120: The Robopod With Meredith Whittaker

Night Call

Emily returns with tales of a haunted hotel she stayed at in Mobile, Alabama. Then it's the #babywitches who hexed the moon, followed by a listener email about the queer Sapphic aesthetics of cottagecore. This of course leads into some discussion of Taylor Swift's new album Folklore, and how in a way it's always fall right now. We read a listener email about the struggles of international students right now, and another about working in a plastic surgery clinic during the pandemic. Then the girls are joined by Meredith Whittaker - Research Professor and Co-founder of the AI Now Institute at NYU. After working at Google for over thirteen years Meredith helped lead the Google Walkouts to end AI contracts with the Department Of Defense. We talk to Meredith about racism in tech, the biased badness of algorithms, and the human beings behind most "artificial intelligence." And, of course, Robocop. How can we organize to prevent tech companies from say, building war machines for the government? Plus one hot but easy tip for avoiding facial recognition software at protests. All this on the all new Night Call!

Footnotes:

1. Haunted Malaga Inn
2. Moon hex explained
3. Marianne Williamson moon hex tweet
4. Why are people angry at witches on tik tok?
5. Paper Mag on cottagecore
6. Correction: Sean Penn's COVID test is CORE, not Curative
7. Meredith and the Google walkout
8. Facial recognition/surveillance in schools
9. Meredith testifying before Congress
10. The AI Now Institute
11. Meredith Whittaker on Twitter
12. Tech Workers Coalition

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