Episode 39: The Politics of Air Pollution, Ozempic, and Luddism ft. Brian Merchant

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TRANSCRIPT

In this episode, Shobita and Jack tackle the EPA's recent efforts to increase monitoring of air pollutants, Jack's new documentary on existential risks, and the Ozempic craze. And Jack chats with Brian Merchant, a freelance journalist who focuses on tech who recently wrote Blood in the machine: The origins of rebellion against big tech about the history of Luddism.

Links:

Study Questions:

  1. How might we critically consider expanded oversight by the EPA, and its ability to translate to better regulation for environmental justice communities

  2. How does the launch of weight loss drugs like Ozempic for the general population represent a shift towards individualized responsibility for obesity? How might it interact with anti-fat biases in society

  3. Who were the Luddites, and what drove them to organize against industrial entrepreneurs

  4. In the context of regulatory legislation, how do the arguments of today’s Big Tech parallel those of industrialists 200 years ago

  5. What examples of critical resistance to AI can we identify in today’s world?

Episode 38: CRISPR therapies, Boeing, and reconnecting with Alondra Nelson

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Transcript

In the first episode of 2024, Shobita and Jack reflect on the first CRISPR therapy approved by drug regulators around the world, for sickle cell disease. We also talk about the safety issues plaguing Boeing, and the Post Office scandal roiling the UK and why it matters for regulating AI. And, we reconnect with Alondra Nelson, one of The Received Wisdom's first guests! Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and previously as deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy(OSTP). 


Study Questions:

  1. How might the recently-approved CRISPR therapy for sickle cell disease fall short of addressing socioeconomic inequalities, as originally proposed?

  2. How do the recent mishaps with Boeing aircrafts illustrate the concept of human beings as the ‘moral crumple zones’ in sociotechnical systems?

  3. How has deference to technological systems resulted in social injustices?

  4. How might the framing of AI as an existential risk that is the government’s responsibility to mitigate be problematic?

  5. What does it mean to ‘understand the technology’ in a way that is sociopolitically meaningful?

  6. Aside from good ideas, what other factors play a role in effective policy making?

Episode 37: Climate Change Realpolitik, Following the Sams, and Evaluating Research ft. Sarah de Rijcke

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TRANSCRIPT

This month, Shobita and Jack reflect on the recent COP meeting in the United Arab Emirates, recent AI news including the Biden Administration's Executive Order, the UK summit, and the fates of the two Sams: Altman and Bankman-Fried. And they chat with Sarah de Rijcke, Professor in Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies and Scientific Director at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

References:

Study Questions:

  1. What is techno-optimism, and how does it apply in the case of AI?

  2. How might we think about the strengths and weaknesses of current efforts to address AI governance by the U.S. government?

  3. What are some negative consequences of simplistic performance metrics for research assessment, and why do such metrics remain in use?

  4. How do large companies like Elsevier now extend their domain beyond publishing? How might this shape the trajectory of research assessment methods?

  5. What hopes exist for better performance metrics for research assessments?

Episode 36: Electric Cars, the Problems with Tech Biographies, and Against Technoableism ft. Ashley Shew

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TRANSCRIPT

In this episode, Shobita and Jack discuss the United Auto Worker strike, facial recognition technology in schools, and the recent biographies of Elon Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried. And, they interview Ashley Shew, author of Against Technoableism and Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech.

Links

Study Questions

  • What is the relationship between the recent labor unrest and emerging technology?

  • How do biographers approach tech leaders, and what is wrong with it?

  • How do the medical and social models of disability approach disability differently?

  • How can technology shape our perception of what is “normal” when it comes to disability?

  • How might dependency on various technologies affect the life of a disabled person in unexpected ways?

  • How might disability change one’s experience of the built environment?

  • How might we reconsider disability expertise to create a more accessible society?

Episode 35: The Long, Hot AI Summer, India's Space Mission, and Addressing Inequality through Innovation ft. Richard Jones

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TRANSCRIPT

Jack and Shobita are back after a summer hiatus! We return talking about--of course--ChatGPT and other generative AI, the problem at Fukushima, and India's Chandrayaan Rover. Then we chat with Richard A.L. Jones, professor of material physics and innovation policy . He is also the Vice President for Regional Innovation and Civic Engagement at Manchester University.

