Power Over Precision w/ Jenny Reardon
Computer Says Maybe28 Helmi 2025

Power Over Precision w/ Jenny Reardon

Alix’s conversation this week is with Jenny Reardon, who shares with us the history of genomics — and the absolutely mind-melting parallels it has with the trajectory of the AI industry.

Jenny describes genomics as the industrialisation of genetics; it’s not just about understanding the genetic properties of humans, but mapping out every last inch of their genetic information so that it’s machine readable and scalable and — does this remind you of anything yet?

There are a disturbing amount of correlations between AI and genomics: that they have roots in military applications; as fields they have been pumped up with money and compute; and that there are, of course, huge conceptual overlaps with race science.

Jenny Reardon is a Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Science and Justice Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research draws into focus questions about identity, justice and democracy that are often silently embedded in scientific ideas and practices. She is the author of Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics (Princeton University Press) and, most recently, The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, Knowledge After the Genome (University of Chicago Press)

Jaksot(103)

The Collective Intelligence Project w/ Divya Siddarth and Zarinah Agnew

The Collective Intelligence Project w/ Divya Siddarth and Zarinah Agnew

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Net0++: Data Center Sprawl | NEW Research from The Maybe

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Net 0++: AI Thirst in a Water-Scarce World w/ Julie McCarthy

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16 Touko 202553min

Short: Open AI for...Countries? w/ Marietje Schaake

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This is another Computer Says Maybe short, this time with Marietje Schaake (author of The Tech Coup), to discuss OpenAI’s recent announcement: they want to partner with governments all around the worl...

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Short: What Just Happened to 23andMe? w/ Jenny Reardon

Short: What Just Happened to 23andMe? w/ Jenny Reardon

Personalised genotyping company 23andMe just went bankrupt — what’s gonna happen to all that genetic data?We brought back genomics professor Jenny Reardon to discuss the crushing void that was 23andMe...

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Terra Nullius: Who Owns the Skies? w/ Julia Powles

Terra Nullius: Who Owns the Skies? w/ Julia Powles

This is our second Terra Nullius episode. As a reminder this means ‘Nobody’s Land’ — an infamous legal fiction from the age of Empire. In this episode we ask: who owns the skies?We get into it with la...

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Terra Nullius: Who Owns Outer Space? w/ Heather Allansdottir

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This is our first in a series called Terra Nullius. Huh? It’s Latin for ‘Nobody’s Land’. We will be exploring how rules are made for contested territory. If a land belongs to no one, does that mean it...

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How to (Actually) Keep Kids Safe Online w/ Kate Sim

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Child safety is a fuzzy catch-all concept for our broader social anxieties that seems to be everywhere in our conversations about the internet. But child safety isn’t a new concept, and the way our po...

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