Vauhini Vara’s new essay collection opens with a heart to heart with ChatGPT. 

In her prompt, she asks the program to give her feedback on a few chapters of her upcoming book. 

“I’m nervous,” she tells it. 

“That’s completely understandable,” it responds with a cheery exclamation point. “Sharing your writing can feel really personal, but I’m here to provide a supportive and constructive perspective. Take your time, and whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here to discuss it with you.” 

So begins a high tech odyssey through old Google searches, Amazon product reviews, social media profiles and experiments with artificial intelligence. Along the way, Vara explores the technology that came of age alongside her, including her teenage years on Mercer Island and college experience at Stanford, and how her relationship with it has changed over time. 

The book is part-memoir, part critique of how tech companies have positioned their products as “collaborators,” or even companions, in our lives.

Every couple chapters, Vara invites the large language model to respond to her writing. It’s just one of the ways she breaks form in the book. 

It’s called “SEARCHES: Selfhood in the Digital Age.” Vara will be speaking about the book with the University of Washington's Emily M. Bender at The Elliot Bay Book Company on Wed. April 23 at 7pm. 

Guests:

• Vauhini Vara, author

Related Links: 

• Elliott Bay Book Company | Events 45368
• Vauhini Vara

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On Monday, the Department of Education announced that it will resume collections on defaulted loans on May 5th. That’s after a five year pause started in the midst of the covid pandemic.

More than 42 million people in the United States have student loans through the federal government. 

And, according to the Department of Education, five million have not made a payment in the last year.

Experts warn that this push for repayment will put loan holders in difficult financial situations and could have a big impact on an already unstable economy.

GUEST: Stacy Cowley, business reporter for the New York Times

RELATED LINKS:

• Millions of Student Loan Borrowers Are Behind on Payments
• Education Department Will Resume Collections on Student Loan Debt
• Trump administration to resume collections on student loan borrowers in default

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"Our world is changing. It's changing rapidly. Like, we can see climate changing our world as we speak, but also, we're losing nature at unprecedented rates, and there's an equity crisis as well."

That was University of Washington professor Phil Levin two years ago. At the time, he’d just been tapped by the Biden Administration for a one of a kind mission: writing the most all encompassing review ever of nature throughout the entirety of the United States. 

“The National Nature Assessment,” as it was called, was to be a wide ranging report on the state of and potential threats to the U.S.’s varied ecosystems. 

"Now is the time to break down the silos between climate, nature, and equity and bring them together... and I can't think of anything else I would want to do and anything else that would be more meaningful to me in my life and more valuable I think for the country."

Over two years, Levin worked at the White House and coordinated a massive team of authors and federal agencies. The team was ready to submit their first draft of the assessment in February this year, before they heard from the Trump administration that the whole project was being shut down. 

Since then, the scientists involved in the National Nature Assessment have pushed forward to complete their work – with or without the White House’s blessing.

Guests:

• Phil Levin, professor in the University of Washington College of the Environment

Related Links:

• KUOW - Seattle area scientist leads U.S. efforts toward 'holistic picture' of the climate crisis
• Opinion | We Found a Work Around to Trump Defunding Science - The New York Times
• Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway. - The New York Times

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments over an executive order ending birthright citizenship. 

President Trump signed that order in his first days in office. A federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the order nationwide. And two other legal challenges – in federal courts in Massachusetts and Maryland – also prompted injunctions. 

Now the Supreme Court will decide whether a 125 year old constitutional right to citizenship for people born in the United States to non-citizen parents is guaranteed.

Guest:

Luis Cortes Romero, immigration lawyer and partner at Novo Legal

Relevant Links: 

SCOTUS Blog: Justices will hear arguments on Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship

NYT: Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Trump Plan to End Birthright Citizenship

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

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The Pentagon is roiling over yet another Signal group chat.

No, not that one with the Trump Administration national security team that accidentally included an editor at the Atlantic. This is… another Signal group chat scandal. 

The New York Times reports that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared operational details for a March 15th U.S. strike on the Houthis in Yemen with a group of 13 people. 

They allegedly included his personal lawyer, brother, and wife. 

This comes while Hegseth’s team is dealing with staffing turmoil: Three staffers were recently fired over allegations they leaked to the press. 

Another former senior staffer wrote in Politico that there is a “full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon.” 

GUEST: Adam Smith represents Washington’s 9th congressional district. It includes parts of Seattle, Bellevue, Renton, Kent and Federal Way. He’s also the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

RELATED LINKS: 

• Hegseth Said to Have Shared Attack Details in Second Signal Chat
• Pete Hegseth Faces Heat After New Signal Chat Emerges and Claim of Pentagon ‘Chaos’
• Former Top Pentagon Spokesperson Details ‘Month From Hell’ Inside the Agency

• The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary - NPR

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

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An old faded rice cooker. A blue two piece suit. A vial of water from the Ganges River.

