MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

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MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed episodes

  • Carlin Wing, "Bounce: Balls, Walls, and Bodies in Games and Play" (MIT Press, 2026)
    Bounce: Balls, Walls, and Bodies in Games and Play (MIT Press, 2026) follows an array of bouncing balls through the histories of nonelectronic and electronic games, across the spectrum of play, game, and sport, and into the domains of physics, material science, animation, and computing. The book’s focus on bounce sidesteps the focus on play found in much of the game studies literature and broadens the scope of game history by spotlighting an interaction that is central to thousands of physical and digital games and sports. The book is divided into three sections that introduce different kinds of bounce to address the matter of the ball, the virtuality of bounce, and bounded spectacle: Ricochet in ancient tennis is set against modern tennis’s true bounce; squash and stretch in animation serves as a mirror of the pings and pongs of computer bounce; and the bounce feel in Electronic Art’s FIFA video game series and pok ta pok of the Mesoamerican game ulama elaborate the contrasting positions of these two mythological games.
    Carlin Wing is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Scripps College.
    Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter Game Studies Watchlist.
    46 min
  • Inside Efficient AI: From GPUs to GPTs — Song Han
    Song Han is an associate professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science whose research focuses on efficient AI computing. His work spans high-resolution computer vision for autonomous vehicles, more efficient image generation, improved GPT performance, and novel methods for training machine learning models. He also leads the Efficient AI team at NVIDIA Research, focused on optimizing GPU-accelerated AI systems.
    28 min
  • An Industry Benchmark for Data Fairness: Sony’s Alice Xiang
    On today’s episode, Sam talks with Alice Xiang, global head of AI governance at Sony and lead research scientist for AI ethics at Sony AI, about what it actually takes to put responsible artificial intelligence into practice at scale.
    Alice shares how Sony moved early on AI ethics and why governance, not just principles, is now the real challenge as AI spreads across products and workflows. The conversation dives into FHIBE, Sony’s publicly available and ethically sourced benchmark for evaluating bias in computer vision, and why measuring fairness is often harder than fixing it. Along the way, they tackle data consent, “data nihilism,” and the very real risks of deploying biased systems in everyday and high-stakes contexts. Read the episode transcript here.
    Guest bio:
    As the global head of AI governance at Sony, Alice Xiang leads the team guiding the establishment of AI governance policies and governance frameworks across the company’s business units. She’s also the lead research scientist for AI ethics at Sony AI, which is working on cutting-edge sociotechnical research to enable the development of more responsible AI solutions. Xiang holds a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, a master’s in development economics from Oxford University, and a master’s in statistics and bachelor’s in economics from Harvard University.
    *Please take our listener survey: ⁠mitsmr.com/podcastsurvey⁠
    It's short — we promise! — and all respondents will receive a free MIT SMR article collection, "Maximizing the Value of Generative AI."
    Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.
    We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
    ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.
    0 min
  • Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan eds., "Autotheories" (MIT Press, 2025)
    A transdisciplinary array of authors offering a new frame of reference for autotheory and its genre-bending synthesis of autobiography and critical theory.
    Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025) tells the story of a field in formation. Building on traditions that have long fused life writing, philosophical encounter, embodied theorizing, and cultural critique, autotheory constructs new practices of critical theory. Transgressing generic boundaries and bridging stylistic registers, it crafts language that is intimate, analytic, playful, and insurgent. Editors Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan underscore autotheory's multiple genealogies and genre-bending forms while situating it within the contemporary political field. In this collection, autotheory emerges as a strut (of style), a straddle (of disciplines), a proliferation (of selves), an axis (of identifications), an index (of attachments), and an archive (of loves).An assemblage and an experience, Autotheories surveys the field's iterations and permutations without settling for classification or bowing to ossification.Contributors:Alex Brostoff, Jessica Bush, Judith Butler, Vilashini Cooppan, Carla Freccero, rl Goldberg, Jan Grue, Emma Lieber, Megan Moodie, Lili Owen Rowlands, John Patterson, Paul B. Preciado, Erica Richardson, Migueltzinta C. Solís, Jamieson Webster, Damon Ross Young, Stacey Young, Arianne ZwartjesMatthis Frickhoeffer is a scholar of critical theory and French thought with a background in literature studies, linguistics and art theory. His work focuses on questions of form, semiotics, and intertextuality. He teaches at the University of Texas at Dallas.
    0 min
  • Misinformation, AI, & Science Photography

    Science photographer Felice Frankel is acclaimed for the striking beauty of her images, which have been displayed in museums, published in multiple books, and even featured in the background in one of Ang Lee’s films. Yet she insists that she doesn’t think of herself as an artist. Her academic background is in biology, she began her working life doing cancer research at Columbia University, and she doesn’t see her photographic work as a form of self-expression. Instead, the subtle decisions she makes in setting up a composition, taking the photo, cropping it, and so on, are all in the service of creating an image that will communicate vital facts about the phenomenon she’s capturing. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t also want her images to be visually gripping and aesthetically appealing, but for her, the science always comes first, and any manipulations that obscure the truth are unacceptable. In this episode, Frankel talks with host Sarah Hansen about stumbling into a career as a science photographer, about sparring with researchers over photographic design decisions, and about what happened when she attempted to use AI to duplicate one of her images.