Study Questions:

  1. What is wrong with the Turing test to evaluate AI?

  2. What is unique about India's approach to space innovation?

  3. What is the problem with the conventional idea that the road to economic opportunity is teaching miners how to code?

  4. How does Richard Jones think that innovation policy should address inequality? How about universities?

  5. What is wrong with equating innovation and entrepreneurship? How do our conventional notions of innovation constrain its potential to help society?

Episode 34: The Importance of the Humanities, Tech Politics, and Equity in Science ft. Cassidy Sugimoto

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TRANSCRIPT

Jack and Shobita discuss the decline in humanities majors as the number of computer and data science majors rise, and why this is will have very bad consequences. Then they chat about emerging efforts to regulate both in vitro gametogenesis (creation of eggs and sperm using pluripotent stem cells) and generative AI. Finally, they talk to Cassidy Sugimoto, Professor and Tom and Marie Patton School Chair in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology, about her new book, Equity for Women in Science: Dismantling Systemic Barriers to Advancement.

Study Questions:

1. What is bibliometrics, and how can it be useful for policymakers? What are its limitations?

2. What does bibliometrics tell us about the state of women in science?

3. What kinds of practices, programs, and policies, can help achieve equity for women in science?

4. What arguments and stories might you use to convince people to value the questions that women scientists tend to ask?

5. What were the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women scientists, and how might universities help women address this now and in future crises?

6. How might accepting that science is not neutral actually help scientists and science?

Episode 33: Abortion Politics, a Moratorium on Generative AI, and the Meaning of Emergency ft. Elizabeth Ellcessor

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Transcript

What makes an emergency? This month, Jack and Shobita talk to Elizabeth Ellcessor, Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies at University of Virginia, who studies how emergency alert systems shape our understanding of crisis, how this has changed with the rise of new consumer technologies, and the implications especially for communities who are marginalized. They also wrestle with the politics of science in US court decisions about abortion drugs, and recent calls for a moratorium on certain types of artificial intelligence.

Study Questions

  1. Why didn’t the US government issue a national alert on 9/11? What does this tell us about the role emergency alerts play?

  2. What is the entangled human and material infrastructure that leads to an alert? Can our understanding of the “technology” be separated from the “human”? How might this help think about AI, for example?

  3. What are the limitations of emergency alert systems in assisting marginalized communities?

  4. How have emergency alert services been designed to privilege certain publics over others? How might this be alleviated?

  5. What are the implications of the rise of consumer technologies designed to help users in case of emergency?

Episode 32: The Politics of Expertise and Retelling the Story of Racism in the Pulse Oximeter ft. Amy Moran-Thomas

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TRANSCRIPT

This month, Jack and Shobita talk about the challenges of ensuring that AI and gene editing reflect human values, and reflect on what the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio tells us about the politics of knowledge. And they chat with Amy Moran-Thomas, Associate Professor of Anthropology at MIT, about her clarion call to address the racial biases embedded in the pulse oximeter, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020.

Study questions:

  1. What are the benefits and risks of sickle cell disease becoming one of the first approved treatments using somatic cell gene editing?

  2. How did early concerns about racial bias in the pulse oximeter get dismissed?

  3. How did the idea that the pulse oximeter had embedded racial bias go from something that was dismissed, to something that is commonly known? In particular, what are the social and political dynamics that affected this process?

  4. How have the definitions of expertise in this case (e.g., who sits on FDA panels) affected how we understand the problem with the pulse oximeter? How could it be understood differently? What kinds of expertise are missing in policymaking related to the pulse oximeter?

  5. What is the problem with framing the pulse oximeter issue as a skin color problem and not a device problem?

  6. What does Moran-Thomas's experience with the pulse oximeter story tell us about how research (especially in the social sciences and humanities) can have impact?

