SSP Forum: Dan Jurafsky on NLP and social questions

The
Symbolic Systems Forum
(community sessions of SYMSYS 280 - Symbolic Systems Research Seminar)
presents

Using NLP to Study Social Questions: Police-Community Relations and the Politics of Immigration

Dan Jurafsky
Linguistics and Computer Science Departments

Monday, April 15, 2024
12;30-1:20 pm PT
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg. 460), Room 126
In-person event, not recorded
(see below for entry instructions if you are not an active Stanford affiliate)

Note: Lunch is provided, if pre-ordered, only for members of SYMSYS 280, but others are welcome to bring a lunch and eat during the presentation.

ABSTRACT:

How can natural language processing (NLP) help us understand and address important social issues and problems? I first describe a series of studies in collaboration with Prof. Jennifer Eberhardt and her lab that combine linguistics, social psychology, and NLP to analyze traffic stop interactions from police body-worn camera footage. I'll describe the differences we find in the language directed toward black versus white community members, demonstrate the relationship with escalation, and discuss training for improving the relations between police officers and the communities they serve. And in a similarly multidisciplinary study in collaboration with Prof. Ran Abramitzky, we examine the language used by US politicians to describe immigrants over 140 years of our nation's history. We trace the time-course of polarization on immigration, offer novel computational tools for measuring dehumanization, and show a homology between the language used to describe Chinese immigrants in the 19th century and Mexican immigrants in the 21st. I hope to convince you that NLP can be a great tool for helping us interpret latent social content behind the words we use.

NOTES ON ENTRY TO THE MEETING ROOM:

Entry to the building is open to anyone with an active Stanford ID via the card readers next to each door. If you do not have a Stanford ID, you can gain entry between 12:15 and 12:30pm ONLY by knocking on the exterior windows of room 126. These windows are to the left of the west side exterior door on the first floor of Margaret Jacks Hall, which faces the back east side of Building 420. Please do not knock on these windows after 12:30pm when the talk has started. We will not be able to come out and open the door for you at that point.