Cory Doctorow is a digital rights activist, a podcaster, and a writer. Cory speaks with conviction against commercial data practices, which he views as opaque and untrustworthy. Cory recently wrote an article on consent theatre, [1] a concept that explains the strategies used by data-based companies to obfuscate the depth of their surveillance practices to acquire unwitting consent of their users.

[1] Cory Doctorow, “Consent Theater,” Medium, 2021, https://onezero.medium.com/consent-theater-a32b98cd8d96.

Risky driving includes speeding, tailgating, and failing to come to a full stop, all of which increase injury risk. Investigating what leads to risky driving, like mental health disorders such as depressed mood and alcohol abuse, is important for implementing interventions that help limit road traffic crashes. Dr. Nevicia Case discusses the findings from her most recent study that examined the mental health disorders and driving behaviours over time of individuals with previous driving under the influence offences.

Dr Darin Barney is a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His work examines the future of digital technologies in democratic life, [1] the state of citizenship is a digitally integrated society, [2] and the infrastructure of network societies. [3] Our discussion revolved around concerns of digital governance over social and political life, [4] algorithmic fragmentation of social reality, [5] and the commercialization of data as treating users as standing-reserve. [6]

[1] Darin David Barney, Prometheus Wired: The Hope for Democracy in the Age of Network Technology (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000).

[2] Darin David Barney, One Nation under Google: Citizenship in the Technological Republic (Toronto: Hart House Lecture Committee, 2007).

[3] Darin David Barney, The Network Society, Key Concepts (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010).

[4] Yu-Che Chen, Managing Digital Governance: Issues, Challenges, and Solutions.(Boca Raton: Taylor and  Francis, 2017), https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4921790;  Just and Latzer, 245.

[5] Dean DeChiaro, “Social Media  Algorithms Threaten Democracy, Experts Tell Senators,” Roll Call, April  21, 2021, https://www.rollcall.com/2021/04/27/social-media-algorithms-threaten-democracy-experts-tell-senators/; Susan Morgan, “Fake News, Disinformation, Manipulation and Online  Tactics to Undermine Democracy,” Journal of Cyber Policy 3, no. 1  (January 2, 2018): 39–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/23738871.2018.1462395;  Ünver, 127–46.

[6] Martin Heidegger and William Lovitt, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

Atrisha Sarkar, PhD candidate in Computer Science at University of Waterloo, Canada, helps us understand what a self-driving car is, how we test them, and why understanding human behaviour is important for this process. We also discuss game theory and how it has been used in her work to model human behaviour for autonomous vehicles.

Important links: Atrisha Sarkar, WISE lab, Responsibility-Sensitive Safety

Dr. John Cheney-Lippold is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. His work uses a variety of philosophical concepts to provide an ontological review of the intersections between commercial and domestic surveillance, identity profiling, cultural participation, and the processes of becoming. [1] Dr Cheney-Lippold’s concept Algorithmic Identity illustrates how the intensity of identity profiling in commercial surveillance practices curates an identity based sense of reality for digital technology users. [2] Dr Cheney-Lippold reflects this new mode of media distribution that utilizes data to target identity categories deserves significant ontological considerations.

[1] John Cheney-Lippold, We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves (New York: New York University Press, 2017).

[2] John Cheney-Lippold, 5; Natascha Just and Michael Latzer, “Governance by Algorithms: Reality Construction by  Algorithmic Selection on the Internet,” Media, Culture & Society 39, no. 2 (March 2017): 238–58, https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443716643157;  Smith, “On You: Networks, Subjectivity and Algorithmic Identity, 2018;  Cornelius Schubert, “The social life of computer simulations: On the social construction of algorithms and the algorithmic construction of the social,” in Simulieren und Entscheiden, ed. Nicole J. Saam, Michael  Resch, and Andreas Kaminski, Sozialwissenschaftliche Simulationen und die Soziologie der Simulation (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden,  2019), 145–69, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-26042-2_6.

Are you a runner and looking for a community? Are you looking for a new low-cost activity? This episode discusses all things running from some local runners: how to get started, the mental, physical, and social benefits of running that they have experienced, and much more! Join me and Run To Give Co-founders Aarty, Doug, and Madi, who discuss their running journeys and their virtual charity run that you can set as your new walk or run goal or simply donate to support the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario!

Hannah Mieczkowski is a recent PhD graduate in Psychology at Stanford University, USA. Hannah’s research epistemologically challenges knowledge claims made by social media researchers.[1] Hannah suggests that problematic smartphone use may be symptomatic of pre-existing mental health conditions that an individual pacifies through smartphone use.

[1] Hannah Mieczkowski, Angela Lee, and Jeffrey Hancock, “Priming Effects of Social Media Use Scales on Well-Being Outcomes: The Influence of Intensity and Addiction Scales on Self-Reported Depression,” November 25, 2020, 10.1177/2056305120961784.

Dr Alan Sears is a Professor of Sociology at Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada. He can speak with authority on sociological concepts that aid in illustrating the Cycles in Algorithmic Cultivation concept, such as agency and symbolic interactionism. Both of these concepts are important in aiding considerations about algorithmic cultivation. Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical framework that explains how cultures are formed through groups of values and behaviours that constitute a symbolic world. [1] 

Symbolic interactionism is also concerned with how the range of symbols within a culture demands performative behaviours for cultural inclusion, and how these demands influence the behavior of individuals. [2] Symbolic interactionism can be a useful tool for highlighting the vitally structural characteristics of a culture and the range of behaviours that mandate inclusion.

[1] Peter M. Hall, “Symbolic Interaction,”  in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, ed. George Ritzer (Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2016), 1–5, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeoss310.pub2.

[2] Richard L. West and Lynn H. Turner,  Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application, Sixth  edition (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education, 2018).

Bad Faith Cycles in Algorithmic Cultivation, an interview-based podcast series that explores identity, defined as who we are and what we do, and agency, defined as the sum total range of potential actions or our ability to make a difference, in our contemporary digitally and algorithmically mediated lives.

Listen to part 1 and 2 to learn about our guest, Treyton Zary, how climate change impacts supply chains, what organizations are or are not doing about it, and the specific adaptations they can make.

Part 3 topics:

00:10 - Continuation: small vs large organization adaptations (and the bullwhip effect)

01:15 - Impact on public health

08:20 - Positive changes that have been made and the vaccine cold chain

17:30 - Where you can find more on this topic!

Learn more about Treyton and his research here: Twitter: @treytonzary, visit treytonzary.ca