Episode 31: Science and Society at the White House, ChatGPT, and the Paradox of Data-Driven Agriculture

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TRANSCRIPT

Happy New Year!! In this episode, Jack and Shobita discuss Alondra Nelson's departure from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the meaning for the position she created, Deputy Director for Science and Society. We also try to get beyond ChatGPT's hype to talk about some of the long-term implications. And we chat with Kelly Bronson, Canada Research Chair in Science and Society at the University of Ottawa, about her book The Immaculate Conception of Data: Agribusiness, Activists, and Their Shared Politics of the Future.

Discussion Questions

  1. How is AI reconfiguring power relations, and social relationships, both in the case of LLMs like ChatGPT and in precision agriculture?

  2. What are the similarities and differences in how the private sector and activist scientists approach data-driven agriculture?

  3. What does openness mean in the context of precision agriculture, and what are the benefits and drawbacks for achieving equity, justice, and environmental sustainability?

  4. What is the "immaculate conception of data", and what are the problems of viewing it that way in agriculture or in other domains where AI is increasingly present?

  5. Why might it be important to have a permanent post focused on "science and society" in the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy?

Episode 30: The Future of Academic Culture, Cryptocurrency, and Abortion ft. Aziza Ahmed

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TRANSCRIPT

Episode 30: The Future of Academic Culture, Cryptocurrency, and Abortion ft. Aziza Ahmed

This month, Shobita and Jack talk about the recent concerns about academic culture in the science and technology studies community, how to understand FTX's recent implosion, and the bizarre logics of effective altruism. And we chat with Boston University law professor Aziza Ahmed about how the politics of knowledge are shaping abortion politics in the United States.

Episode 29: British Politics, the CHIPS and Science Act, and Rethinking the Green Revolution ft. Glenn Stone

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TRANSCRIPT

Jack and Shobita chat about the disasters in British politics, the CHIPS and Science Act, and how to determine whether self-driving cars are safe. Plus we chat with anthropologist Glenn Davis Stone, Professor at Sweet Briar College and author of the recent book The Agricultural Dilemma: How Not to Feed the World. Stone argues that we've been learning the story of the Green Revolution all wrong, and this has huge implications for how we think about more recent agricultural technologies like fertilizer and genetically modified organisms.

Links related to the episode

Study Questions

  1. How is the CHIPS and Science Act being framed in the United States?

  2. What are the problems with the conventional tale of the Green Revolution?

  3. Why has the myth of the Green Revolution been so persistent?

  4. What is the problem with GMOs, and specifically BT crops, in India?

  5. How have publics gotten more involved in the decisions of the agricultural system? What are the impacts?

Episode 28: The Politics of Open Access, Alzheimer’s Research, and Ghost Work ft. Mary Gray

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TRANSCRIPT

It's a new season of The Received Wisdom!! After their partial summer hiatus, Shobita and Jack discuss the fraud allegations that are rocking the foundations of what we know about Alzheimer's Disease, and the Biden Administration's directive to make freely available all publications based on federally funded research. And, they chat with Macarthur Fellow Mary Gray about the "ghost workers" behind digital technologies and supposedly artificial intelligence. Gray is Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and faculty in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering with affiliations in Anthropology and Gender Studies at Indiana University.

Relevant Links

Study Questions

1. Why was the amyloid plaque hypothesis for Alzheimer's so successful?

2. What are the potential drawbacks and limitations to the US government's adoption of an open access publication policy?

3. What is ghost work?

4. Why can't the problem of content moderation be solved solely through computation, and more generally computer science and engineering? What insights can deep understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology provide?

5. What don't we think of ghost workers as experts? How might reframing it in that way change the discussion? What public policy options might it reveal?

6. How do Gray and Suri categorize different types of ghost work?

Episode 27: How could self-driving cars change the world? - Part 2

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TRANSCRIPT

This episode is the second of Jack’s investigations into self-driving cars. Last time, he was interested in Phoenix, Arizona. This time, he’s back home in London, an old, complicated, messy city with an extensive public transport system. 

The episode was presented and written by Jack Stilgoe and edited by Gemma Milne, with research assistance from Nuzhah Miah.

