By Business & Finance 
We spoke with Angelika Sharygina, a political advisor, PhD researcher and founder specialising in AI and information integrity.
Angelika Sharygina is a PhD researcher at Trinity College Dublin and start-up founder specialising in AI and information integrity.
With a key focus of the upcoming Dublin Tech Summit on AI and the importance of trusted information, we asked Sharygina, a veteran Dublin Tech Summit speaker herself, about her work and the need for the general public to understand more about the fast-developing technology.
“My key priority has always been in fighting for information integrity and making sure that everyone has the same, democratized access to information. I’m looking at the problem of disinformation as a virus and my biggest concern is war zones because they become this experimental field where a lot of new weapons are being tried and new information warfare is being implemented.”
Sharygina attended The World Economic Forum this year and said they ranked disinformation from war zones as one of the biggest threats to humanity both in the long run and short run.
“This year I’ve been very involved in many AI-for-good initiatives and looking into how we can shape better policies around AI and information integrity.”
Her work was motivated by the extreme cases of how information can be misused, particularly with that abuse of information during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“There’s a lot of manipulation of different kinds and now, it’s much easier to manipulate information. With any large language model and a good prompt, in 3 seconds you can manipulate content”
Many people use AI for good but there are as many people that use AI for bad and in the context of a war, the whole propaganda machine can work against many many people, she says.
“Similarly, for peace preservation, it’s so important to have access to clear information because we see how information can fuel different movements that might be dangerous for civil society as well.”
Sharygina is particularly interested in how the general public can protect themselves.
“To learn what the best interventions are, to ensure that people are shielded from the disinformation virus and do not spread it further.”
Sharygina stepped up as a thought leader in this area when she saw injustices around the world, particularly as the war in Ukraine began.
“I was very involved in different initiatives during the first year of the war and it opened up my mind that if you don’t step up, someone else will do it in the wrong way. It was about democratic values and access to information and how people in society must be treated equally.”
The Ethics of AI
Sharygina believes the public has a right to know about AI ethics and there is an education piece required. With the glut of legislation and guidelines, there is a lot for people to digest, particularly if AI is not their area of expertise.
“One assumes that people know right from wrong but speaking in a technological sense, in the world of AI, the advances are being made very quickly. Do we understand enough about what I suppose the baseline ethics that we should all expect, and how they might be in actually influencing or informing the kind of rules that are being formed around AI.”
“At an AI action summit in Paris, where I was honoured to be representing Ireland as part of an official delegation, I learned of an initiative to support the public learning more about the ethics of AI and how it works.”
This, Sharygina believes, is key. At the moment, only the AI community fully understands the impact and yet it will affect us all.
Dublin Tech Summit will take place on 28-29 May. To view the full agenda, please see here: https://dublintechsummit.tech/agenda/
DTS currently has a 50% off flash ticket sale. For more info, please see here: https://dublintechsummit.tech/
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