Best Dr Eleanor Drage Podcasts (2023)

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The Good Robot

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Arzu Geybulla on Digital Authoritarianism and Press Freedom 36:59

2d ago36:59

36:59

In this episode, we talked to Azerbaijani journalist Arzu Geybulla, a specialist on digital authoritarianism and its implications on human rights and press freedoms in Azerbaijan. She now lives in self-imposed exile in Istanbul. Aside from writing for big publications like Al Jazeera, Eurasianet, Foreign Policy Democracy Lab, she also founded Azerb…

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The Good Robot

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K Allado-McDowell on technology, psychedelics and healing 36:54

15d ago36:54

36:54

In this episode, we speak to K Allado-McDowell a writer, speaker, and musician. They've written three books and an opera libretto, and they've established the artists and machine intelligence program at Google AI. We talk about good technology as healing, the relationship between psychedelics and technology, utopianism and the counter-cultural mo…

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The Good Robot

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Giada Pistilli on good corporations, AI ethics and value pluralism 36:26

30d ago36:26

36:26

In this episode, we talk to Giada Pistilli, Principal Ethicist at Hugging Face, which is the company that Meg Mitchell joined, following her departure from Google. Giada is also completing her PhD in philosophy and ethics of applied conversational AI at Sorbonne University. We talk about value pluralism and AI, which means building AI according to …

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The Good Robot

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Matt Mahmoudi on Facial Recognition and Surveillance in Palestine 38:20

1M ago38:20

38:20

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Matt Mahmoudi, a researcher and advisor on artificial intelligence and human rights at Amnesty International, and an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. We discuss how AI is being used to survey Palestinians in Hebron and East Jerusalem, both in their bedrooms and in the…

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The Good Robot

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Hot Take: Fighting Fears and Fantasies of East Asia (and AI) 31:24

2M ago31:24

31:24

In this episode, we hear all about Kerry’s trip to Japan (spoiler alert: she loved it) and explore her work on anti-Asian racism and AI. Kerry explains what the very long word ‘techno-Orientalism’ means and how fears and fantasies of East Asia or the so-called ‘Orient’ shape Western approaches to technology and AI. We chat about how US sci-fi genre…

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The Good Robot

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Hayleigh Bosher on Generative AI, Creativity, and what AI means for the Music Industry 40:00

2M ago40:00

40:00

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Hayleigh Bosher, Associate Dean and Reader in intellectual property law at Brunel University and host of the podcast Whose Song is it Anyway?, a podcast on the intersections of IP [intellectual property] and the music industry. Hayleigh gives us some great insight into tomorrow's legal disputes over AI and music copy…

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The Good Robot

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Meredith Broussard on Why Sexism, Racism and Ableism in Tech are 'More than a Glitch' 38:28

3M ago38:28

38:28

In this episode we talk to Meredith Broussard, data journalism professor at the Arthur L. Carter Institute at New York University. She's also the author of Artificial Unintelligence, which made waves following its release in 2018 by claiming that AI was nothing more than really fancy math. We talk about why we need to bring a little bit more fricti…

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The Good Robot

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Grace Dillon on Indigenous Sciences, Technologies, and Science Fiction 35:37

3M ago35:37

35:37

In this episode we chat to Grace DiIlon, Professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Department at Portland State University. Grace, an Anishinaabe cultural critic and a phenomenal storyteller in her own right, gives an overview of the fiction and science books by indigenous writers doing very cool things. We talk about apocalypse and healing, cere…

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The Good Robot

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Mar Hicks on the Unexpected History of Computing 33:25

4M ago33:25

33:25

In this episode, we talk to Mar Hicks, an Associate Professor of Data Science at the University of Virginia and author of Programmed Inequality: How Britain discarded Women Technologists and Lost its Edge in computing. Hicks talks to us about the lessons that the tech industry can learn from histories of computing, for example: how sexism is an int…

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The Good Robot

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Hot Take: Twitter is to X as Barbie is to Ken 23:16

