Hi-Phi Nation

On this show we explore three different AI and machine-generated music technologies; vocal emulators that allow you to deep fake a singer or rapper’s voice, AI-generated compositions and text-to-music generators like Google Music LM and Open AI’s Jukebox, and musical improvisation technologies. We listen to the variety of music these technologies generate, and two guitarists face off against an AI in improvised guitar solos. 

Along the way, we talk to philosophers of music Robin James and Theodore Gracyk about what musical creativity is and whether machines are more or less creative than human musicians, and Barry gives his take on each of the technologies and what they mean for the future of musical creativity.

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Curtis is setting aside a large chunk of money to donate to charity, and it is up to us to persuade him where he should donate it. Luckily, philosophers, economists, and the nonprofit world have been thinking a lot about this issue in recent years. On this episode, effective altruism’s defenders and critics try to persuade Curtis of where he should donate. Who is the most effective in persuading an ordinary person as to the right way to donate to charity? And do the recent scandals involving effective altruism’s biggest donor implicate its philosophical foundations?

 We start with arguments that you should always try to save the most lives possible, no matter where they are on the planet. We then hear a critic of that view, who argues that local giving can also be a good. We then turn to the view that we should save humans from extinction from threats like pandemics, nuclear war, and AI takeover. And finally, we hear from a critic of that view, who says we should not blow future risks out of proportion.

 Guests include philosophers Richard Yetter-Chappell (Miami), Savannah Pearlman (Indiana), Shakeel Hashim (Center for Effective Altruism), and Seth Lazar (Australia National University).

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Willy and Heidi were both gig workers for Shipt, the fast-delivery app for groceries or same-day shopping. In 2020, they both realised: the pay algorithm had changed. Now, they couldn’t tell what a job would pay, or whether it would earn or lose them money. Instead of just taking it, they decided to fight back.

In the gig economy, companies like Shipt, Instacart, and UberEats all use black box pay algorithms to try and get workers to accept gigs but hide information from them to do so. Early in the pandemic, a rag tag group of gig workers tried to resist, and found someone at MIT to help them.

Host Barry Lam talks to them about the steps they took, and political philosopher Daniel Halliday (University of Melbourne) talks about the differences between wage labor and freelance labor and why he thinks the biggest gig economy companies are morally suspect. Then, we talk the future of regulation and worker-owned apps and delivery platforms.

Guests include Drew Ambrogi (coworker.org), Dan Calacci (MIT). This is an in-depth, longform version of a story originally done for WNYC studio’s Radiolab in their Gigaverse episode.

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We explore the lives of people who are in love with their AI chatbots. Replika is a chatbot designed to adapt to the emotional needs of its users. It is a good enough surrogate for human interaction that many people have decided that it can fulfill their romantic needs. The question is whether these kinds of romantic attachments are real, illusory, or good for the people involved. Apps like Replika represent the future of love and sex for a subpopulation of people, so we discuss the ethics of the practice.

 Host Barry Lam talks to philosophers Ellie Anderson and David Pena-Guzman of the Overthink podcast about what theories of love would say about these kinds of relationships. AI lovers include Alex Stokes and Rosanna Ramos. Original scoring by Aaron Morgan.

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A zoopolis is a future society that philosophers envision where wild, domesticated, and denizen animals have full political and legal rights. What would that look like? In this episode, we look at how animals were put on trial in medieval European courts, and how animal rights advocates are bringing animals back into the courtrooms to sue people and the US government.

We then look at what the science of animal minds tells us about how much agency animals have, and envision what political and legal rights various animals would have in a zoopolis. From there, we discuss and debate whether we should be allowed to farm animals, control their reproduction, and have them work for us.

 Co-produced with Alec Opperman, guests include historian Gabriel Rosenberg, attorney Monica Miller, and animal minds researcher Professor Kristin Andrews.

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When Justin’s mom was diagnosed with cancer, he knew he wanted to keep talking to her after she died. So together they made an AI version of her, training it on her speech patterns and memories. Now he is scaling his findings so that anyone can continue their relationships with loved ones after their deaths. Justin even believes this can one day lead to digital immortality.

Grief experts are only now dealing with bereaved people who create digital versions of their loved ones. We look at what they say about the phenomenon, and what philosophers think about whether the best AI version of a person can actually be them.

Co-produced with Alexandra Salmon, guests include Justin Harrison, CEO of You, Only Virtual, Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, and Dr. Debra Bassett.

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Coming April 11, 2023, Season 6 of Hi-Phi Nation will look at the future; of work, of love and sex, life and death, our relationship with animals, creativity in music, and philanthropy. Stories include people trying to create digital avatars of dead loved ones, people in exclusive relationships with AI chatbots, animals who are seeking legal protection in courts, the gig economy, AI music, and effective altruism. The episodes will draw out the most interesting moral and philosophical issues from the current path of artificial intelligence technology, data science, and cultural and legal trends.

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In our final episode on monsters, we investigate why people who eat people are the funkiest people in the afterlife. We talk to a man who has actually eaten parts of other people, many times, about why he thinks consuming human flesh should be normalized. We then consider the age-old question of how God is supposed to resurrect a cannibal and all of his victims when most of the flesh of the victims would also be a part of the cannibal. Some of the best minds in Western philosophy and Christian theology thought about this question, including Leibniz, Aquinas, and Augustine. Co-hosted by Christina van Dyke, featuring artist and cannibal Rick Gibson and philosopher Dean Zimmerman.

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The second in a three-part series on monsters in philosophy. We trace the cultural history of zombies from voodoo folklore, George Romero films, and the zombies used in philosophical thought experiments. Folklore, film and philosophy seem to converge on the idea that consciousness above all else is what a creature needs to have to be worthy of moral concern, something a zombie lacks. But we have no idea when something crosses over from being a zombie to being conscious, particularly current AI systems. What happens then? Guest speakers are Christina van Dyke (Columbia), David Chalmers (NYU), and John Edgar Browning (Savannah College of Art and Design), and Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside).

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The first in a three-part series on monsters in philosophy. We trace the cultural history of vampires from Eastern European folklore to Twilight, and even look at the practices of real vampires, people who seek out and consume blood or psychic energy. The vampire went from demon to attractive monster in the course of a few centuries and raises a deep question for us about how different we can be, the limits of human imagination, and whether we can ever reasonably choose to have a transformative experience. Guest speakers include Christina van Dyke (Columbia), Laurie Paul (Yale), and John Edgar Browning (Savannah College of Art and Design).

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