By Zarine Kharazian, HCDE PhD student
Thanks to support from the HCDE PhD Student Conference Travel Support Program and the UW Graduate School Conference fund, I had the opportunity to attend and present at 4S 2025. This year, the conference was held locally, right here in Seattle. I presented in a panel titled, Risks of "Social Model Collapse" in the Face of Scientific and Technological Advances,” which focused on the effects that AI-generated text on the online communities that produce user-generated content. My panelists and I discussed the effects of AI on community moderators and users on Reddit, Wikipedia, and various software communities.
This was my first time at 4S, which is a more “humanistic” conference than the conferences I am used to attending. I was impressed with the disciplinary breadth of the attendees and presentations – there are probably few conferences where you can meet both Chemistry and English professors and graduate students listening to the same talk, or even presenting side by side.
Overall, I gained an appreciation for the intellectual diversity of Science & Technology Studies as a field, and I will take forward those insights into my future work and collaborations. I am glad I was able to attend 4s this year and thankful for the support of the department’s and Graduate School’s travel funding programs.
Give to support HCDE student travel
The Mary B. Coney Endowed Fund, named in honor of Emeritus Professor Mary Coney, supports HCDE students by funding costs associated with travel to conferences and international workshops. Your support of this fund enriches the HCDE student experience and enhances HCDE's influence in the field.