Computer Says Maybe

Google has finally been judged to be a monopoly by a federal court — while this was strikingly obvious already, what does this judgement mean? Is this too little too late? This week Alix and Prathm were joined by Michelle Meagher, an antitrust lawyer who shared a brief history of how antitrust started as a tool for governments to stop the consolidation of corporate power, and over time has morphed...

What happens if you ask a generative AI image model to show you what Picasso’s work would have looked like if he lived in Japan in the 16th century? Would it produce something totally new, or just mash together stereotypical aesthetics from Picasso’s work, and 16th century Japan? This week, Alix interviewed Eryk Salvaggio, who shares his ideas around how we are moving away from ‘the age of informa...

In part two of our episode on open source AI, we delve deeper into we can use openness and participation for sustainable AI governance. It’s clear that everyone agrees that things like the proliferation of harmful content is a huge risk — but what we cannot seem to agree on is how to eliminate this risk. Alix is joined again by Mark Surman , and this time they both take a closer look at the work A...

In the context of AI, what do we mean when we say ‘open source’? An AI model is not something you can straightforwardly open up like a piece of software; there are huge technical and social considerations to be made. Is it risky to open-source highly capable foundation models? What guardrails do we need to think about when it comes to the proliferation of harmful content? And, can you really call...

This week Alix was joined by Kevin De Liban, who just launched Techntonic Justice, an organisation designed to support and fight for those harmed by AI systems. In this episode Kevin describes his experiences litigating on behalf of people in Arkansas who found their in-home care hours cut aggressively by an algorithm administered by the state. This is a story about taking care away from individua...

This week we’re wallowing in post-election catharsis: Alix and Prathm process the result together, and discuss the implications this administration has for technology politics. How much of a role will people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel play during Trump’s presidency? What kind of tactics should the left adopt going forward to stop this from happening again? And what does this mean for the techn...

For this pre-election special, Prathm spoke with law professor Spencer Overton about how this election has — and hasn’t — be impacted by AI systems. Misinformation and deepfakes appear to be top of the agenda for a lot politicians and commentators, but there’s a lot more to think about… Spencer discusses the USA’s transition into a multiracial democracy, and describes the ongoing cultural anxiety...

For our final episode in this series on the environment, Alix interviewed Karen Hao on how tough it is to report on environmental impacts of AI. The conversation focusses on two of Karen’s recent stories, linked below. One of the biggest barriers to consistent reporting on AI’s climate injustices is the sheer opaqueness of information about what companies are trying to do when building infrastruct...

In our third episode about AI & the environment, Alix interviewed Sherif Elsayed-Ali, who’s been working on using AI to reduce the carbon emissions of concrete. Yes, that’s right — concrete. This may seem like a very niche place to focus a green initiative on but it isn’t; concrete is the second most used substance in the world because it’s integral to modern infrastructure, and there’s no oth...

This week we are continuing our AI & Environment series with an episode about a key piece of AI infrastructure: data centres. With us this week are Boxi Wu and Jenna Ruddock to explain how data centres are a gruesomely sharp double-edged sword. They contribute to huge amounts of environmental degradation via local water and energy consumption, and impact the health of surrounding communities w...

This week we’re kicking off a series about AI & the environment. We’re starting with Holly Alpine, who just recently left Microsoft after starting and growing an internal sustainability programme over a decade. Holly’s goal was pretty simple: she wanted Microsoft to honour the sustainability commitments that they had set for themselves. The internal support she had fostered for sustainability...

In 2017 Google’s urban planning arm Sidewalk Labs came into Toronto and said “we’re going to turn this into a smart city”. Our guest Bianca Wylie was one of the people who stood up and said “okay but… who asked for this?” This is a story about how a large tech firm came into a community with big promises, and then left with its tail between its legs. In the episode Alix and Bianca discuss the comp...

What if we could have a public library for compute? But is… more compute really what we want right now? This week Alix interviewed Teri Olle from the Economic Security Project, a co-sponsor of the California AI safety bill (SB 1047). The bill has been making the rounds in the news because it would force AI companies to do safety checks on their models before releasing them to the public — which is...