4M ago23:16

23:16

Welcome to this week’s Hot Take, where your hosts Kerry and Eleanor give their candid opinion on the latest in tech news. This week they discuss the rebranding of Twitter as X and how people like Elon Musk have an outsized impact on the daily technologies that we use, on the kinds of technologies that get made and created, and on the kinds of needs…

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The Good Robot

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Peter Hershock on Buddhist Approaches to Machine Consciousness 42:25

5M ago42:25

42:25

We talk to Peter Hershock, director of the Asian Studies Development Program and coordinator of the Humane AI Initiative at the East-West Center in Honolulu. We talked to Peter about the kinds of misconceptions and red herrings that shape public interpretations of machine consciousness and what we can gain from approaching the question of machine c…

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The Good Robot

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Hot Take: Detecting Sexuality with AI is Fake Science 35:18

5M ago35:18

35:18

In this week’s Good Robot Hot Takes, Kerry and Eleanor talk about a group of scientists in Zurich that tried to measure a correlation between brain activity and sexuality using AI. This smacks not only of previous attempts to use AI to try and ‘read’ people’s sexuality, but also of dangerous 19th and 20th century race science. We talk about how the…

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The Good Robot

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Karen Levy on Worker Surveillance and the US Trucking Industry 29:04

5M ago29:04

29:04

In this episode we chat to Karen Levy, Associate Professor of Information Science at Cornell University and author of Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance. Karen is an expert in the changing face of long distance driving - she spent ten years doing research with truck drivers. So she’s been looking at how surveillan…

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The Good Robot

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Hot Take: Can AI De-Bias Hiring? 34:14

5M ago34:14

34:14

Welcome to our third episode of the Good Robot Hot Takes. Every two weeks Kerry and Eleanor will be giving their hot take on some of the biggest issues in tech. If you’re a graduate or a jobseeker, this is the episode for you because this week we talk about AI that’s being used for recruitment. That’s right, AI is being used to assess your performa…

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The Good Robot

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Ofri Cnaani on Art, Digital Archives and Activism 29:23

5M ago29:23

29:23

In this episode we chat with Ofri Cnaani, an artist and associate lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. Artists are doing amazing things in tech spaces, not just working with tech but also using art to explore how our world is infused with data. Ofri discusses some of her projects with us, including her investigation of the fire that destro…

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The Good Robot

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Hot Take: Most AI Scientists in Films Suck 27:47

6M ago27:47

27:47

Welcome to our second episode of the Good Robot Hot Takes, where every week Kerry and Eleanor give you their spicy opinions about top issues in tech. This week we talk about science fiction films, why we love Aliens and Sigourney Weaver, how female AI scientists and professionals are represented on screen, how this contributes to the unequal gender…

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The Good Robot

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Caroline Bassett and Sharon Webb on Full Stack Feminism and the Digital Humanities 35:18

6M ago35:18

35:18

From using computers to process the work of Thomas Aquinas to using facial recognition to compare portraits of Shakespeare, computational techniques have long been applied to humanities research. These projects are now called the digital humanities, and today we’re interviewing two major figures in this discipline. We talk to Dr Sharon Webb, Senior…

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The Good Robot

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Hot Take: The Future of Life's Call for a Pause on 'Giant AI' - Doomsday or Distraction? 34:57

6M ago34:57

34:57

Welcome to our new format: The Good Robot Hot Takes! In these fun, lively, conversational episodes, we (Eleanor and Kerry) discuss some of the biggest issues in tech, from ChatGPT, and the sexy fembot problem in Hollywood film, to why predictive policing is a scam and why gender recognition is garbage. This week we're talking about the Future of Li…

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The Good Robot

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Laura Forlano on Feminism, Disability, and the Politics of Technology 21:29

6M ago21:29

21:29

In this episode we chat to Laura Forlano, Associate Professor of Design at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology. This is a special episode because Laura reads us some of her work on life as a Type 1 diabetic, or in her words, a disabled cyborg calibrated to an insulin pump. Laura’s writing gives us a different kind of insight…

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The Good Robot

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The Good Robot LIVE! from Berlin 26:57

