowned faculty from across the university to identify, evaluate, and mitigate the impact of unreliable information in key areas of public life including public health (e.g., vaccine hesitancy) climate change, and the integrity of democratic processes.

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Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter
4/18/24
Laurene Tumiel Berhalter, Associate Professor, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is Director of Community Translational Research. An epidemiologist by training, she has over 25 years’ experience conducting community-based participatory research and health disparities research to improve chronic disease self-management and cancer prevention among underserved communities.
Hongxin Hu
4/18/24
Hongxin Hu, Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering. researches security and privacy, networking and machine learning. His research has been funded by NSF, USDOT, Google, VMware, Amazon, Dell and more. He has published over 100 refereed technical papers, many of which appeared in top tier journals and presented at scientific conferences.
Heather Abraham
11/20/23
Heather Abraham, Visiting Associate Professor , School of Law , is Director of the UB Civil Rights & Transparency Clinic, a litigation clinic dedicated to enforcing and advancing civil rights and government accountability, with a particular emphasis on fair housing, open government, and freedom of the press.
Shambhu Upadhyaya
11/20/23
Shambhu Upadhyaya, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, and Director of the Center of Excellence in Information Systems Assurance Research and Education. His research focuses on protecting the United States’ infrastructure from cyber threats. That includes electric power grids, transportation systems, financial networks, military assets and water supplies.
Dalia Antionia Caraballo Muller
11/20/23
Dalia Antonia Caraballo Muller, Associate Professor, Latin American and Caribbean History, is a bilingual, multi-cultural, multi-racial researcher and educator. Her twin passions are the study of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the study of transformative learning models in higher education.
Jeff Good
11/20/23
Jeff Good, Professor, and Chair of the Department of Linguistics, researches how language choice influences the way a message is received and whether its source is viewed as trustworthy. He is an active member of the UB Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.
Heidi Julien
4/18/24
Heidi Julien, Professor, Information Science, focuses her research on digital literacy and information behavior. Her work seeks to understand how best to deliver digital literacy education to the public, including how to prepare and support digital literacy instructors, including librarians.
Mark Shepard
4/18/24
Mark Shepard, Associate Professor, Architecture and Media Study , is an artist, architect and researcher whose work addresses contemporary entanglements. His recent book, There Are No Facts: Attentive algorithms, extractive data practices and the quantification of everyday life (MIT Press), examines the uncommon ground we share in a post-truth world.