The Exorcism of Emotion in Rational Science (and AI) with Lorraine Daston
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 theory, which might lead you to select data that confirms your hypothesis, or when you’re confronted with some anomalies in your dataset that threaten ...
15 Nov 202238min
Queer Data with Kevin Guyan
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 through the counting of a census. As Kevin reminds us, who does the counting affects who is counted. We also discuss why looking at histories of i...
1 Nov 202236min
Data Activism Against Everyday Racism with Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Ella McPherson
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 how racism dehumanises people, confuses us about each other, and causes physical suffering, which students of colour have to deal with on top of the...
18 Okt 202237min
Why Machine Learning is Political with Louise Amoore
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 attributes, and when its results are interpreted, it reflects a particular view of the world. In the same way, social views about what is normal and abnorm...
4 Okt 202240min
Reproductive Technologies and Feminist Research Ethics with Sarah Franklin
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 techno-feminist revolution, and the violence of anti-trans movement across the world.
20 Sep 202238min
Anti-Asian Racism across Time and Space with Michelle N. Huang
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 violence against Asian American and Asian diaspora communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss why the humanities really matter when thinkin...
6 Sep 202233min
Understanding Tech Ethics from the Ground Up with Sareeta Amrute
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 want to buy; how companies get out of being responsible for white supremacist material sold across their platforms; why all people who make technol...
23 Aug 202236min
Techno-Feminisms and Why Nature is Far Stranger Than We Think with Sophie Lewis
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 now being grown in artificial wombs, and why technologies like birth control and IVF can never liberate women within the power dynamics of our capi...
3 Aug 202234min
