The Social Eye Podcast

Almost every institution is pushing AI, but what does that word actually refer too? Dr. Alex Hanna joins us to discuss her and Emily M. Bender's book, "The AI Con," and the many forms of automation that fall under the marketing term "artificial intelligence." We explore their many social consequences, and what can be done about them.

The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)

https://dair-institute.org/

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

https://dair-institute.org/maiht3k/

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna

https://thecon.ai/

Luddite Lab

https://labor.dair-institute.org/

Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass by Mary Gray and Siddharth Suri

https://marylgray.org/bio/on-demand/

Data Workers Inquiry Project

https://data-workers.org/

The first signs of burnout are coming from the people who embrace AI the most by Connie Loizos

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/the-first-signs-of-burnout-are-coming-from-the-people-who-embrace-ai-the-most/

What Does AI Do? University management and technologies of crisis by Daniel Green

https://www.aaup.org/issue/spring-2026/what-does-ai-do

Masheika Allgood of AllAI Consulting, LLC

https://www.allai-us.com/about

The AI Resist List

https://airesistlist.org/

Listen along as we chat with Michelle’s first academic mentor, Dr. Arthur Scarritt, about his research and publications, modern sociopolitical dynamics, and imagining the impossible.

"Koch Brothers Exposed" documentary link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N8y2SVerW8

Link to Scarritt et al.'s 2025 "Why Conservatives Embrace Social Democracy": https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15365042251318674

In this episode, Wynn, Winona, and Michelle speak with Dr. Yasi Shaker about their community-engaged dissertation research on practical processes that combat racial capitalism. See also: what brings us hope among the current catastrophe, healing injustices in our socioecological communities, and turning sociological concepts into tattoos.

Find Dr. Shaker's work here:

https://yasishaker.com/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iIao3JMAAAAJ&hl=en

https://mobilemooncoop.org/

https://www.undertheumbrellabookstore.com/product/oracle-deck-garden-comrades-yasi-shaker/12650

In this episode, we chat with Akron NAACP chapter President Judi Hill about her education and activist work in and around Akron, OH as well as our shared humanity.

Akron NAACP: https://www.naacpakron.org/

Wynn, Winona, and Michelle talk with Rina James, who since this episode completed their PhD in Sociology at University of Arizona! Rina explores gender, digital culture, and far-right politics, as their dissertation maps user trajectories across male supremacist communities on Reddit, identifying individual, community, and platform-level factors that drive differential participation and radicalization in far-right extremist movements.

Welcome to the “The Social Eye Pod” where sociologists Winona, Wynn, Michelle, and Iris talk with guests about the complex relationships between the personal and the political. Using sociology to explore big ideas. Exploring the taken for granted in everyday life. Breaking down the complexity of institutionalized issues and inequality through lived experiences.

In this episode, we discuss the sociology of community, inspired by Miranda Joseph's 2002 book Against The Romance Of Community, which you can find here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816637966/against-the-romance-of-community/

Join us monthly for a new conversation.

#community #socialeyepod #complexconversations #authenticconnection #decommodifyrelationships

Welcome to the “The Social Eye Pod” where sociologists Winona, Wynn, Michelle, and Iris talk with guests about the complex relationships between the personal and the political.

But first! In this episode you will get to know us! We share what drew us to sociology, our interests, our teaching philosophies, and what motivated us to make this podcast. Also, lore!

Book recommendations: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes by L. S. Vygotsky

Thoughts and suggestions? Email us at: [email protected]