7M ago26:57

26:57

This special bonus episode was recorded at the AI Anarchies conference in Berlin. We held a workshop exploring with participants what good technology means for them, and why thinking in terms of ‘good technology’ actually limits us. Two amazing participants offered to be interviewed by us, Christina Lu, who at the time was a software engineer at De…

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The Good Robot

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Louise Hickman on the Politics of Captions 29:09

7M ago29:09

29:09

In this episode we chat to Louise Hickman, an activist and scholar based at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Louise talks to us about stenography, the process of transcribing speech into shorthand. You may be familiar with this from having seen court reporters write a transcription of a tribunal or ca…

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The Good Robot

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Regina Kanyu Wang and Emily Jin on Science Fiction in Translation 27:53

8M ago27:53

27:53

In this episode we discuss the new generation of Chinese science fiction with two of the genres most brilliant translators, editors, writers and researchers. They’ve just published The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, an anthology of science fiction written by Chinese women and non-binary writers that aims to overwrite stereotypes about who Ch…

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The Good Robot

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Bridget Boakye on AI Policy Between the UK and Africa 30:24

8M ago30:24

30:24

In this episode we talk to Bridget Boakye, the artificial intelligence (AI) policy leader at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Bridget is an expert in how AI is impacting Africa and the major challenges in implementing AI use across the continent. She tells us about what good technology means in the contexts in which she works and the ben…

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The Good Robot

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Pedro Oliviera on Voice Recognition Technologies and Border Control 31:30

9M ago31:30

31:30

In this episode we talk to Pedro Oliveira, a researcher and sound artist based at the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin. Pedro does amazing work investigating border control technologies that listen to asylum seekers and claim to be able to discern where they came from from the way they speak. In this episode we discuss why these kinds of technologies …

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The Good Robot

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Michael Kwet on Big Tech's Colonial Takeover 27:52

9M ago27:52

27:52

We all know about Microsoft Excel and Outlook, but did you know about the kinds of tech they develop in and sell to the Global South? These include escape management system for jails, police cars inbuilt with sensor data, and software that supports facial recognition systems. To tell us more about this, we talk to Dr Michael Kwet, a visiting fellow…

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The Good Robot

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Abeba Birhane on Changing Computing Cultures 34:02

10M ago34:02

34:02

In this episode we speak to Abeba Birhane, senior research fellow at Mozilla, about how cognition extends beyond the brain, why why we need to turn questions like ‘why aren't there enough black women in computing’ on their head and actually transform computing cultures, and why human behaviour is a complex adaptive system that can’t always be model…

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The Good Robot

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Arjun Subramonian on Queer Approaches to AI and Computing 35:36

11M ago35:36

35:36

In this episode we talk to Arjun Subramonian, a Computer Science PhD student at UCLA conducting machine learning research and a member of the grassroots organisation Queer in AI. In this episode we discuss why they joined Queer in AI, how Queer in AI is helping build artificial intelligence directed towards better, more inclusive, and queer futures…

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The Good Robot

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Su Lin Blodgett on Creating Just Language Technologies 32:28

11M ago32:28

32:28

In this episode we chat to Su Lin Blodgett, a researcher at Microsoft Research in Montreal, on whether you can use AI to measure discrimination, why AI can never be de-biased, and how AI shows us that categories like gender and race are not as clear cut as we think they are.By Dr Kerry Mackereth and Dr Eleanor Drage

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The Good Robot

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Josh Schuster and Derek Woods on Transhumanism and Existential Risk 37:36

12M ago37:36

37:36

Ever worried that AI will wipe out humanity? Ever dreamed of merging with AI? Well these are the primary concerns of transhumanism and existential risk, which you may not have heard of, but whose key followers include Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence. But Joshua Schuster and Derek Woods have pointed out that there are serious…

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The Good Robot

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Chen Qiufan on the Feedback Loop between Tech Innovation and Science Fiction 37:06

1y ago37:06

37:06

Science fiction writer Chen Qiufan ( Stanley Chen), author of Waste Tide, discusses the feedback loop between science fiction and innovation, what happened when he went to live with shamans in China, how science fiction can also be a psychedelic, and why it’s significant that linear time arrived from the West and took over ideas of circular or recu…