Relevant links

  • Joe Moran, (2006). Crossing the road in Britain, 1931–1976. The Historical Journal, 49 (2), 477-496.

  • Joe Moran (2010). On roads: a hidden history. Profile Books.

  • Lucy Suchman (1987). Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge university press.

  • Peter Norton (2011). Fighting traffic: the dawn of the motor age in the American city. MIT Press.

  • Peter Norton (2021). Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-tech Driving. Island Press.

  • https://www.wayve.ai/ (and the company’s published papers, e.g.: Hawke, J., Badrinarayanan, V., & Kendall, A. (2021). Reimagining an autonomous vehicle. arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.05805).

  • Chris Tennant, & Jack Stilgoe, (2021). The attachments of ‘autonomous’ vehicles. Social Studies of Science, 51(6), 846-870. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03063127211038752

  • Tennant, C., Neels, C., Parkhurst, G., Jones, P., Mirza, S., & Stilgoe, J. (2021). Code, culture and concrete: Self-Driving Vehicles and the Rules of the Road. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 122.

Study questions

  1. How can the history of the motorcar help us anticipate futures for self-driving vehicles?

  2. What would it mean to, as Lucy Suchman puts it, ‘close the world’ to make life easier for self-driving vehicles?

  3. Which attachments of ‘autonomous’ vehicles are likely to prove most consequential?

  4. How should cities respond to the development of self-driving vehicles?

Episode 26: How could self-driving cars change the world? - Part 1

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[TRANSCRIPT]

This month is a bit different. This episode is the first part of an investigation, led by Jack, into self-driving cars, trying to locate the technology in particular places. The first part focuses on Phoenix, Arizona, a testbed for some of the technology’s most ambitious developers and also the scene of the first self-driving car crash to kill a pedestrian. Jack talks to various experts - historians, crash investigators, journalists and tech company representatives - to ask what the technology might mean for different places. The second part moves to Jack’s home town, London.

The episode was presented and written by Jack Stilgoe and edited by Gemma Milne, with research assistance from Nuzhah Miah.

Relevant links:

Study questions

  1. What explains the gap between self-driving car hype and reality?

  2. What can we learn from technological accidents?

  3. In what ways is ‘autonomous vehicle’ a misnomer?

  4. Are self-driving cars likely to look different in different places?

  5. Are there places in which we are likely to never see a self-driving car?

  6. How should self-driving technologies be governed as they start to appear in more places around the world?

Episode 25: Science in Abortion Politics and the Failure of One Laptop Per Child ft. Morgan Ames

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[TRANSCRIPT]

This month, Shobita and Jack discuss how scientists are engaging in the boiling politics of abortion in the United States, the implications of large language models (a new type of artificial intelligence), and Elon Musk's possible takeover of Twitter. And we have a fascinating conversation with Morgan Ames about her award-winning book The Charisma Machine, which focuses on the global One Laptop Per Child project. Ames is Professor of Practice at the School of Information and Associate Director of Research for the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society at the University of California, Berkeley.

Relevant links:

Study Questions:

  1. What are the problems with scientists taking such a prominent role in the abortion debate, especially in the US?

  2. What was the hope behind the One Laptop Per Child project, and how did it fail?

  3. What biases lay underneath the One Laptop Per Child project, in the idea, the design, and the implementation?

  4. What role does hype play in shaping our understanding of emerging technologies? What are its positive and negative dimensions?

  5. Could a One Laptop Per Child-type project ever be successful? How?

Episode 24: The TRIPS Patent Waiver and Communicating Science Differently ft. Sabrina McCormick

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[TRANSCRIPT]

In this episode, Shobita and Jack discuss this uncertain moment in the pandemic around the world, including the latest negotiations related to the TRIPS patent waiver related to COVID vaccines. They consider emerging efforts to develop a "pangenome" that emphasizes human genetic diversity. And they chat with Professor Sabrina McCormick, a scholar, policymaker, and filmmaker, about her efforts to advocate for climate change action in creative ways.

