AI Policy Between the UK and Africa with Bridget Boakye
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 benefits and drawbacks of Google and other Big Tech companies operating in Africa.
28 Maalis 202330min
Voice Recognition Technologies and Border Control with Pedro Oliviera
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 rely on the assumption that there is an authentic way that a migrant from a particular place should sound. Our quest to unravel vocal 'authen...
14 Maalis 202331min
Big Tech's Colonial Takeover with Michael Kwet
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 of the Information Society project at Yale Law School and a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesb...
21 Helmi 202327min
Changing Computing Cultures with Abeba Birhane
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 modelled computationally.
24 Tammi 202334min
Queer Approaches to AI and Computing with Arjun Subramonian
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, why ‘bias’ cannot be seen as a purely technical problem, and why Queer in AI rejected Google sponsorship.
10 Tammi 202335min
Creating Just Language Technologies with Su Lin Blodgett
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.
27 Joulu 202232min
The Feedback Loop between Tech Innovation and Science Fiction with Chen Qiufan
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 recurring time between Chinese dynasties.
29 Marras 202237min
