Aisvarya Chandrasekar
@aisvarya17.bsky.social
I work at @towcenter.bsky.social as a computational research fellow, studying the impact of AI tools in journalism. I am a grantee in Brown Institute’s 2024-25 Magic Grant cohort, building PollFinder.ai. https://aisvaryachandrasekar.work/
One of the coolest parts of @theexamination.org's new Red Bull investigation was the creative technology and research tools we used. How computational journalists from @towcenter.bsky.social helped me identify a key source for the story 👇
How AI helped us uncover Red Bull’s influence on energy drink research
In our analysis of conflicts of interest in PubMed, we used an LLM to trace relationships between academics and companies – helping us discover more ties.
theexamination.org
For over a decade, @redbull.com funded studies that disputed the risks of consuming energy drinks and alcohol together — and research tied to the company has been used to roll back public health regulations in Canada and elsewhere. Read our latest investigation:
Is it safe to drink Red Bull and vodka? Dubious research tied to the company has shaped energy drink policy.
The company paid scientists whose studies largely found that mixing energy drinks and alcohol isn’t harmful, contrary to most research.
theexamination.org
While open-protocol tools show some promise in helping publishers take back control over how AI bots access and present their content, technical solutions alone cannot resolve what is a systemic problem. (w/ @aisvarya17.bsky.social for @columjournreview.bsky.social) www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI agents are coming for news. Can publishers reclaim control?
The good news and the bad news about AI agents for journalism.
cjr.org
AI Agents are coming for news. Can publishers reclaim control? Read Aisvarya Chandrasekar and Klaudia Jaźwińska of @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI agents are coming for news. Can publishers reclaim control?
The good news and the bad news about AI agents for journalism.
cjr.org
Research suggests that the memory profiles that AI platforms store about users can make the models more sycophantic and users have less control over what gets stored than the platforms promise. I wrote a piece for @columjournreview.bsky.social about this! Reach out with your feedback/reading recs!
Columbia Journalism Review@columjournreview.bsky.social · 4mo agoTech companies say that LLMs work better if they remember things about you. But people may find themselves “insulated from the truth by the very tools they use to seek it.” Read Aisvarya Chandrasekar of the @towcenter.bsky.social www.cjr.org/tow_center/c...
Very interesting new work from my @towcenter.bsky.social colleagues - building on excellent @wired.com article on LLMs and breaking news. Who is making decisions on when to ‘turn on’ web search for chatbots and when not to? www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI chatbots can search the Web. So why don't they?
Why AI platforms should be accountable for misrepresenting breaking news
cjr.org
When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway. @klaudia.bsky.social @aisvarya17.bsky.social www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI versus accuracy? We're willing to make the trade-off.
When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway.
cjr.org
Research suggests people who use AI tools to find news seem to prefer them over clicking on individual stories, despite being conscious of their limits when it comes to accuracy. @aisvarya17.bsky.social and I wrote about what publishers can learn from this www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI versus accuracy? We're willing to make the trade-off.
When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway.
cjr.org
When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway. Read @klaudia.bsky.social and @aisvarya17.bsky.social of @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI versus accuracy? We're willing to make the trade-off.
When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway.
cjr.org
@aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social: People say they are turning to AI platforms for information-related queries. While these tools are, in theory, capable of responding to queries about the news, they may not necessarily be optimized for those tasks. www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI Chatbots Can Search the Web – So Why Don’t They?
Why AI platforms should be accountable for misrepresenting breaking news
cjr.org
When ChatGPT said that the US capture of Maduro didn't happen, Wired characterized it was "expected behavior." But @aisvarya17.bsky.social and I think AI platforms' failure to activate web search for a breaking news-related query is not expected, it's a product defect. www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...
AI Chatbots Can Search the Web – So Why Don’t They?
Why AI platforms should be accountable for misrepresenting breaking news
cjr.org
Made a site comparing the sizes of living things :) The great Julius Csotonyi spent 5 months painting over 60 illustrations for the site, no ai used > neal.fun/size-of-life/
Today's additions: - a commercial partnership that allows Google to test new experimental features - new licensing partners for Gemini - a deal between ProRata and the Danish Press Publications’ Collective Management Organization
klaudia jaźwińska@klaudia.bsky.social · 8mo agoToday's addition was a new licensing partnership between Condé Nast and Microsoft, announced late last week
Research Tools: New Tracker From Tow Center for Digital #Journalism "Monitors Developments Between News #Publishers and #AI Companies" www.infodocket.com/2025/12/04/r... #lawsuits #deals #grants @towcenter.bsky.social
Announcing a new tool to keep track of disputes and deals between news publishers and AI companies. Read @klaudia.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/law...
Lawsuit or license? A new tool to keep track of disputes and deals between publishers and AI companies.
