Podcast
Episode #0
Episode #0
What Drives this Podcast
Three claims drive my new podcast, Ethical Machines. 1. New technologies are coming our way every day: AI, blockchain, quantum computers, AR/VR and more. 2....
Episode #1
Episode #1
When Biased AI is Good
Everyone knows biased or discriminatory AI bad and we need to get rid of it, right? Well, not so fast. I talk to David Danks,...
Episode #2
Episode #2
Keeping Blockchain on the Rails
Plain talk, no jargon, explain blockchain to me in language a ten-year-old can understand. I’m joined by Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes, an expert in risk, compliance, and...
Episode #3
Episode #3
ChatGPT Does Not Understand Anything
It looks like ChatGPT understands what you’re asking. It looks like ChatGPT understands what it’s saying in reply. It does not. Alex and I discuss...
Episode #4
Episode #4
Did You Say "Quantum" Computer?
What in the world are quantum computers, what can they do, and what are the potential ethical implications of this new powerful tech? Brian and...
Episode #5
Episode #5
Transparency is Surveillance
Transparency for the sake of accountability is great, right? Well, not so fast. I talk with C. Thi Nguyen’s thought-provoking argument that the pursuit of...
Episode #6
Episode #6
The Benefits and Cost for Privacy
Join me and my go-to cybersecurity expert guy Matthew Rosenquist as we discuss the challenges and trade-offs in balancing privacy with safety and security. Matthew...
Episode #7
Episode #7
How Do We Audit AI?
Back in the day, Ryan Carrier of ForHumanity told me to stop saying I do AI “audits.” I replied, “Why? What’s the difference between an...
Episode #8
Episode #8
Manipulative AI
You think targeted marketing can manipulate users and populations? Just wait. Imagine chatbots powered by LLMs at scale. We’ll see chatbots trained to be the...
Episode #9
Episode #9
Hiring AI to Hire People
I doubt there’s a large corporation out there that hasn’t been pitched at least a dozen or so AI tools for HR. From vetting resumes...
Episode #10
Episode #10
In Defense of Black Box AI
Is it better to have a high performing black box AI or a lower performing explainable AI? Are the explanations for how AI works actually...
Episode #11
Episode #11
Choosing Who Should Benefit and Who Should Suffer with AI
I talk a lot about bias, black boxes, and privacy, but perhaps my focus is too narrow. In this conversation, Aimee and I discuss what...
Episode #12
Episode #12
Algorithmic Abolitionism
Humans are bad at making predictions, especially in a criminal justice setting. And it looks like AI can do better both from an accuracy and...
Episode #13
Episode #13
Does Generative AI Undermine Art Schools and Creativity?
Job automation, human creativity, and generative AI in higher education, all wrapped into one. Questions include: Will there be fewer jobs for designers because gen...
Episode #14
Episode #14
Should We Care About Data Privacy?
You might think it’s outrageous that companies collect data about you and use it in various ways to drive profits. The business model of the...
Episode #15
Episode #15
How Do We Distribute Responsibility When AI Goes Wrong?
One company builds the model. Another tweaks the model. Who’s responsible when things go sideways? David Danks is a Professor of Data Science & Philosophy...
Episode #16
Episode #16
The Surprising Opportunities and Risks of Digital Twins
Digital twins: they’re not just a sci-fi doppelganger—they’re a game-changing technology that can simulate real-world scenarios in real-time. My latest chat with Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes opened...
Episode #17
Episode #17
The Sexy Cyber Threats of GenAI: How to Avoid Exposing Yourself
We’re all familiar with cybersecurity threats. Stories of companies being hacked and data and secrets being stolen abound. Now we have generative AI to throw...
Episode #18
Episode #18
Innovation Hype and Why We Should Wait on AI Regulation
Innovation is great…but hype is bad. Not only has all this talk of innovation not increased innovation, but it also creates a bad environment in...
Episode #19
Episode #19
The Turing Test is not Intelligent (and what it would take for AI to understand)
Epsiode featuring Lisa Titus, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Denver. If I look inside your head when you’re talking, I’ll see various neurons...
Episode #20
Episode #20
Creating Responsible AI in the Face of Our Ignorance
Featuring Dr. Julia Stoyanovich. We want to create AI that makes accurate predictions. We want that not only because we want our products to work,...
Episode #21
Episode #21
The Morality of the Israeli-Hamas War
Before I did AI ethics, I was a philosophy professor, specializing in ethics. One of my senior colleagues in the field was David Enoch, also...
Episode #22
Episode #22
Tech Forward Conservatism vs Nature Leaning Liberalism, and Everything in Between
Are you on the political left or the political right? Ben Steyn wants to ask you the same question with regards to nature and technology....
Episode #23
Episode #23
Why Copyright Challenges to AI Learning Will Fail and the Ethical Reasons Why They Shouldn’t
Well, I didn’t see this coming. Talking about legal and philosophical conceptions of copyright turns out to be intellectually fascinating and challenging. It involves not...
Episode #24
Episode #24
The Peril of Principles in AI Ethics
The hospital faced an ethical question: should we deploy robots to help with elder care? Let’s look at a standard list of AI ethics values:...
Episode #25
Episode #25
Showing Technologists the Power They Have
My conversation with Chris covered everything from government to corporate surveillance to why we should care about data privacy to the power that technologists have...
Episode #26
Episode #26
Can AI in the Criminal Justice System Avoid the Minority Report?
When you think about AI in the criminal justice system, you probably think either about biased AI or mass surveillance. This episode focuses on the...
Episode #27
Episode #27
AI in warfare
How much control should AI have when your enemy has AI too? As Jeremy Kofsky, a member of the Marine Corps explains, AI will be...
Episode #28
Episode #28
AI Needs Historians
How can we solve AI’s problems if we don’t understand where they came from? Jason Steinhauer is a public historian and bestselling author of History,...
Episode #29
Episode #29
We Need AI Regulations
Can regulations curb the ethically disastrous tendencies of AI? David Evan Harris is Chancellor’s Public Scholar at UC Berkeley and faculty member at the Haas...
Episode #30
Episode #30
AI’s Ethical Education
Can we train AI to be ethical the same way we teach children? Cameron Buckner’s research primarily concerns philosophical issues which arise in the study...
Episode #1
Episode #1
Should We Defer to AI When It’s Smarter than Us?
Or should we value human deliberation even when the results are worse?
Episode #31
Episode #31
The Disinformation Challenge
How bad is it and what could possibly fix it? Countering Disinformation Effectively: An Evidence-Based Policy Guide https://carnegieendowment.org/2024/01/31/countering-disinformation-effectively-evidence-based-policy-guide-pub-91476 Jon Bateman is a senior fellow at...
Episode #2
Episode #2
Don’t Let AI Tell You How to Live
Unless you don’t mind decreased autonomy and increased narcissism
Episode #32
Episode #32
What is Manipulation?
We’re told that algorithms on social media are manipulating us. But is that true? What is manipulation? Can an AI really do it? And is...
Episode #3
Episode #3
Does it Matter if the Story that Moves You Was AI-Generated?
Imagine we’re awash in high quality AI-generated creative content. Books, poems, podcasts, images, TV and Film. And imagine it’s every bit as moving as human-generated...
Episode #33
Episode #33
AI Understands. A Little.
There’s good reason to think AI doesn’t understand anything. It’s just moving around words according to mathematical rules, predicting the words that come next. But...
