Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/14/22: Summer Encore 6- Understanding Algorithms

Notes From The Electronic Cottage | WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell Algorithms are a big part of our lives these days, though many of us may not be aware of that fact. More and more, though, regulators are attempting to make those who are using algorithms to make decisions that affect our lives in important ways – who should get a mortgage, how much should someone pay for car insurance, etc. – to explain how those algorithms work. The problem is that those who use algorithms often don’t actually know how they work. And, surprise, neither do the software engineers who designed them. What? Listen up. About the host: Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

The post Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/14/22: Summer Encore 6- Understanding Algorithms first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.