BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME;VALUE=TEXT:Science, Technology, and Society Seminar: STS Circle at Harvard PRODID:-//Harvard events data//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_1933276_0 SUMMARY:Science, Technology, and Society Seminar: STS Circle at Harvard DESCRIPTION:

Framing Reality: Ethics and Illusion in AI and Scientific Imaging

Speaker

Felice Frankel, Research Scientist, MIT.

Chair

Sheila Jasanoff, Faculty Associate. Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies; Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy, Committee on Degrees in Environmental Science and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.

Contact

Henry Austin
henryaustin@hks.harvard.edu

Abstract

In this talk, I explore a deceptively simple question: Is a scientific photograph real? As someone who has spent years creating images that visualize complex scientific ideas, I’ve come to see every image not just as a representation, but as a construction—guided by choices, constraints, and increasingly, algorithms. With the rise of AI in imaging, from data enhancement to full image generation, we face urgent ethical questions: What counts as manipulation? What role does aesthetics play in perception? And how do we maintain integrity when the line between observation and invention is increasingly blurred? Drawing from my own practice and current debates in AI and scientific communication, I’ll unpack how we build visual trust—and what’s at stake when that trust is challenged. (This Abstract and Title were written by ChatGTP)

Bio

Science photographer Felice Frankel is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the department of Chemical Engineering with additional support from Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering. She joined MIT in 1994.

Felice is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was previously a Senior Research Fellow in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in the Initiative for Innovative Computing (IIC), and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Systems Biology. Working in collaboration with scientists and engineers, her images have appeared in outlets such Nature, Science, JACS, PNAS, Langmuir, Joule, National Geographic, Newsweek, Scientific American, Discover, Popular Science, and New Scientist, among others. Additionally, Felice has been profiled in the New York Times, WIRED, Life, Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Science Friday”, and various European publications.

LOCATION:CGIS South, Room 354 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20251020T161500Z DTEND:20251020T180000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR