Human Centered

Are jobs requiring high levels of human interaction worth preserving in the age of automation? Can we design machines to achieve something profound – the mutual recognition that occurs when human beings truly "see" each other? CASBS faculty fellow Mitchell Stevens explores these questions with Allison Pugh, author of the 2024 book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. Pugh launched work on the book as a 2016-17 CASBS fellow.

ALLISON PUGH
 website | Google Scholar page | Interview with Allison Pugh on building a society of connection (CASBS in partnership with Public Books) |

Princeton University Press page for The Last Human Job
 

MITCHELL STEVENS
Stanford GSE faculty page |  Stanford profile |  CASBS page | Google Scholar page |
 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Santi Furnari (CASBS fellow, 2023-24) engages renowned political sociologist & 2015-16 fellow Elisabeth Clemens on the role of private civic volunteer organizations in co-constructing national identity and state capacity as well as serving as tools of governance, solidarity, and inclusion for much of American history. In what form does civic benevolence and philanthropy operate in the contemporary landscape? This absorbing conversation draws inspiration from the multi-award-winning book "Civic Gifts," much of which Clemens wrote during her CASBS year.

ELISABETH CLEMENS: Univ. of Chicago faculty page | Clemens wins 2023 Gordon J. Laing Award | on Wikipedia |

The book is Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State (Univ. of Chicago Press), winner of the Barrington Moore Book Award, Comparative and Historical Sociology section, American Sociological Association;  the University of Chicago Press Gordon J. Laing Award; the Outstanding Published Book Award, ASA Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity; and the Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Prize, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).

SANTI FURNARI: CASBS page |  City University of London, Bayes School of Business faculty page | on Google Scholar |

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Legendary tech journalist John Markoff (CASBS fellow, 2017-18) chats with 2023-24 CASBS fellow Young Mie Kim on her groundbreaking efforts to identify how shadowy groups use algorithms and targeted disinformation campaigns during presidential election cycles; measure their real-world distorting effects on voter mobilization or suppression; and illuminate our understanding of resulting political inequalities and their implications for American democracy.

YOUNG MIE KIM: CASBS bio |  Univ. of Wisconsin faculty page |  "The Disinformation Detective" (On Wisconsin magazine) |

Kim leads Project DATA (Digital Ad Tracking & Analysis) at UW. | Project DATA on X |

Kim is lead author of the article "The Stealth Media? Groups and Targets Behind Divisive Issue Campaigns on Facebook," Political Communication, v35 n4 (2018). The article won the Kaid-Sanders Award for the Best Political Communication Article of the Year by the International Communication Association.

Coverage of findings: The New York Times here and here | Wired |  

Kim's testimony delivered to the Federal Election Commission | 

Kim is a founding member of the International Panel on the Information Environment. Coverage of IPIE in The New York Times |

Kim among the authors of "The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election: A deactivation experiment," Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, v121 n2 (2024) |

Kim a coauthor of several articles appearing in a special issue of Science on Social Media and Elections (2023) |

At the beginning of the episode, Kim discusses the influence of Phil Converse. Converse was a CASBS fellow in 1979-80 and later served as CASBS director (1989-94). Learn more about Converse's work.

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Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand  (Penguin Random House, 2022)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Stefan Link, a 2023-24 CASBS fellow, chats with Barry Eichengreen, a 1996-97 CASBS fellow and world renowned for his expertise at the nexus of international economics and economic history. They discuss some of Eichengreen's most prominent works — including "The European Economy Since 1945," which emerged from his CASBS experience, and "Golden Fetters," his most cited book — interrogating their durability and applicability to contemporary industrial, financial, and monetary policy challenges and governance.

BARRY EICHENGREEN: UC Berkeley faculty page | Homepage & CV | on Wikipedia | 

STEFAN LINK: CASBS bio | Dartmouth faculty page | 

Mentioned in the episode:

Eichengreen's talk on "Steering Structural Change" (session 2) at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (16 April 2024)

Eichengreen & Temin NBER paper on "The Gold Standard and the Great Depression" (June 1997)


Select Eichengreen books

Elusive Stability: Essays in the History of International Finance 1919-1939 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990)
Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression 1919-1939 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1992)
International Monetary Arrangements for the 21st Century (Brookings Institution, 1994)
Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System (Princeton Univ. Press, 1994)
European Monetary Unification: Theory, Practice, and Analysis (MIT Press, 1997)
Toward a New International Financial Architecture: A Practical Post-Asia Agenda (Peterson Institute for International Economics, 1999)
Financial Crises and What to Do About Them (Oxford Univ. Press, 2002)
Capital Flows and Crises (MIT Press, 2004)
Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods (MIT Press, 2006)
The European Economy Since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton Univ. Press, 2006)
Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System (Oxford Univ. Press, 2012)
Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses — and Misuses — of History (Oxford Univ. Press, 2015)
 

Stefan Link book

Forging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order  (Princeton Univ. Press, 2020)
Winner of the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, as well as the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, American Historical Association

 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Labor historian & 2023-24 CASBS fellow Gabriel Winant in conversation with 2018-19 CASBS fellow Ruth Milkman, among the nation's most renowned sociologists of labor. In addition to interrogating divisions within and segmentation across labor markets in recent decades, Milkman also has remained attuned to the complexity of the overall working class experience, essential for illuminating ways in which workers can unite and organize.

