5 May 2021 by: Elana Kimbrell Biplav Srivastava organized a virtual/in-person event in October 2020 on the ethical use of digital assistants like chatbots. Photo credit: Abe Danaher Biplav Srivastava organized a virtual/in-person event in October 2020 on the ethical use of digital assistants like chatbots. Photo credit: Abe Danaher One of Biplav Srivastava’s long-term goals is to help people use technology to solve the problems they face. This wasn’t always his top priority, though – for many years after completing his Ph.D., he didn’t really worry about connecting his research to real-world impacts. Then, he says, he started to become very concerned that while his work was having significant commercial success, “it meant nothing on the street… it has limited value if you can’t see it around you.”