Future Based Podcast

Aysha Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H., is a double Board-certified neurologist and preventive medicine/public health specialist and is on a mission! She is demonstrating how there is a mutual benefit to both humans and animals when animals are protected. Dr. Akhtar is the President and CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences, which is catalyzing the replacement of unreliable animal testing with more effective human-specific research techniques.  A U.S veteran, she previously served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Army Traumatic Brain Injury Program developing the Army’s brain injury prevention and treatment strategies for soldiers. As a Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Dr. Akhtar frequently deployed to assist with national public health emergencies. She is published in peer-reviewed journals including Lancet, Pediatrics, Journal of Public Health Policy and Reviews in the Neurosciences. Aysha is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is the author of the two books, Our Symphony With Animals. On Health, Empathy and Our Shared Destinies and Animals and Public Health, which argues for the need for health institutions to include animals as part of the “public” in public health. Aysha is a TEDx speaker. Our host Annika van den Born interviewed Aysha for our podcast series Beyond Human Relations on animal testing and animal rights. (source text: https://ayshaakhtar.com/)

Inverse Surveillance AI is a project of The Asimov Institute, funded by the SIDN Fund. The project is a think tank of scientists, policymakers, and philosophers in order to answer the question, “How can we use AI as a Panopticon to promote beneficial actions for citizens by organizations?” Based on the insights produced from this think tank, a first proof of concept will be developed in a hackathon. The project lasts 6 months and operates from a utopian and solution-oriented approach. The main goal is to deepen the subject of Inverse Surveillance, to explore how AI can make this possible, and sharing all information so that it can function as a launchpad for future research. This podcast series together with Asimov director Stefan Leijnen, we go into conversations with experts in the field of AI technology.

In this podcast episode we are going into conversation with Anouk Geenen and Julieta Matos-Castaño about the intricate nature of human-technology relations in the city. What do we need to not only reflect on and analyze past or current practices, but to foster our imagination and collective sensemaking to take action towards inclusive and responsible practices? What role can design and futuring play in this?

The presence and increasing use of surveillance in our daily lives means our awareness and engagement need to be active as much as it is theoretical. During the course of this podcast series, host Abdelrahman Hassan and the The Asimov Institute Director Stefan Leijnen, will go into conversation with experts about the various areas of surveillance. Each episode examines the relationship between algorithms and power structures, how they shape each other and how they shape the governed subject. The most important part of the podcast, is how we can debunk existing power frames in order to create new ones: What rules or concepts can be employed to shift existing power structures? This podcast series aims to find a more unidirectional blueprint for future governance systems, and will be the point of departure of the hackathon in the Summer of 2021, organized by the Inverse Surveillance AI project.

The presence and increasing use of surveillance in our daily lives means our awareness and engagement need to be active as much as it is theoretical. During the course of this podcast series, host Abdelrahman Hassan and the The Asimov Institute Director Stefan Leijnen, will go into conversation with experts about the various areas of surveillance.  Each episode examines the relationship between algorithms and power structures, how they shape each other and how they shape the governed subject. The most important part of the podcast, is how we can debunk existing power frames in order to create new ones: What rules or concepts can be employed to shift existing power structures?  This podcast series aims to find a more unidirectional blueprint for future governance systems, and will be the point of departure of the hackathon in the Summer of 2021, organized by the Inverse Surveillance AI project.

Nonhuman Nonsense challenges the consensus with speculative art-sci projects.  Trough design and art, they open up the discussion and enable access to underlying layers of politics, ethics and metaphysics. In this third podcast in the series 'Beyond Human Relations, Annika van den Born goes into conversation about how they transmute our relationship to the non-human, by embracing the contradictory and the paradoxical – telling stories that open the public imaginary to futures that currently seem impossible. Nonhuman Nonsense is founded by Leo Fidjeland and Linnea Våglund, it is based between Berlin and Stockholm.

In this second Beyond Human Relations podcast, Annika van den Born goes into conversation with Jamie Woodhouse, the (unwilfully) declared spokesman of Sentientism. Sentientism is a philosophy or worldview – a way of thinking about what to believe and what we should care about. Sentientists use scientific evidence and reason to work out what to believe in, so they reject supernatural beliefs. Sentientists also have compassion for all sentient beings – any being capable of suffering. Usually, this concerns human and nonhuman animals. What are exemplary cases for the broad practice of Sentientism? And what are the difficulties that Sentientists have to cope with in their research?

Do I know myself through and through? Is there a clear distinction between myself and the other? Or am I always somewhat of a stranger to myself, while the other is strangely familiar? In this podcast philosopher and researcher Femke van Hout address these questions from the perspective of the philosophy of the body.