Applications for our second cohort of Media Mastery for New AI Protagonists are now open!  Join this 5-week program to level up your media impact alongside a dynamic community of emerging experts in AI politics and power—at no cost to you. In this episode, we chat with Daniel Stone, a participant from our first cohort, about his work. Apply by Sunday, September 29th! The adoption of new technologi...

There are oceans of research papers digging into the various harms of online platforms. Researchers are asking urgent questions such as how hate speech and misinformation has an effect on our information environment, and our democracy. But how does this research find it’s way to the media, policymakers, advocacy groups, or even tech companies themselves? To help us answer this, Alix is joined this...

Last week, CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov landed in France and was immediately detained. The details of his arrest are still emerging; he is being charged for being complicit in illegal activities happening on the platform, including the spread of CSAM. Durov’s lawyer has referred to these charges as “absurd” — because the head of a social media company cannot be held responsible for criminal activit...

That’s the END of Exhibit X folks; if you’ve been following along, congratulations on choosing to become smarter. If not that’s okay, consider this episode a delicious teaser for the series. In this episode Alix and Prathm engage their large wet brains and pull out the meatiest insights and learnings from the last five episodes. This series has been a delightful intellectual expedition into big te...

What makes an expert witness? How does a socio-technical researcher become one? Now that we’re the end of this miniseries, we might finally be ready to answer these questions… In the fifth instalment of Exhibit X, civic tech acrobat Elizabeth Eagen shares her pithy insights on how researchers of emerging technologies are starting to interface with litigators and regulators. The questions we explor...

Imagine: something horrible has happened and the only evidence you have is a video posted online. Can you submit it into evidence in court? Well, it’s complicated. In part 4 of our Exhibit X series , Alix sat down with Dr. Alexa Koenig to discuss her work with the International Criminal Court. Dr. Koenig and many colleagues are supporting the court to grapple with online evidence and tackling chal...

Often it feels as though the cases and lawsuits brought against big tech firms are continuously piling up, but there never seems to be any resulting justice or resolution. There are many good reasons for this, two of which are section 230 and the first amendment. Big Tech companies will routinely invoke 230 and the first amendment to get cases against them thrown out before they can go to trial. I...

In part 2 of Exhibit X, Alix interviewed Frances Haugen, who In 2021 blew the whistle on Meta; they were sitting on the knowledge that their products were harmful to kids, and yet — shocker — they continued to make design decisions that would keep kids engaged. Mark Zuckerberg worked hard on his image (it’s a hydrofoil, not a surfboard!), while Instagram was being used for human trafficking — the...

Here is something you’re probably tired of hearing: Big Tech is responsible for a bottomless brunch of societal harms. And they are not being held accountable. Right now it feels as though we hear constantly about laws, regulation, courts. But none of it is effective in litigating against Big Tech. In our latest podcast series Exhibit X, we’re looking at how the tides might finally be turning. Leg...

In the Exhibit X series Alix and Prathm sink their fingernails into the tangled universe of litigation and Big Tech; how have the courts held Big Tech firms accountable for their various harms over the years? Is whistleblowing an effective mechanism for informing new regulations? What about a social media platform’s first amendment rights? So much to cover, so many episodes coming your way!

In part four of our FAccT deep dive, Alix joins Marta Ziosi and Dasha Pruss to discuss their paper “Evidence of What, for Whom? The Socially Contested Role of Algorithmic Bias in a Predictive Policing Tool”. In their paper they discuss how an erosion of public trust can lead to ‘any idea will do’ decisions, and often these lean on technology, such as predictive policing systems. One such tool is t...

In this episode, we speak with Lara Groves and Jacob Metcalf  at the seventh annual FAccT conference in Rio de Janeiro. In part four of our FAccT deep dive, Alix joins Lara Groves and Jacob Metcalf  to discuss their paper “ Auditing Work: Exploring the New York City algorithmic bias audit regime”. Lara Groves is a Senior Researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute. Her most recent project explored th...