RUTH MILKMAN: CUNY faculty page | personal website | ASA bio |

Milkman's book Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat (2020) | Polity Press Q&A |

GABRIEL WINANT: CASBS bio | Univ. of Chicago faculty page |  faculty Q&A |

Winant's book The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America (2022)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

Explore CASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​

Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist John Markoff chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellow Nathan Matias about often-overlooked public interest questions and concerns regarding the deployment of tech platform algorithms and AI models. Specifically, Matias is a player in filling the two-way knowledge gaps between civil society and tech firms with an eye on governance, safety, accountability, and advancing the science — including the social science — of human-algorithm behavior.
 

Nathan Matias: Cornell University faculty page | CASBS bio | Personal website |

Citizens & Technology Lab

Coalition for Independent Technology Research

Select Matias publications

"Humans and Algorithms Work Together — So Study Them Together" Nature (2023)

"Impact Assessment of Human-Algorithm Feedback Loops" Just Tech, SSRC (2022)

"The Tragedy of the Digital Commons" The Atlantic (2015)

"To Hold Tech Accountable, Look to Public Health" Wired (2023)

Link to more Nathan Matias public writing | Matias on Medium | on LinkedIn |

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Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand (Penguin Random House, 2022)
 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

Explore CASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​

Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Recorded before a live audience, Margaret Levi, Alison Gopnik, & Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss a CASBS project, "The Social Science of Caregiving," which is reimagining the philosophical, psychological, biological, political, & economic foundations of care and caregiving. The goal is a coherent empirical and theoretical account or synthesis of care that advances understandings and policy discussions. [The episode notes provide links for further exploration.]

Article on CASBS's project on The Social Science of Caregiving

Web page for the project on The Social Science of Caregiving

Related: Human Centered episode #61, "Developing AI Like Raising Kids" (Alison Gopnik & Ted Chiang)

Alison Gopnik: CASBS bio | UC Berkeley Bio | 

Gopnik article, "Caregiving in Philosophy, Biology & Political Economy" (Dædalus)

Margaret Levi: CASBS bio | CASBS program on Creating a New Moral Political Economy | 

Anne-Marie Slaughter:  New America bio | 

Slaughter articles, "Care is a Relationship" (Dædalus) | "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" (The Atlantic)

Slaughter book, Unfinished Business (Penguin Random House)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist & 2017-18 CASBS fellow John Markoff chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellow Rebecca Slayton on how the field of computing expertise evolved, eventually giving rise to the niche of professionals who protect systems from cyber-attacks. Slayton's forthcoming book explores the governance & risk implications emerging from the fact that cybersecurity experts must establish their authority by paradoxically revealing vulnerabilities and insecurities of that which they seek to protect.

REBECCA SLAYTON

Cornell University faculty page | |  CASBS page | 

Slayton's book Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012 (MIT Press)

Slayton's article "What is the Cyber Offense-Defense Balance?," International Security

Video: Talk on "Shadowing Cybersecurity: Expertise, Transnationalism, and the Politics of Uncertainty" at Stanford Univ.

JOHN MARKOFF

New York Times page

Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Steward Brand (Penguin Random House, 2022)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
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View the Fall 2023 CASBS Newsletter
 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Two-time CASBS fellow Fred Turner engages CASBS board of directors chair Abby Smith Rumsey before a live audience to discuss her new book "Memory, Edited: Taking Liberties with History." When the erasure or distortion of collective memory through storytelling hijacks fact, truth, and history itself, what kind of information infrastructures can effectively confront those false narratives? Turner and Rumsey explore the tensions between history and storytelling and resulting implications for political beliefs, actions, and our collective sense of reality.

ABBY SMITH RUMSEY

CASBS website bio | Personal website | Talk at Long Now Foundation in partnership with CASBS 

MIT Press web page for Memory, Edited: Taking Liberties with History

CASBS Q&A with Rumsey (2022)

FRED TURNER

Stanford University profile | Fred Turner's books |  on Google Scholar |

"Machine Politics: The Rise of the Internet and a New Age of Authoritarianism," Harper's Magazine (2019)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

Explore CASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​

Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Renowned sociologist Michèle Lamont (CASBS fellow, 2002-03) discusses her new book, Seeing Others, with former CASBS director Woody Powell. The book assembles decades of Lamont’s scholarship, engaging some of contemporary society’s most elemental challenges and advancing key building blocks toward a shared human experience marked by greater inclusion, belonging, dignity, empathy, and equality.

MICHÈLE LAMONT:

Harvard University faculty page | Harvard sociology page

Personal website | Simon & Schuster page for Seeing Others

The Successful Societies project, which held its first convening at CASBS in 2003

WALTER "WOODY" POWELL

Stanford University faculty page | CASBS page 

Personal website | PACS page

Announcement of Powell as CASBS director

CASBS summer institute on Organizations and Their Effectiveness (2016-present)
 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

Explore CASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​

Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |