Science, Capitalism, and Social Justice – can we do better?
Guest: Jenny Reardon Since the mid 2000’s the field of genetics has seen rapid technological innovation, particularly in DNA sequencing and genotyping technologies that enable analysis of large portions of an individual’s genome at a relatively affordable cost. These advancements
How do you know what news to trust?
Guest: Sally Lehrman There is no question that an informed public and a free press are critical requirements for a functioning democracy. But what if the public has little to no trust in the news media? How can we have
Connected cars and the privacy debacle
Guest: Zoë MacDonald The increased number of Internet enabled cars affords us luxuries deemed unattainable a few decades ago. We can now navigate roads in a way to avoid traffic jams, diagnose problems and often fix glitches with a software
Artistic Alchemy: Exploring AI’s Impact on Creativity and Culture
Guest: Nestor Maslej Artificial intelligence has made inroads in each of the seven categories of art: architecture, cinema, literature, painting, music sculpture, and theater. And in doing so, has challenged what it means to create art, as well as stirred
Preserving Journalism in the Dawning Age of AI
Guest: Courtney C. Radsch A revolution is afoot in media and by extension, journalism. Economic factors have caused the decline of local media to the point where in the US two newspapers are forced to shut down every week. Another
Scientists Confronting the Disinformation Ecosystem
Guest: Sheldon Himelfarb With the advances in AI and increasing sophistication in creating misleading content such as deepfakes, there is growing concern especially amongst academics and researchers about the threat mis- and dis-information pose not only for the 2024 election
Measuring social media impacts on mental health
Guest: Nathaniel Lubin In the fall of 2021, Whistleblower Frances Haugen—a former member of the Civic Integrity team at Meta—shared a cache of more than 1,300 documents that would come to be known collectively as the Facebook Papers. A key
Can AI Help Us Go Green?
Guest: Jef Caers The EU is requiring all cars sold in the European Union by 2035 to be zero-emission vehicles, and the US has set a target of 67% by 2032. But there is a catch. Transition to Electric vehicles
Building Trust in AI Systems
Guest: Jane Pinelis A new movie called “The Creator” paints a vivid picture of humanity at war with AI in a dystopian future. Although the movie is science fiction, it highlights a major issue: How can we reliably assess and
A Realists’s Guide to AI Risks
Guest: Alex Engler ChatGPT has highlighted the excitement and fear about the potential consequences of AI for humanity, and in doing so has pushed forth the need to examine if and how to regulate AI. However, we currently lack a