Pondering AI

Susie Alegre makes the case for prioritizing human rights and connection, taking AI systems to account, minding the right gaps, and resisting unwitting AI dependency.  

Susie and Kimberly discuss the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); legal protections and access to justice; human rights laws; how court cases impact legislative will; the wicked problem of companion AI; abdicating accountability for AI systems; Stepford Wives and gynoid robots; human connection and agency; minding the wrong gaps with AI systems; AI dogs vs. AI pooper scoopers; the reality of care and legal work; writing to think; cultural heritage and creativity; pausing for thought; unwittingly becoming dependent on AI; and prioritizing people over technology. 

Susie Alegre is an acclaimed international human rights lawyer and the author of Freedom to Think: The Long Struggle to Liberate Our Minds and Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation (CIGI) and Founder of the Island Rights Initiative. Learn more at her website: Susie Alegre  

A transcript of this episode is here. 

Eryk Salvaggio articulates myths animating AI design, illustrates the nature of creativity and generated media, and artfully reframes the discourse on GenAI and art.   

Eryk joined Kimberly to discuss myths and metaphors in GenAI design; the illusion of control; if AI saves time and what for; not relying on futuristic AI to solve problems; the fallacy of scale; the dehumanizing narrative of human equivalence; positive biases toward AI; why asking ‘is the machine creative’ misses the mark; creative expression and meaning making; what AI generated art represents; distinguishing archives from datasets; curation as an act of care; representation and context in generated media; the Orwellian view of mass surveillance as anonymity; complicity and critique of GenAI tools; abstraction and noise; and what we aren’t doing when we use GenAI. 

Eryk Salvaggio is a new media artist, Visiting Professor in Humanities, Computing and Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and an Emerging Technology Research Advisor at the Siegel Family Endowment. Eryk is also a researcher on the AI Pedagogies Project at Harvard University’s metaLab and lecturer on Responsible AI at Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering.  

Addition Resources:  

Cybernetic Forests:  mail.cyberneticforests.com 

The Age of Noise: https://mail.cyberneticforests.com/the-age-of-noise/ 

Challenging the Myths of Generative AI: https://www.techpolicy.press/challenging-the-myths-of-generative-ai/ 

A transcript of this episode is here. 

Geertrui Mieke de Ketelaere reflects on the uncertain trajectory of AI, whether AI is socially or environmentally sustainable, and using AI to become good ancestors.   

Mieke joined Kimberly to discuss the current trajectory of AI; uncertainties created by current AI applications; the potent intersection of humanlike AI and heightened social/personal anxiety; Russian nesting dolls (matryoshka) as an analogy for AI systems; challenges with open source AI; the current state of public literacy and regulation; the Safe AI Companion Collective; social and environmental sustainability; expanding our POV beyond human intelligence; and striving to become good ancestors in our use of AI and beyond.  

A transcript of this episode is here. 

Geertrui Mieke de Ketelaere is an engineer, strategic advisor and Adjunct Professor of AI at Vlerick Business School focused on sustainable, ethical, and trustworthy AI. A prolific author, speaker and researcher, Mieke is passionate about building bridges between business, research and government in the domain of AI. Learn more about Mieke’s work here: www.gmdeketelaere.com 

Vaishnavi J respects youth, advises considering the youth experience in all digital products, and asserts age-appropriate design is an underappreciated business asset.  

Vaishnavi joined Kimberly to discuss: the spaces youth inhabit online; the four pillars of safety by design; age-appropriate design choices; kids’ unique needs and vulnerabilities; what both digital libertarians and abstentionists get wrong; why great experiences and safety aren’t mutually exclusive; how younger cohorts perceive harm; centering youth experiences; business benefits of age-appropriate design; KOSPA and the duty of care; implications for content policy and product roadmaps; the youth experience as digital table stakes and an engine of growth. 

A transcript of this episode is here. 

Vaishnavi J is the founder and principal of Vyanams Strategies (VYS), helping companies, civil society, and governments build healthier online communities for young people. VYS leverages extensive experience at leading technology companies to develop tactical product and policy solutions for child safety and privacy. These range from product guidance, content policies, operations workflows, trust & safety strategies, and organizational design. 

Additional Resources:  

Monthly Youth Tech Policy Brief: https://quire.substack.com 

Kathleen Walch and Ron Schmelzer analyze AI patterns and factors hindering adoption, why AI is never ‘set it and forget it’, and the criticality of critical thinking.   

The dynamic duo behind Cognilytica (now PMI) join Kimberly to discuss: the seven (7) patterns of AI; fears and concerns stymying AI adoption; the tension between top-down and bottom-ups AI adoption; the AI value proposition; what differentiates CPMAI from good old-fashioned project management; AI’s Red Queen moment; critical thinking as a uniquely human skill; the DKIUW pyramid and limits of machine understanding; why you can’t sit AI out.  

A transcript of this episode is here. 

Kathleen Walch and Ron Schmelzer are the co-founders of Cognilytica, an AI research and analyst firm which was acquired by PMI (Project Management Institute) in September 2024. Their work, which includes the CPMAI project management methodology and the top-rated AI Today podcast, focuses on enabling AI adoption and skill development.  

Additional Resources:   

CPMAI certification: https://courses.cognilytica.com/ 

AI Today podcast: https://www.cognilytica.com/aitoday/ 

Dr. Marisa Tschopp explores our evolving, often odd, expectations for AI companions while embracing radical empathy, resisting relentless PR and trusting in humanity.  

Marisa and Kimberly discuss recent research into AI-based conversational agents, the limits of artificial companionship, implications for mental health therapy, the importance of radical empathy and differentiation, why users defy simplistic categorization, corporate incentives and rampant marketing gags, reasons for optimism, and retaining trust in human connections. A transcript of this episode is here. 

