Grand Text Auto

In our second installment of our Glitch Lab Student Spotlights, we hear from Egemin Sahin ’23 about his work experimenting with and researching various A.I.s for our project.

Can you tell us a little more about yourself and what you do in the lab?

I’m Egemin, I’m a ’23 double majoring in Math and C.S., modified with Music. In the lab, I come up with ideas for what kinds of A.I.s we want to use, I do a lot of literature reviews on how we can implement these ideas into the computer, basically. Also I experiment with the A.I. itself after I put it on there. I’m more of an A.I. applicator, I guess you could call it that.

This winter, the GLITCHLab’s started meeting in person for weekly lab hours in which we collaborate on our most recent projects, swap ideas, and get to know each other better. As the designated documentarian of the group, I recently had the chance to interview Clara Pakman ’23 on her thoughts about our project and the work that she does for the team!

Can you tell us a little more about yourself and what you do in the lab?

We’re happy to announce that Tiltfactor is the proud recipient of an Arts Integration Initiative Grant from the Hopkins Center for the Arts to sponsor our student and faculty-led work. Our ongoing project is focused on using feminist AI to explore gender bias in art and create new works from female artists.

The Arts Integration Initiative “is part of the Hop’s Arts at the Core Initiative which aims to enrich disparate areas of study through the arts and to support an arts-infused network of students, faculty and artists.”

Tiltfactor founding director Mary Flanagan and Tiltfactor alum Gili Freedman (currently Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at St. Mary’s College of Maryland) recently collaborated on an article entitled “The Effect of Embodying a Woman Scientist in Virtual Reality on Men’s Gender Biases” for the peer-reviewed, open-access journal Technology, Mind, and Behavior.

Flanagan and Freedman, along with collaborators Max Seidman (Tiltfactor Senior Game Designer) and Melanie Green (Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Communication at the University of Buffalo) tested “whether embodying a woman scientist in virtual reality (VR) leads to more positive attitudes toward women in STEM.”

Tiltfactor Lab’s very own Mary Flanagan was inspired by the Atari 2600 digital experiences of her childhood to create the artwork [giantJoystick], a 10-foot tall Atari CX40 controller weighing about 3,000 pounds.

[giantJoystick] was recently recognized by the Guinness World Records 2022 Book as the largest joystick in the world and is currently housed in the permanent collection of ZKM Center for Art and media in Karlsruhe, Germany. To learn more about the piece and gain exclusive insights into Mary Flanagan’s artistic journey, check out our Dartmouth News profile below!

Source: https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2021/10/atari-style-artwork-makes-guinness-world-records-2022-book

At Tiltfactor, we wanted to celebrate our first term back in person with a shout-out to our amazing student squad! These critical play superstars are hard at work in the @tiltfactor lab examining gender bias in AI datasets, testing upcoming editions of games both old and new, and keeping up with current events in the world of games and social impact. Coming from diverse academic disciplines, passions, and backgrounds, all of our students add a valuable lens to our work.

But while we could definitely hype them up all day, we thought you’d like it more if you heard it from them directly! Read on to check out their self-introductions.