ChatGPT, short for “Conversational Generative Pre-training Transformer,” is an advanced language model developed by OpenAI that can understand and generate natural language with a high degree of accuracy. It has been a hot topic lately, for contexts in education and industry. This technology is capable of tasks such as language translation, question answering, and text generation – all while generating human-like responses.

This month’s show features Kai Larsen, a researcher and professor at CU Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. Kai is an expert in the field of Artificial Intelligence and we discuss how ChatGPT might revolutionize the future.

Hosted by Brayden Mahdavi.

Cryptocurrency has been in the news this past month after a cascade of bankruptcies unraveled a web of fraud. This comes after a year of already declining markets recast the 2021 crypto boom in a dark light. However, the headlines usually stick to flashy financial projects with big bottom lines.James Brennan speaks with Marisa Rando from PactDAO to learn how mutual aid can be served by blockchain – without ever adding a price tag to anything. Based in New York City, Pact uses decentralized tech to help coordinate community action. Marisa walks listeners through how Pact is navigating this unique middle ground of decentralized tech and local organizing.

With the journalism industry dwindling across the country, journalists formed the Colorado Sun as a beacon of hope.

The Colorado Sun is a small but mighty digital news source for the state of Colorado. It is a Public Benefit Corporation making it first and foremost dedicated to serving the Colorado public, and setting it apart from traditional news sources. We talked to Eric Lubbers, in charge of Technology and Strategy for the Sun, to better understand how it operates.

Do social media networks have to be addictive, or polarizing, or advertising-funded?

This conversation explores lessons from the past that could help us make social media better today. Our guest is University of Virginia media studies professor Kevin Driscoll, author most recently of “The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media.” He brings us stories of an almost-lost era before the Internet became widespread, whose traces are still very much with us.

Democracy seems to be in crisis around the world. Aspiring dictators are on the rise in many countries, and the flows of information are under the control of often-unaccountable tech companies. Could democracy be on its way out? This month, we hear from one of the most celebrated scholars of politics and media working today, Zizi Papacharissi. Her latest book, After Democracy, draws from interviews with 100 people around the world to explore the state of democracy and whether it has a future.

These days it seems like cryptocurrencies and blockchains are mostly enabling abuses: speculative bubbles, malware attacks, and money laundering for rogue states. But could the same technology also hold powerful governments and corporations accountable?

Jonathan Dotan directs the Starling Lab at Stanford University and USC, which uses emerging cryptographic technology to document human rights abuses, from the Holocaust to the current war in Ukraine. Dotan explains how his lab leverages tools usually associated with money and finance to preempt misinformation in the fog of war.

When we think about social media platforms and online interactions, it might seem like we are merely experiencing feeds of information that are curated for us by algorithms. The scale by which companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram now operate can make us question whether these information sharing spaces are public at all. What would it look like for platforms to look more like other kinds of public spaces in our lives?

This month on Looks Like New, we have a conversation with Eli Pariser, whose career has involved building several influential online platforms, pushing into the status quo by rethinking our online spaces by reflecting on human engagement in other kinds of public spaces—libraries, parks, and the democratic process.

Competitive entertainment has always been an essential part of human culture. Traditionally, sports have been the preferred form of competition, however, in a modern age of mass globalization through connection, a new form of entertainment has taken the stage: esports.

With online communities of millions spread across the world, esports has been rapidly expanding and encourages a volatile competitive environment. With a great familiarity with traditional sports, it’s easy to wonder, “just how real are esports?” We speak with Jake Kelton from XLNC whose work in media production centers around esports.

News headlines have been full of debates about Critical Race Theory (CRT), books and topics being banned in schools, and calls to remove statues of colonizers around the world. More recently, universities and governments have done work in land acknowledgements or renaming places locally under the banner of “decolonizing.” But what does decolonizing really mean, and what does it ask of our society? We speak with Dr. Nabil Echchaibi from CU Boulder whose work and life center around this topic