CII Lecture Series: AI and Us

E. Bruce Pitman is a Professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation. The author or co-author of more than 90 research articles, he has been a principal investigator or co-investigator on approximately $15M of research and equipment awards. An expert in mathematical modeling, for the last two decades he has been studying uncertainty quantification – techniques for understanding uncertainty in models of physical or biological systems, and how computing can account for these uncertainties.

Cynthia Tysick is Innovative Pedagogy and Creative Spaces Librarian at the UB. Her reserach interests include: Digital Identity, Information Literacy, UN SDGs, Digital Pedagogy, and Media Literacy. She is interested in the transition of high school students to first-year college undergraduates. Specifically, how well have they been prepared to use information sources for a successful undergraduate experience? Are incoming students information, media, and digital literate? What positive and negative roles has the Internet, social media, and tools like Wikipedia and Google had on students' ability to discern mis/dis-information? Can we measure their perceived, versus actual, critical multimodal literacy skills? Finally, what role does the library play in educating a global citizenry?

The show is a collaboration between LINKT at the University of Buffalo Libraries and the UB Center for Information Integrity. Whether you are a student, a worker, or just curious, AI & Us breaks it down in mintues, not megabytes.

The first five episodes of the podcast features a conversation between Tysick and E. Bruce Pitman, Professor in the Dept. of Materials Design and Innovation. They have graciously agreed to summarize that wide-ranging conversation for the second installment of our 2025 CII Lecture Series. Topics covered will include the history of AI, How it Works, and What it Costs in terms of power, environmental impact, and social costs.