Date/Time: Wednesday April 2nd (5:00pm-6:00pm)
Location: Kanbar Performance Space, East Falls Campus
Description: Co-sponsored by Jefferson's Creativity Core Curriculum and the Kanabar Diversity Action Committee, this event supports the 2024-25 theme, "Creativity Within Conflict." Speaker, Yphtach Lelkes, is co-director of the Center for Information Networks and Democracy and co-director of the Polarization Research Lab. His presentation will speak to how the tension between exploration—seeking out new ideas—and exploitation—relying on the familiar—drives decision-making across all levels of life, from primitive organisms searching for food to algorithms shaping our newsfeeds. Exploration sparks discovery and learning but can spread misinformation or overwhelm us with novelty. Exploitation, while efficient and reliable, risks creating echo chambers and deepening societal divides through hyper-personalized content. Through examples spanning nature, social systems, and AI, we'll uncover how to balance the positives and pitfalls of these dynamics to foster better decisions, healthier information habits, and fairer algorithms that can support creativity.