For the past four years, Poet Shin Yu Pai’s podcast, Ten Thousand Things, has explored how objects – from the extraordinary to the mundane, the literal to the figurative – communicate stories of Asian American meaning, identity, and culture.

As of last month, the stories in the series have broken out of podcast players and become a new exhibit in Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum.

The exhibit includes objects that will be familiar to listeners of the series – as well as some new items that will be featured in upcoming episodes.

Soundside’s Alec Cowan joined Shin Yu Pai at the Wing Luke Museum to talk about the exhibit.

Guests:

• Shin Yu Pai, writer, curator, and host of Ten Thousand Things.

Related Links:

• EXHIBIT: Ten Thousand Things — Wing Luke Museum
• KUOW - Ten Thousand Things with Shin Yu Pai

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

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News has not been good lately for research universities in the United States.

The Trump Administration has proposed slashing the National Institutes of Health Budget by about half – eliminating tens of billions of dollars for the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.

The White House had earlier announced a 15 percent cap on indirect costs for NIH grants. That money goes towards facility maintenance at research institutions and university presidents say the move will greatly hinder their ability to do “critical” research. 

And the agency said it would freeze or cancel grants related to vaccine hesitancy, transgender health, and Covid. 

The White House has also targeted funding for HHS and the National Science Foundation, and it’s revoked more than a thousand student visas at schools around the country.

As researchers at American universities face an uncertain future, other countries are doing their best to lure scientists away. 

Is the U.S, set to face a brain drain as top talent moves overseas or into other fields?

Guests:

Carl Bergstrom, Professor of Biology at the University of Washington

Neel Patel, Opinion Editor at the New York Times

Relevant Links:

New York Times: America’s Brightest Minds Will Walk Away

The Week: America's academic brain drain has begun

WA State Standard: Trump’s research cuts threaten to set off a wave of university brain drain

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

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“With dignity, but like any Christian, because the bishop of Rome is a pastor and a disciple, not a powerful man of this world.”

That’s part of the instructions from Pope Francis to “lighten” the formality of his funeral arrangements. Francis wrote about his wish for a simpler ceremony in his autobiography, published earlier this year. 

The attitude reflected his wish that the church move closer to regular people and its mission of serving the marginalized, including migrants and the poor. 

Pope Francis died this morning at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.

He was a unique figure in Catholic history. He was the first Latin American pontiff, having been a Cardinal in Argentina.

And he was a decided pivot from the previous leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI. Where Pope Benedict was a traditionalist prior to stepping down from the position, Pope Francis spent his years pushing for a more inclusive vision of the Catholic Church.

He was also the first member of the Jesuit order to be elected to the papacy. 

Guest:

• Dr. Catherine Punsalan-Manlimos, Vice President for Mission Integration at Seattle University

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

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The Trump administration is pushing for more logging on public land, pledging to boost America’s domestic supply of wood products and increase wildfire resilience. 

In March, the President issued an executive order directing federal agencies to begin finding ways to expand timber production by 25% over the next few years. 

Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent a memo establishing an “emergency situation determination” covering more than 112 million national forest acres. That includes five national forests in Washington state.

Rollins identified these acres as having either high wildfire risk or declining forest health – allowing timber harvesting to be fast-tracked through environmental regulations. The USDA boasted the memo would “increase timber outputs, simplify permitting, remove National Environmental Policy Act processes” and “reduce implementation and contracting burdens.”

Big picture, more than half of the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service is now opening for logging. Soundside spoke with Kristen Boyles from Earthjustice Northwest, Travis Joseph with the American Forest Resource Council, and Tom DeLuca from Oregon State University's College of Forestry to get their thoughts on the recent changes to federal forest management. 

Guests:

• Kristen Boyles, managing attorney for Earthjustice Northwest, a non-profit environmental law organization. 
• Travis Joseph, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a trade association representing those who work with public timber in the Western United States.
• Thomas DeLuca, dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. 

Related links:

• Trump proposed cutting the Northwest’s national forests. So what happens next? | The Seattle Times
• National forests face less protections, more logging, Trump admin says

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's CONVENTION WEEKEND... But also Easter Weekend... And the start of Bellingham Beer Week, and National Park Week.

It's the Weekend Warmup! Enjoy!

LINKS:

• Norwescon
• Sakura-Con
• Bellingham Beer Week
• National Park Week
• Climate Pledge Arena – Phish
• Spring Fair | Washington State Fair Events Center
• Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
• KUOW - Meet Me Here

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.