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The Good Robot

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Lorraine Daston on the Exorcism of Emotion in Rational Science (and AI) 38:07

1y ago38:07

38:07

In this episode, the historian of science Lorraine Daston explains why science has long been allergic to emotion, which is seen to be the enemy of truth. Instead, objective reason is science’s virtue. She explores moments where it’s very difficult for scientists not to get personally involved, like when you’re working on your pet hypothesis or theo…

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The Good Robot

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Kevin Guyan on Queer Data 36:11

1y ago36:11

36:11

How should governments collect personal data? In this episode, we talk to Dr Kevin Guyan about the census, and the best ways of asking people to identify themselves. We discuss why surveys that you fill in by hand offer less restrictive options for self-identification than online forms, and how queer communities are not just identified but produced…

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The Good Robot

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Mónica and Ella on Data Activism Against Everyday Racism 37:33

1y ago37:33

37:33

In this episode we speak to two brilliant professors here at Cambridge, Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Ella McPherson about a data project they launched at the University of Cambridge to track everyday racism in the university. We discuss using technology for social good without being obsessed with the technology itself and the importance of tracking h…

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The Good Robot

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Louise Amoore on Why Machine Learning is Political 40:56

1y ago40:56

40:56

In this episode, we talk to Louise Amoore, professor of political geography at Durham and expert in how machine learning algorithms are transforming the ethics and politics of contemporary society. Louise tells us how politics and society have shaped computer science practices. This means that when AI clusters data and creates features and attribut…

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The Good Robot

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Sarah Franklin on Reproductive Technologies and Feminist Research Ethics 38:41

1y ago38:41

38:41

In this episode we talk to Sarah Franklin, a leading figure in feminist science studies and the sociology of reproduction. In this tour de force of IVF ethics and feminism through the ages, Sarah discusses ethical issues in reproductive technologies, how they compare to AI ethics, how feminism through the ages can help us, Shulamith Firestone’s tec…

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The Good Robot

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Michelle N. Huang on anti-Asian Racism across Time and Space 33:42

1y ago33:42

33:42

In this episode we chat to Michelle N. Huang, Assistant Professor of English and Asian American literature at Northwestern University. Chatting with Michelle is bittersweet, as we think collectively together about anti-Asian racism and how it intersects with histories and representations of technological development in the context of intensified vi…

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The Good Robot

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Sareeta Amrute on Understanding Tech Ethics from the Ground Up 36:19

1+ y ago36:19

36:19

In this episode we talk to Sareeta Amrute, Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington who studies race, labour, and class in global tech economies. Sareeta discusses happened when Rihanna and Greta Thunberg got involved in the Indian farmers protests; how race has wound up in algorithms as an indicator of what products you might …

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The Good Robot

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Sophie Lewis on Techno-Feminisms and Why Nature is Far Stranger Than We Think 34:21

1+ y ago34:21

34:21

In this episode Sophie, author of Full Surrogacy Now and self-defined wayward Marxist, talks about defining good technology for the whole of the biosphere, why the purity of the human species has always been contaminated by our animal and technological origins, why nature is much, much stranger than we think, what that means for the lambs that are …

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The Good Robot

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Karen Hao on AI Colonialism and Changing the Stories We Tell About Tech 30:58

1+ y ago30:58

30:58

In this episode we chat to Karen Hao, a prominent tech journalist who focuses on the intersections of AI, data, politics and society. Right now she’s based in Hong Kong as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal on China, tech and society; before this, she conducted a number of high profile investigations for the MIT tech review. In our interview we…

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The Good Robot

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Margaret Mitchell on Large Language Models and Misogyny in Tech 34:21

1+ y ago34:21

34:21

In the race to produce the biggest language model yet, Google has now overtaken Open AI’s GPT-3 and Microsoft’s T-NLG with a 1.6 trillion parameter model. In 2021, Meg Mitchell was fired from Google, where she was co-founder of their Ethical AI branch, in the aftermath of a paper she co-wrote about why language models can be harmful if they’re too …

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The Good Robot

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Soraj Hongladarom on Machine Enlightenment 23:48

