What is the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and translation? In this episode your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by colleagues Dr Caroline Summers and Dr David Orrego-Carmona for a discussion about the difference between AI and human translation. Whereas translators attempt to capture the complexity and cultural differences behind language, AI smooths out diversity, risk and deviation, making translation invisible (and redundant). Translation, and human creativity, are reduced to pattern matching and predictability. How could we use AI tools to enhance rather than limit human creativity? Why do we anthropomorphise our digital helpers? And why has Carolina fallen out of love with Claude?

Dr Caroline Summers and Dr David Orrego-Carmona both work in the Centre for Translation and Transcultural Studies at University of Warwick. Caroline is a literary translator whose research focuses on Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘afterlife’ in which translation can prolong and recreate cultural identity, memory and experience. David’s research focuses on machine translation, a technology which is both democratising and diminishing translation and culture, and changing the way translators get valued (and paid).

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Do you dream of quitting your job? In this episode your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by co-host Cecilia Ghidotti and sociologist Francesca Coin to discuss the growing numbers of workers giving up on badly paid work. This might be a case of ‘hopeful quitting’ - believing that something, anything, is better than the job they are currently in. We discuss ‘imaginaries’ of work (the idealised future which makes the present reality bearable), the changing relationship between work and identity (is work no longer foundational to selfhood, especially for the young?), the effects of austerity and big tech on workers’ rights - and why Francesca wishes she had been a yoga teacher. Is quitting your job an act of desperation, or the first step towards a new world of possibilities?

Francesca Coin a sociologist, writer and university professor whose work focuses on labour and social inequality. Francesca is based at the University of Parma. Her latest book, The Great Resignation: The New Refusal of Work was published in the UK in 2025.

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Are museums media? In this episode your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by heritage scholar Melanie Stavrou to discuss how museums shape national identities and cultures, especially when they ‘acquire’ objects through colonisation and conquest. We also look at museums as spaces for participation and empowerment (as well as contemplation), at decolonising the national museum, and at how digital media narratives frame physical artefacts. Along the way we also talk about some of our favourite museums so listen out for some recommendations!

Dr Melanie Stavrou is a research associate at the University of Warwick Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies, focusing on museums, social conflict and cultural policy, with particular attention to how these dynamics shape social cohesion and wellbeing.

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What is Incel culture and where does it come from? In this episode your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli join Francesco Barchiesi for a journey into the manosphere, where young men ’take the red pill’ to discover a world of female privilege and male victimhood. The truly committed go further, taking ‘the black pill’ to dive still deeper into self-loathing, despair and collective loneliness. Incel forums intensify the fears and anxieties of male adolescence, with participants competing to outdo each other in the bleakness of their vision, of themselves and of the world. The misogyny of incel culture is rooted in these feelings of victimhood.  Is there a way out of the labyrinth? Perhaps the solution could be surprisingly simple…

Francesco Barchiesi is a researcher from University of Bologna, currently conducting research  at University of Birmingham into ’non-radicalising youth masculinities’.

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How does screen-time change the way we connect to each other romantically? Does digital love trigger a desire for human connection, a ‘nostalgia for the body’? In this episode your host Chris Bilton (missing Carolina Bandinelli) talks with Professor Mary Harrod about screen portrayals of relationships, love and gender. We discuss hetero-pessimism, #MeToo, rom-coms, yoghurt and why Mary can no longer enjoy Ferris Bueller’s  Day Off. Listen too for our Netflix recommendations!

Professor Mary Harrod is professor of French and Screen Studies at University of Warwick. She has written and edited several books on French cinema, women film-makers in Hollywood and the reimagination of love on screen.

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You’ve heard about the manosphere - In this episode hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk to Akane Kanai about the emerging world of online feminism. Drawing on Akane’s recent book The New Politics of Online Feminism we discover an online culture where young women must measure up to proprietary standards of what it means to be a feminist. We discuss generational differences, fear of being judged and why podcasts can be a safe space. 

Akane Kanai is a feminist cultural studies scholar, author and podcaster. She is Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Warwick and host of the Feminist Not Fearless podcast. 

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In the final episode of this academic year, hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk to Sebastián Lehuedé about the environmental costs of AI. AI’s data centres generate carbon emissions and burn through rare minerals, but these hidden environmental costs are often ignored, offshored to remote locations. At the same time, hubristic claims that AI can solve environmental problems from Google and other big tech companies don’t quite measure up. Perhaps we need a more humble yet ambitious approach to AI, recognising its limitations and costs as well as its undoubted benefits.

Sebastián Lehuedé is a lecturer in Ethics, AI and Society at Kings College London. He examines AI from a social justice perspective and has published extensively on data colonialism, the ethics of data extraction and the relationship between AI, ‘technology for good’ and the environment.

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In a wide-ranging discussion of digital culture and the future of work, your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk with sociologist Alessandro Gandini about how digital media have transformed our experience of work and our sense of self, especially in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst this has led to some nostalgia for pre-digital communities of place, for most of us platformisation has been a process of adaptation and intensification as we seek to negotiate ‘a self that works’ in the online world.

Alessandro Gandini is an Associate Professor in the Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan. His research centres on digital labour, platformisation and digital culture. His books include Zeitgeist Nostalgia: on Populism, Work and the Good Life(2020) and The Reputation Economy: Understanding Knowledge Work in Digital Society (2016).

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n this episode your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk with curator and author Valentina Tanni about how artists and creative technologists are subverting the tech logic of digital media by creating weird memes, vapour trails and remixes of online culture. Valentina guides us through the backrooms and counter-cultures of web culture and AI art, suggesting that the online world might not be as rational or logical as we thought.

Valentina Tanni is an art historian, curator and academic, interested in the hidden corners of web cultures. She is the author of multiple books and articles exploring memes and AI art, including Exit Reality (Nero, 2024).

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In this episode your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk to AI policy expert Tommy Shaffer Shane about the descriptive affordances and architecture of AI – how does AI reinforce biases and norms, and how far do humans create or challenge those biases? And how does ‘Artificial Intelligence’ reproduce certain assumptions about the meaning and value of ‘intelligence’? Can the ‘object’ of AI become a ‘subject’, like the robots in the Terminator movies? And should we – really – be worried that AI is going to ‘go rogue’ and destroy the world? 

Tommy is currently an AI Policy Advisor at the Centre for Long Term Resilience. Previously he has led an investigation of online disinformation for the UK government, and acted as an AI consultant with WHO, Stanford University, Unicef, the UN and Google. He is currently working part-time on a PhD at Kings College London on AI safety incidents.

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