Luc Rocher

Luc Rocher (they/them)

Luc is an Associate Professor and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. They lead the Synthetic Society Lab, conducting human-centred computing research on how data, digital infrastructure, and algorithms affect society. Luc received a PhD from the Université catholique de Louvain and worked at Imperial College London, ENS de Lyon, and MIT Media Lab.

Research

Training language models to be warm can reduce accuracy and increase sycophancy

Published in Nature

Press

BBC News

The friendlier the AI chatbot the more inaccurate it is, study suggests

New study led by Lujain and Sofia finds that friendlier chatbots make more mistakes.

Mashable

Study: Friendly AI chatbots may be less accurate

How does a friendlier chatbot respond to a falsehood about the moon landings?

Nature

Friendlier LLMs tell users what they want to hear - even when it is wrong

A large language model that is trained to respond in a warm manner is more likely to give incorrect information and reinforce conspiracy beliefs.

The Telegraph

Why you don’t want your AI chatbot to be nice to you

Systems trained to sound friendlier are up to 30 per cent less accurate, study finds

The Guardian

Friendly AI chatbots more likely to support conspiracy theories, study finds

Chatbots programmed to respond warmly even cast doubts on Apollo moon landings and fate of Hitler, researchers say.

The Verge

Friendly chatbots make more mistakes

The researchers found AI chatbots trained to be warmer were significantly more likely to make factual errors and agree with false beliefs than the originals.

Science

UK Biobank faces questions about data security after latest breach

Experts say the lapse highlights that even new measures to control access did not safeguard deidentified patient information; Q&A with Luc.

El País

Chinese website sells medical information of 500,000 volunteers from UK database

Luc comments on the UK Biobank data leak, with medical data put for sale on a Chinese website.

The Guardian

What is the UK Biobank project and what are the privacy concerns around it?

Volunteers’ data has enabled medical breakthroughs, but there are questions over how that data is protected. Luc comments.

The Times

What is UK Biobank? Medical database that’s a victim of own success

The resource at the centre of a data breach in China is a treasure trove for scientists and has been responsible for a series of medical breakthroughs. Luc comments on Biobank data leaks.

The Guardian

Now you can break up with big tech at a bar: ‘cybersecurity disguised as a party’

Luc comments on why people are turning away from big tech.

ARS Technica

Americans ask AI for health care. Hospitals think the answer is more chatbots.

Article cites our research which warns about the risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice.

De Standaard

Dr ChatGPT doesn’t help you any better than Dr Google, and that’s not because of the AI models’ ‘knowledge.’

New study led by Andrew warns of the risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice.

New York Times

Health advice from AI chatbots is frequently wrong, study shows

New study led by Andrew warns of the risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice.

Reuters

AI no better than other methods for patients seeking medical advice, study shows

New study led by Andrew warns of the risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice.

The Register

AI chatbots are no better at medical advice than a search engine

A new study led by OII researchers warns of the risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice.

New York Times

Frustrated by the Medical System, Patients Turn to A.I

Chatbots are cheap, always available, superficially empathetic — and sometimes wrong. Some have concluded they’re a risk worth taking. Article references upcoming study led by Andrew.

de Correspondent

The claims about increasingly smart AI models?

More vibe than science. Luc comments.

NBC News

AI Revolution – NBC News discuss latest OII study exploring AI evaluation

The NBC Morning News programme discuss the findings from Andrew's latest study which finds weaknesses in how AI systems are evaluated.

The Register

AI benchmarks are a bad joke - and LLM makers are the ones laughing

Covers our research finding that many AI benchmarks do not measure the right things.

Gizmodo

AI Capabilities May Be Overhyped on Bogus Benchmarks, Study Finds

Covers our Measuring What Matters study on the construct validity of AI benchmarks.

NBC News

AI’s capabilities may be exaggerated by flawed tests, according to new study

Researchers behind a new study say that the methods used to evaluate AI systems’ capabilities routinely oversell AI performance and lack scientific rigour.

The Guardian

Experts find flaws in hundreds of tests that check AI safety and effectiveness

Scientists say almost all have weaknesses in at least one area that can ‘undermine validity of resulting claims’ with commentary and latest research findings from Andrew.

Tech Policy Press

Why We Shouldn’t Trust Facial Recognition’s Glowing Test Scores

Failures in facial recognition technology are far from uncommon, and numerous examples continue to be reported in the press. Despite these repeated failures, the technology is rapidly being integrated into our daily lives, Juliette, Teo, and Luc write.

The Daily Telegraph

ChatGPT is driving people mad

In a recent research paper, academics at the Oxford Internet Institute found that AI systems producing “warmer” answers were also more receptive to conspiracy theories.

BMA The Doctor

Bot-ched advice – ‘disturbing’ results in AI study

Rebecca and Andrew comments on our study showing that LLM chatbots can perform worse when interacting with humans than when assessed using benchmarks.

Oxford Internet Institute

Do language models have an issue with gender?

Feature piece by Sofia about our study on how to best evaluate if language models perpetuate gender stereotypes.

TechCrunch

People struggle to get useful health advice from chatbots, study finds

Coverage of Andrew's study showing that people using AI chatbots for medical self-diagnosis did not make better decisions than people using traditional sources.

Le Soir

Une équipe de l’UCLouvain découvre une faille dans le RGPD : « Rester anonyme sur internet est presqu’impossible »

Coverage of our research showing that data considered anonymous can still identify web users.

University of Oxford

Pioneering new mathematical model could help protect privacy and ensure safer use of AI

University coverage of our scaling law for identification techniques and privacy risks.