1+ y ago23:48

23:48

In this episode, we speak to Soraj Hongladarom, a professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Soraj explains what makes Buddhism a unique and yet appropriate intervention in AI ethics, why we need to aim for enlightenment with machines, and whether there is common g…

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The Good Robot

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Os Keyes on Avoiding Universalism and 'Silver Bullets' in Tech Design 44:57

1+ y ago44:57

44:57

In this episode we chat to Os Keyes, an Ada Lovelace fellow and adjunct professor at Seattle University, and a PhD student at the University of Washington in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. We discuss everything from avoiding universalism and silver bullets in AI ethics to how feminism underlies Os’s work on autism and AI and…

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The Good Robot

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Alex Hanna on Vague AI Ethics Principles and why Automatic Gender Recognition is Nonsense 37:39

1+ y ago37:39

37:39

In this episode, we talk to Dr Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute which was founded and directed by her ex-boss at Google Dr Timnit Gebru. Previously a sociologist working on ethical AI at Google and now a superstar in her own right, she tells us why Google’s attempt to be neutral is nonsense, how the word goo…

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The Good Robot

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Virginia Dignum on Engineers, Values, and Giving the Public a Voice 23:57

1+ y ago23:57

23:57

In this episode we chat to Virginia Dignum, Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at the University of Umeå where she leads the Social and Ethical Artificial Intelligence research group. We draw on Dignum’s experience as an engineer and legislator to discuss how any given technology might not be good or bad, but is never valueless; how t…

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The Good Robot

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Blaise Agüera y Arcas on Debunking Myths in Technology: Intelligence, Survival, Sexuality 33:30

1+ y ago33:30

33:30

In this episode, we talk to Blaise Agüera y Arcas, a Fellow and Vice President at Google research and an authority in computer vision, machine intelligence, and computational photography. In this wide ranging episode, we explore why it is important that the AI industry reconsider what intelligence means and who possesses it, how humans and technolo…

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The Good Robot

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Kate Chandler on Drone Warfare and Undoing Everyday Militarism 31:18

1+ y ago31:18

31:18

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Kate Chandler, Assistant Professor at Georgetown and a specialist on drone warfare. We recorded this interview the day that Russia invaded Ukraine, which reminded us of just how urgent a task it is to rethink the relationship between tech innovation and warfare. As Kate explains, drones are more than just tools, they…

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The Good Robot

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Meryl Alper on 'Craptions', Assistive Technologies, and the Real Meaning of Accessible Technology 37:43

1+ y ago37:43

37:43

In this episode, we chat to Meryl Alper, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. We discuss histories of technological invention by disabled communities, the backlash against poor algorithmically transcribed captions or ‘craptions’, what it actually means for a place or a technology to be accessible to disabled comm…

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The Good Robot

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Wendy Hui Kyong Chun on Facebook ‘Friendship’ and Predicting the Future 29:34

1+ y ago29:34

29:34

In this episode, we chat with Professor Wendy Chun, who is Simon Fraser University's Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media. As both an expert in Systems Design Engineering and English Literature, her extraordinary analysis of contemporary digital media bridges the humanities and STEM sciences to think through some of the most pressing technical an…

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The Good Robot

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Leonie Tanczer on Gender, Security, and Technology 27:19

2y ago27:19

27:19

In this episode, we chat to Dr Leonie Tanczer, a Lecturer in International Security and Emerging Technologies at UCL and Principle Investigator on the Gender and IoT project. Leonie discusses why online safety and security are not the same when it comes to protection online; how to identify bad actors while protecting people’s privacy; how we can u…

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The Good Robot

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Jason Edward Lewis on Indigenous Work in AI 48:53

2y ago48:53

48:53

In this episode we chat to Professor Jason Edward Lewis, the University Research Chair in Computational Media and the Indigenous Future Imaginary at Concordia University in Montreal. Jason is Cherokee, Hawaiian and Samoan and an expert in indigenous design in AI. He’s the founder of Obx Labs for Experimental Media and the co-director of a number of…

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Dr Eleanor Drage Podcasts

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