The Good Robot

In this episode, we chat to Catherine D’Ignazio, Assistant Professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and Director of the Data + Feminism Lab, about data feminism, what that means and why feminism matters in data science. We talk applying programming skills to social justice work, the tension between corporate and social good, and how technology can be oriented towards the feminist project of shifting power. D’Ignazio explains what would be needed to reshape the model of accountability in AI and why ‘better’ technology might not be less harmful. She argues that data work can be most effective at producing better outcomes when grounded in feminist scholarship and practice. We hope you enjoy the show.

Content Warning: This episode contains a brief discussion of femicide. 

In this episode, we chat with Priya Goswami, anti-FGC activist, awardwinning filmmaker, and CEO and founder of the AI-driven app Mumkin, about feminist data practices and app design. We discuss designing and building apps that do good, why an app’s “users” are actually “participants”, and why you cannot compromise on the participants’ privacy and safety. Priya explains what it means to design an app as an activist, why feminism should be normalised, and the problem with running activist campaigns on social media.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of female genital cutting, or FGC, and gender-based violence. 

In this episode, we chat with The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, President and CEO of the Dalai Lama Centre for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, about how Buddhism can inform AI ethics. We discuss the problem with metrics, how to make meaningful contributions to ethics and avoid virtue signalling, why self-driving cars coming out of Asia and Euro-America prioritise the safety of different road users, and whether we should be trying to make machines intelligent, wise, or empathetic. 

In this episode, we chat with Anita Williams,  online counter-abuse policy and platform protection specialist, about the new challenges arising in the area of online abuse and how abusers exploit platforms and systems. We explore the multiple and intersectional harms that can arise from new technologies, the ethical problems around data collection, the protections required for content moderators, and the need to build women’s experiences into new technologies. 

Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of online sexual abuse, grooming, and child sexual abuse. 

In this episode, we chat with N. Katherine Hayles, Distinguished Professor of English at UCLA and James B. Duke Professor of Literature Emerita at Duke University, about feminism, embodiment, cognition, and human-AI relationships. We explore the role of feminism in science and technology, what productive conversations between engineers and humanities scholars look like, literary depictions of non-human embodiment and cognition, and the distribution of cognition across human-AI systems.   

Welcome to The Good Robot! In this teaser trailer, Eleanor and Kerry briefly chat about who they are, what they do, and why they’re starting The Good Robot podcast. Plus, they give you a sneak peek into the super exciting topics they’ll be exploring in upcoming episodes!