Professor Dongwon Lee, Frymoyer Chair in Information Sciences and Technology and head of the Department of Privacy and Cybersecurity Informatics in the Penn State College of IST, will present “Hallucinate, Fabricate and Manipulate: The Dark Side of Generative AI.” Part the IST Research Talks series, this lecture will explore how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can produce false or misleading information and how people can use these technologies to spread misinformation at scale. The Penn State community is invited to attend.

The rapid rise of generative AI has empowered the creation of high-quality content across text, image and audio modalities. Yet, according to Lee, alongside these advancements lies a darker reality: Such content is not always factually grounded. Large language models (LLMs), in particular, can “hallucinate,” generating inaccurate information because of limitations in how they are trained and how they process information. Beyond unintentional errors, these technologies are increasingly being weaponized by bad actors to fabricate and manipulate information at scale, fueling the spread of disinformation across platforms and media.

In this talk, Lee will explore how LLMs hallucinate, both organically and through adversarial manipulation, and examine the evolving tactics used to undermine trust in our information ecosystem. He will also share recent natural language processing research from his group on detecting and mitigating AI-generated falsehoods in different settings.

The talk will conclude with reflections on the broader societal implications of AI’s misuse and the urgent need for proactive safeguards to mitigate its potential harms.

About the speaker

Dongwon Lee is the Frymoyer Chair in IST and head of the Department of Privacy and Cybersecurity Informatics in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. He has been recognized as an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Scientist (2019), Fulbright Cyber Security Scholar at the University of Cambridge, UK (2022-2023), and Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) Fellow, Germany (2026).

Lee is currently leading a team of students as one of 10 global finalists in the 2026 Amazon Nova AI Challenge. He serves as the principal investigator of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) CyberCorps Scholarship for Service Program at Penn State. He is also affiliated with the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence.

Before starting at Penn State, he worked at AT&T Bell Labs and obtained his doctoral degree in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2015 to 2017, he served as a program director at the NSF, co-managing cybersecurity education and research programs and contributing to the development of national research priorities. In general, he conducts research on problems at the intersection of cybersecurity, data science, and machine learning. More details of his research can be found at: https://pike.psu.edu/.

The IST Research Talks series highlights the interdisciplinary work of faculty and scholars in the College of Information Sciences and Technology. Check out past lectures and upcoming events at IST Research Talks.

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