    Check out the Video version of this interview on YouTube

    ... and check out her most recent work on OCW, Generative AI and Science Photography, here ➟ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I8S6diyDjw

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator portal

    Felice Frankel’s personal website

    Felice Frankel on Wikipedia

    RES.10-001 Making Science and Engineering Pictures: A Practical Guide to Presenting Your Work on MIT OpenCourseWare

    Phenomenal Moments (book)

    Video version of this interview on YouTube

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

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    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Jackson Maher, producer

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    47 min
  • Amelia Acker, "Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms" (MIT Press, 2025)
    We're so pleased to welcome Dr. Amelia Acker, author of Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms (MIT Press, 2025) to the New Books Network! 
    This book describes the struggle between the computing technologies that archive data and the cultures of information that have led to platforms that assert control over its use. Acker examines the origins of data archives and the computing processes of storage, exchange, and transmission. Each chapter introduces data archiving processes that relate to the evolution of data sovereignty we experience today: from magnetic tape and timesharing computer models from the 1950s, to the establishment of data banks and the rise of database processing and managed data silos in the 1970s, to file structures and virtual containers in cloud-based information services over the past 40 years.
    Your host is Dr. Adam Kriesberg, Associate Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science.
    48 min
  • Catherine Elgin, "Epistemic Ecology" (MIT Press, 2025)
    Humans are highly inquisitive, yet fallible and cognitively limited. How can we improve our epistemic lot despite our limitations? In Epistemic Ecology (MIT Press, 2025), Catherine Elgin develops a model in which individuals learn to rely on communal epistemic resources, such as communally-endorsed standards for correcting ourselves, and in turn contribute to those resources through active epistemic agency. In this way, she shows how epistemic autonomy and epistemic interdependence are mutually reinforcing rather than in tension. Elgin, who is professor of philosophy of education at Harvard University, also distinguishes between belief, which entails truth, and acceptance, an active epistemic attitude that constitutively involves reflection and assessment. This capacity for reflection is learned, but we use it widely – in sports bars, for example, just as much as in academic contexts.
    0 min
  • Victor Navarro-Remesal, "Zen and Slow Games" (MIT Press, 2026)
    A deep dive into the reflective modes of playfulness in video games. Slowness and reflectiveness have always been part of the video game medium, though they have been used very differently throughout its history. In Zen and Slow Games (MIT Press, 2026), Víctor Navarro-Remesal challenges the dominant discourse of action and quick reflexes in video games to offer an analysis of reflectiveness as a style in games, tracing its evolution from its origins to the present time. Two labels are of particular importance: the Zen modes (and later, Zen games) of the 2000s, especially during the Casual Revolution, and the slow games or slow gaming movement, which started in the 2010s and is ongoing today. The term “reflective games” is offered as an umbrella to bring together these and other labels to raise awareness and discussion of slow gaming.
    Víctor Navarro-Remesal is a media scholar specializing in games working at TecnoCampus, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.
    Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter Game Studies Watchlist.
    0 min
  • Chalk Radio: MIT Economist Andrew Lo on Finance, AI, and Human Behavior (Guest Episode)
    This month we’re featuring a special guest episode from our friends at MIT OpenCourseWare's Chalk Radio. Host Sarah Hansen sits down with Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and CSAIL PI Andrew Lo for a wide-ranging conversation about money, learning, and making financial advice accessible to everyone.
    Andrew Lo explains why he believes finance is a language we all need to speak and that an advanced math degree is not required to be successful. Exploring how money quietly shapes nearly every path we take, Professor Lo reflects on his work with MIT OpenCourseWare which reached millions of learners worldwide and why breaking down “impenetrable” financial concepts has become central to his mission.
    And of course, he tackles the timely question: Should you use ChatGPT to plan your retirement?
    For many people, hiring a financial advisor might be a financial impossibility, but Professor Andrew Lo and his colleagues are working to develop an AI financial advisor that not only gives ordinary people access to sound financial advice, but ultimately acts with the best interest of the user.
    Andrew Lo is the faculty director of FinTechAI@CSAIL, a research initiative with CSAIL Alliances. https://cap.csail.mit.edu/members/initiatives/fintechaicsail
    Find episodes, listener discounts, meet the host, and more:
    https://csail.mit.edu/podcast
    For more episodes from Chalk Radio:
    https://chalk-radio.simplecast.com/
    Connect with CSAIL Alliances:
    On our site: cap.csail.mit.edu/about-us/meet-our-team
    On LinkedIn: linkedIn.com/mit-CSAIL
    License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
    #CSAIL #ChalkRadio #FinancialEconomics #FinTech #AIandFinance #PersonalFinance #LifelongLearning
    0 min
  • Miguel Sicart, "Playing Software: Homo Ludens in Computational Culture" (MIT Press, 2023)
    The play element at the heart of our interactions with computers—and how it drives the best and the worst manifestations of the information age.
    Whether we interact with video games or spreadsheets or social media, playing with software shapes every facet of our lives. In Playing Software: Homo Ludens in Computational Culture (MIT Press, 2023), Miguel Sicart delves into why we play with computers, how that play shapes culture and society, and the threat posed by malefactors using play to weaponize everything from conspiracy theories to extractive capitalism. Starting from the controversial idea that software is an essential agent in the information age, Sicart considers our culture in general—and our way of thinking about and creating digital technology in particular—as a consequence of interacting with software's agency through play.
    As Sicart shows, playing shapes software agency. In turn, software shapes our agency as we adapt and relate to it through play. That play drives the creation of new cultural, social, and political forms. Sicart also reveals the role of make-believe in driving our playful engagement with the digital sphere. From there, he discusses the cybernetic theory of digital play and what we can learn from combining it with the idea that playfulness can mean pleasurable interaction with human and nonhuman agents inside the boundaries of a computational system. Finally, he critiques the instrumentalization of play as a tool wielded by platform capitalism.
    Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok.
    1 hr 2 min

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Episodes from podcasts from around MIT