Dr. Marisa Tschopp is a Psychologist, a Human-AI Interaction Researcher at scip AG and an ardent supporter of Women in AI. Marisa’s research focuses on human-AI relationships, trust in AI, agency, behavioral performance assessment of conversational systems (A-IQ), and gender issues in AI.  

Additional Resources:

The Impact of Human-AI Relationship Perception on Voice Shopping Intentions in Human Machine Collaboration  Publication 

How do users perceive their relationship with conversational AI? Publication 

KI als Freundin: Funktioniert eine Chatbot-Beziehung? TV Show (German, SRF) 

Friends with AI? It’s complicated! TEDxBoston Talk 

John Danaher assesses how AI may reshape ethical and social norms, minds the anticipatory gap in regulation, and applies the MVPP to decide against digitizing himself.  

John parlayed an interest in science fiction into researching legal philosophy, emerging technology, and society. Flipping the script on ethical assessment, John identifies six (6) mechanisms by which technology may reshape ethical principles and social norms. John further illustrates the impact AI can have on decision sets and relationships. We then discuss the dilemma articulated by the aptly named anticipatory gap. In which the effort required to regulate nascent tech is proportional to our understanding of its ultimate effects.  

Finally, we turn our attention to the rapid rise of digital duplicates. John provides examples and proposes a Minimally Viable Permissibility Principle (MVPP) for evaluating the use of digital duplicates. Emphasizing the difficulty of mitigating the risks posed after a digital duplicate is let loose in the wide, John declines the opportunity to digitally duplicate himself.  

John Danaher is a Sr. Lecturer in Ethics at the NUI Galway School of Law. A prolific scholar, he is the author of Automation and Utopia: Human Flourishing in a World Without Work (Harvard University Press, 2019). Papers referenced in this episode include The Ethics of Personalized Digital Duplicates: A Minimal Viability Principle and How Technology Alters Morality and Why It Matters. 

A transcript of this episode is here. 

Ben Bland expressively explores emotive AI’s shaky scientific underpinnings, the gap between reality and perception, popular applications, and critical apprehensions. 

Ben exposes the scientific contention surrounding human emotion. He talks terms (emotive? empathic? not telepathic!) and outlines a spectrum of emotive applications. We discuss the powerful, often subtle, and sometimes insidious ways emotion can be leveraged. Ben explains the negative effects of perpetual positivity and why drawing clear red lines around the tech is difficult. 

He also addresses the qualitative sea change brought about by large language models (LLMs), implicit vs explicit design and commercial objectives. Noting that the social and psychological impacts of emotive AI systems have been poorly explored, he muses about the potential to actively evolve your machine’s emotional capability. 

Ben confronts the challenges of defining standards when the language is tricky, the science is shaky, and applications are proliferating. Lastly, Ben jazzes up empathy as a human superpower. While optimistic about empathic AI’s potential, he counsels proceeding with caution. 

Ben Bland is an independent consultant in ethical innovation. An active community contributor, Ben is the Chair of the IEEE P7014 Standard for Ethical Considerations in Emulated Empathy in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and Vice-Chair of IEEE P7014.1 Recommended Practice for Ethical Considerations of Emulated Empathy in Partner-based General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence Systems.

A transcript of this episode is here.

Philip Rathle traverses from knowledge graphs to LLMs and illustrates how loading the dice with GraphRAG enhances deterministic reasoning, explainability and agency.    

Philip explains why knowledge graphs are a natural fit for capturing data about real-world systems. Starting with Kevin Bacon, he identifies many ‘graphy’ problems confronting us today. Philip then describes how interconnected systems benefit from the dynamism and data network effects afforded by knowledge graphs. 

Next, Philip provides a primer on how Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) loads the dice for large language models (LLMs). He also differentiates between vector- and graph-based RAG. Along the way, we discuss the nature and locus of reasoning (or lack thereof) in LLM systems. Philip articulates the benefits of GraphRAG including deterministic reasoning, fine-grained access control and explainability. He also ruminates on graphs as a bridge to human agency as graphs can be reasoned on by both humans and machines. Lastly, Philip shares what is happening now and next in GraphRAG applications and beyond. 

Philip Rathle is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Neo4j. Philip was a key contributor to the development of the GQL standard and recently authored The GraphRAG Manifesto: Adding Knowledge to GenAI (neo4j.com) a go-to resource for all things GraphRAG. 

A transcript of this episode is here. 

Matthew Scherer makes the case for bottom-up AI adoption, being OK with not using AI, innovation as a relative good, and transparently safeguarding workers’ rights. 

Matthew champions a worker-led approach to AI adoption in the workplace. He traverses the slippery slope from safety to surveillance and guards against unnecessarily intrusive solutions. 

Matthew then illustrates why AI isn’t great at making employment decisions; even in objectively data rich environments such as the NBA. He also addresses the intractable problem of bias in hiring and flawed comparisons between humans and AI. We discuss the unquantifiable dynamics of human interactions and being OK with our inability to automate hiring and firing. 

Matthew explains how the patchwork of emerging privacy regulations reflects cultural norms towards workers. He invokes the Ford Pinto and the Titan submersible catastrophe when challenging the concept of innovation as an intrinsic good. Matthew then makes the case for transparency as a gateway to enforcing existing civil rights and laws. 

Matthew Scherer is a Senior Policy Counsel for Workers' Rights and Technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). He studies how emerging technologies affect workers in the workplace and labor market.   Matt is also an Advisor for the International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination. 

A transcript of this episode is here.