Announcing a new tool to keep track of disputes and deals between news publishers and AI companies.
cjr.org
Today the @towcenter.bsky.social is releasing a tracker (built by my talented colleague @aisvarya17.bsky.social) that monitors developments between news publishers and AI companies—including lawsuits, deals, and grants—based on publicly available information. tow.cjr.org/ai-deals-law...
AI Deals and Lawsuits | Platforms and Publishers
A tracker monitoring developments between news publishers and AI companies—including lawsuits, deals, and grants—based on publicly available information.
tow.cjr.org
@technologyreview.com blocks all of OpenAI's and Perplexity's disclosed web crawlers in their robots.txt. Despite this, both OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet retrieved the full text of a subscriber-exclusive article when asked to. How? Read @klaudia.bsky.social and my recent CJR article:
Columbia Journalism Review@columjournreview.bsky.social · 9mo agoHow AI Browsers Sneak Past Blockers and Paywalls, by Aisvarya Chandrasekar and Klaudia Jaźwińska of the @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/how...
In a shock development - AI companies are failing to benchmark what matters in newsrooms. More excellent work from our Tow Center research team @klaudia.bsky.social and @aisvarya17.bsky.social
Columbia Journalism Review@columjournreview.bsky.social · 11mo agoThe performance tests used by AI companies don’t measure what matters in the newsroom. By @klaudia.bsky.social and @aisvarya17.bsky.social for @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/jou...
In our latest piece for CJR, @aisvarya17.bsky.social and I argue that third-party evaluation of AI models is not just a technical matter; it’s a matter of accountability. www.cjr.org/analysis/jou...
Journalists need their own benchmark tests for AI tools.
The performance tests used by AI companies don’t measure what matters in the newsroom.
cjr.org
The performance tests used by AI companies don’t measure what matters in the newsroom. By @klaudia.bsky.social and @aisvarya17.bsky.social for @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/jou...
The Tow Center has looked into how good LLMs are at verifying and geolocating an image. Gentle reminder: "on multiple occasions models blatantly lied about the steps they took to arrive at an answer to our query" www.cjr.org/tow_center/w... #ai #osint
We asked seven different AI models to identify the location, date and source of photos taken by photojournalists, they collectively only answered 14 out of 280 queries completely correctly. @aisvarya17.bsky.social @klaudia.bsky.social @columjournreview.bsky.social www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
Why AI Models Are Bad at Verifying Photos
“You don't know when it's just making stuff up.”
cjr.org
New Research: Can AI models be used to fact-check images? www.cjr.org/tow_center/w... I cannot summarize this piece better than @klaudia.bsky.social did in this thread. The methodology and data from the experiment are linked in the article. Reach out with any questions, comments, or feedback!
Why AI Models Are Bad at Verifying Photos
“You don't know when it's just making stuff up.”
cjr.org
klaudia jaźwińska@klaudia.bsky.social · 12mo agoNEW in @columjournreview.bsky.social: Why AI models are bad at fact-checking photos www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
NEW in @columjournreview.bsky.social: Why AI models are bad at fact-checking photos www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
Great work by @aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social. Read more below! www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
Why AI models are bad at verifying photos
Many of the latest large language models, including OpenAI’s recently released GPT-5, tout an impressive capability: reasoning about images. We have seen viral trends of AI models geolocating obscure ...
cjr.org
More testing of LLMs for journalism, this time on identifying image location, date, and source. By @aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social with some of my own commentary. www.cjr.org/tow_center/w... @columjournreview.bsky.social
The Future of News and Search: The Tow Center for Digital Journalism interviewed news and tech industry representatives about AI’s impact on platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation. By Klaudia Jaźwińska. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
A New Report Takes On the Future of News and Search
The Tow Center for Digital Journalism interviewed news and tech industry representatives about AI’s impact on platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation.
cjr.org
SPARC has invited @klaudia.bsky.social & @aisvarya17.bsky.social (Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia U) @davehansen.bsky.social (Authors Alliance) & @petersuber.bsky.social (Harvard U) to discuss AI issues on May 29 at 1 pm EDT. SPARC members can register at: sparcopen.org/event/sparc-...
SPARC Webcast: OA, Attribution, and Addressing Faculty AI Concerns - SPARC
As AI adoption accelerates, authors have growing concerns over maintaining control of their own work that may reduce their willingness to share their research openly. Publisher licensing deals with AI...
sparcopen.org
I wrote about the report - and publishers' anxiety around the decline of traditional search - in today's @columjournreview.bsky.social newsletter www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
Journalism Zero: How Platforms and Publishers are Navigating AI
<p>Download the PDF here. This research is generously funded by the Tow Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Introduction Early in our first interview, a veteran news exec...
cjr.org
