Young Minds on science and society: Dr. Maruša Gorišek questions the use of knowledge for the wider benefit of society

On Thursday, 29 February, the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana hosted the first ASEF Young Minds Lecture of the year, organized by ASEF together with the SocioKlub association. The lecture was given by Dr. Maruša Gorišek, an ASEF Junior Fellow 2021, a research associate at the Institute for Development and Strategic Analysis and Teaching Assistant at the Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto.

Dr. Gorišek, who conducted her research visit with ASEF mentor Peter Verovšek at the University of Groningen, discussed the complex relationship between science, politics and the general public. The main topic of the lecture was the transformation of knowledge as a value and the role of science in wider social processes in the light of the consequences of technological progress, the recent pandemic and predatory scientific journals. The audience took part in a debate on how to address the trust gap between scientists and lay people. The speaker stressed: “We need to invest in understanding what the scientific process is all about.”

The next popular science lecture in the ASEF Young Minds series will take place on 28 March at 7 p.m. at the Celje Youth Centre (MCC, Mariborska cesta 2, 3000 Celje). This time, Frenk Dragar, ASEF Junior Fellow 2023 and Master’s student in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Utrecht, will talk about the detection and watermarking of AI-generated content. In autumn 2023, Frenk visited Dr. Gasper Begus at UC Berkeley, where he researched watermarking of generative speech models.

The project is implemented with the support of the Office for Youth and the Office for Slovenians Abroad.