Relevant links:

Study questions:

  1. What it the TRIPS patent waiver and how might it influence global vaccine equity?

  2. Why is it important to use storytelling to talk about important science and technology issues

  3. Why are there pressures to “deanimate science”, as Bruno Latour puts it, and what are the benefits and drawbacks of that?

  4. What role does emotion play in scientific research?

  5. What kind of storytelling related to climate change do you think is ineffective? Effective?

Episode 23: The Myths of Genius, IP, and Surveillance ft. Chris Gilliard

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[TRANSCRIPT]

This month, Jack and Shobita discuss the resignation of the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, African scientists' success in copying the Moderna vaccine and the potential long-term implications, and the politics of long COVID. And we speak with scholar and writer Chris Gilliard about the rise of surveillance technologies, their implications especially for marginalized communities, and what we can do about it.

Related links:

Study Questions:

  1. Can you think of additional examples of luxury and imposed surveillance? What are their similarities and differences?

  2. What are the limitations to the consent model for accessing digital technologies? What harms might it cause?

  3. Think of a common digital technology that clearly produces social harm (e.g., Facebook, facial recognition technology). How might you redesign it to maximize the social benefits while limiting the harms?

  4. How might governments regulate emerging digital technologies to maximize societal benefits?

Episode 22: Theranos, Medical Devices, and Indigenous Knowledge on Climate Change ft. Kyle Powys Whyte

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[Transcript]

In this episode, Shobita and Jack discuss the recent conviction of the now-notorious Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Theranos, and what it means for tech hype. They talk about the UK government's recent decision to review the racial bias embedded in medical devices, and consider whether this will move equity objectives forward. And they speak with Kyle Powys Whyte, George Willis Pack Professor of Environment and Sustainability, and Affiliate Professor of Native American Studies and Philosophy, at the University of Michigan, about how indigenous knowledge can inform the science and policy discussions related to climate change.

Relevant Links:

Study Questions:

  1. What does climate science look like for indigenous peoples?

  2. What lessons might indigenous approaches to climate science hold for Western science?

  3. How do indigenous peoples think about the relationship between science and society?

  4. What are the benefits and drawbacks to the framing of climate change as an urgent problem?

  5. How have histories of colonialism shaped climate change, both in the United States and elsewhere?

  6. Is a just energy transition possible? What would it take to make the energy transition truly just?

Episode 21: Considering an AI Bill of Rights, Facebook, and the Technological Surveillance of Truckers ft. Karen Levy

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[TRANSCRIPT]

This month, Shobita and Jack discuss efforts to engage publics in the development and regulation of AI, including the AI Bill of Rights proposed by the White house, and the most recent Facebook controversies. And they talk to sociologist and lawyer Karen Levy about her forthcoming book examining the rise of technology-based surveillance in the trucking industry and its social, political, and labor implications.

Related Links:

Study Questions:

  1. What are the benefits and drawbacks of bringing EDL and other surveillance technologies into trucking?

  2. To what extent do you think the trucking (and other forms of labor) shortage can be traced to resistance to and frustration with surveillance technologies?

  3. How do the new technologies transform the kinds of knowledge and expertise deemed relevant to trucking? What knowledge is now valued, and what is devalued? What are the consequences?

  4. What is a multi-sited ethnography, and why is it useful for studying technologies, their implications, and the development of appropriate policies to manage them?

Episode 20: Risk, Expertise, and the Power of Community Perspectives in Science and Technology ft. Jason Delborne

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[TRANSCRIPT]

In this episode, Shobita and Jack compare how the US and UK governments are managing risk and uncertainty in both pandemic policymaking and in their evolving artificial intelligence strategies. And they chat with Jason Delborne, a professor at North Carolina State University who has done both research and public and policy engagement related to gene drives, a new form of biotechnology that could transform our ecosystems.

Related Links:

Study Questions:

1. Why do we turn to surveys as measures of public opinion, and what might consensus conferences or other deliberative methods allow us to do?
2. Why do we need social scientists involved in discussions about science and technology policies?
3. What’s the deficit model of public engagement, and what’s wrong with it?
4. Why might the science and engineering communities be skeptical of engaging communities in decisionmaking about science and technology, and how might these concerns be overcome?