We’re living in a time when science is reshaping how we understand everything, from the origins of life to the future of machine intelligence. One podcast is diving deep into those mysteries.
“Particles of Thought” tapped astrophysicist and author Hakeem Oluseyi to explore questions that are as mind-bending as they are important scientifically. Oluseyi joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about the podcast’s latest episodes. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: I’m excited to talk about this because there are science podcasts out there, but “Particles of Thought” is a different kind of science podcast. I know science teaching and communication is a passion of yours, so explain what’s different about “Particles of Thought.”
“It’s a real conversation between an expert and a fan who knows nothing — but I do know a little bit because I’m a trained scientist.”
Hakeen Oluseyi, host of NOVA’s “Particles of Thought”
Hakeem Oluseyi: It’s sort of a look behind the curtain of what happens when you have scientists just conversing about their wild ideas, right? So it’s a combination of what you know, but one thing that’s characterized my career is ignorance.
I say that because I had a very humble upbringing; I was raised in Mississippi and was educated — my early education — there, from middle school through college. I found myself at Stanford University, and I … You know, it was obvious that I was not as well-educated as most around me. Maybe equally talented, but as far as the knowledge in my mind, I didn’t have it, right?
I was never ashamed of that. I was never ashamed of being ignorant, never ashamed of asking questions. And it turned out that — sometimes people feel like [other] people will see you as being stupid if you have questions. It’s the opposite, right? Everybody appreciated me for the questions that I asked.
I just want to know. I find the people fascinating, I find their research amazing and I have been curious about this natural world that we live in. So, instead of being the guy with all the answers or an interviewer that just asks question after question, this is a real conversation. It’s a real conversation between an expert and a fan who knows nothing — but I do know a little bit because I’m a trained scientist, but I think of myself as knowing nothing.
Rath: I love that. That’s a great way to learn, and it helps all of us learn along the way. The latest episode is called “The Deepfake Detective,” and it features a conversation with Hany Farid, a leading expert on digital misinformation. Here’s a clip.
Hany Farid, pre-recorded: Deepfakes is an umbrella term for using machine learning AI to wholecloth create images, audio and video of things that have never existed or happened.
For example, I can go to my favorite deepfake generator and say, “Give me an image of Hakeem in a studio doing a podcast with Professor Hany Farid.” And actually, it would do a pretty good job — because you have a presence online, I have somewhat of a presence online, [the generator] knows what we look like. And it would generate an image that’s not exactly this, but something like that.
Or, I can say, “please” — by the way, I still say please when I ask AI for things. One of my students told me that this is a good idea because when the AI overlords come, they’re gonna remember you were polite to them. I actually really like this advice.
Rath: You know, I’ve got to tell you, I do the same thing. I say “please” and “thank you” with ChatGPT. But coming back to deepfakes, here, I thought I knew deepfakes, but you go deep on this. Tell us about why you wanted to dive deep into this right now.
Oluseyi: Well, this is very relevant, right? This is something that’s taking the world by storm. And people can’t tell anymore what’s real and what’s fake. We’re at the beginning of this, so it’s only going to get better — AI is only going to get better at reproducing reality.
So, what can you do? What happens in this conversation is Hany goes into a lot of tips and tricks that aren’t at the forefront of your mind, necessarily, if you’re not an expert in this. But the second he tells you what these tips and tricks are, it’s obvious.That’s a way of getting to the bottom of it.
But I think that we’re in a time now where the internet is becoming more and more a part of our lives, even though it’s already central to everything, every element of our lives. Even our appliances are connected to Wi-Fi. And as we go forward, there are so many security issues.
We’ve had identity theft in the past. We’ve had things like phishing, where people send you a message imitating someone that you may know, you click on a link, and now you’re compromised. Well, imagine what havoc deepfakes can wreak.
As a society, as we are here choosing our leaders, choosing how we’re going to live our lives and educate our children, we need to know that we’re getting solid information from actual experts who are using evidence-based methods to determine what’s real. And also, if we’re viewing something, right? If we’re viewing a video that appears to — if you remember, go back to the Martian invasion that was a fictional radio show —
Rath: The Orson Welles version of the H.G. Wells [novel “War of the Worlds”].
Oluseyi: Yeah, exactly right. That created a panic, allegedly, throughout society.
Now, imagine if you have an actual video of something horrible happening to our nation, for example, right? You can send people into a tizzy.
I want to not only know for myself: A second goal is to help the listeners. Not just appreciate how awesome this stuff is, but to equip you to deal with the world we’re living in today and what’s coming next.
Rath: Obviously, as a journalist, misinformation is a huge concern of mine, and I think that people who rely on traditional news sources may not have a sense of how bad things are out there. Could you give some examples of some of the scarier sorts of deepfakes that are going around right now?
Oluseyi: Well, we’ve already seen it in politics, right? We’ve seen [deepfakes] where politicians are made to look as if they’re incredibly ill or weakened.
And then, sometimes, it’s just funny. There was a famous meeting between President [Donald Trump] and President [Volodymyr Zelenskyy] of Ukraine, and in this deepfake, they begin with a conversation and end up tussling in fisticuffs. Completely deepfake.
But, in another context, in another world, in the not-too-distant future — when this becomes much better, and we’re perhaps at a geopolitical tipping point — something like this could send us over the edge if people don’t really understand that what they’re seeing is fake.
We see now, in America, we have this political violence becoming more and more prevalent in our society, unfortunately. And people are triggered by what they see and hear on social media. It would be awful if some event, some deepfake, influenced people to take horrible actions. That is one of the many threats that this deepfake trend poses for us.