The Data Fix with Dr. Mél Hogan

Joana Chicau is a designer, researcher and coder, with a background in choreography and performance. We had a truly delightful chat about how dance can make you understand data differently. Recorded Sept 13, 2024. Released Sept 23, 2024.Websitehttps://joanachicau.com/about.html Publicationshttps://researchers.arts.ac.uk/2383-joana-chicau/publications Choreographing Youhttps://re-coding.technology/choreographing-you/From Individual Discomfort to Collective Solidarity: Choreographic Exploration of Extractivist Technology https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378139744_From_Individual_Discomfort_to_Collective_Solidarity_Choreographic_Exploration_of_Extractivist_Technology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Siobhan Angus, an assistant professor at Carleton University and author of *Camera Geologica*, shares her insights on the intersection of photography and the environment. The conversation dives into how mineral resources influence photographic practices and Canadian identity. Angus reveals unexpected connections, like cow-derived gelatin's role in photos. They also discuss photography's capacity to document nature and critique environmental issues while balancing preservation and accessibility of historical images. It's a thought-provoking exploration of art and its ethical implications.

In this episode, I speak with my dear friend and colleague, Leslie R. Shade about the importance of media reform from an intersectional feminist political economic perspective! Recorded Aug 1. Released Aug 26, 2024.Chapter 5: From Media Reform to Data Justice: Situating Women's Rights as Human Rights from The Handbook of Gender, Communication, and Women's Human Rights Margaret Gallagher (Editor), Aimee Vega Montiel (Editor) ISBN: 978-1-119-80068-2 November 2023, Wiley-Blackwell https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Handbook+of+Gender%2C+Communication%2C+and+Women's+Human+Rights-p-9781119800682#tableofcontents-section Read all her work here: https://discover.research.utoronto.ca/2541-leslie-shade/publications Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alina Utrata and I have a conversation about billionaires conquering space for personal pleasure, in the pursuit of energy sources or minerals, or, to push forward a longtermist interplanetary movement. Alina explains how when we think about outer space as "empty", we unwittingly thinking territorially -- an incredibly valuable contribution to critical space scholarship. Recorded May 20. Released June 24, 2024.Engineering Territory: Space and Colonies in Silicon Valleyhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/engineering-territory-space-and-colonies-in-silicon-valley/5D6EA4D306E8F3E0465F4A05C89454D6 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I invited Lee Vinsel to discuss with me a post he wrote from a workshop on "Politics of Controlling Powerful Technologies". In this episode we discuss how futures are (imagined to be) predicted through data modelling and crunching numbers, and how various alternatives to these statistical imaginaries also come short of knowing what awaits us. Can we stand to not know? And if we don't know what the future holds, how do we plan politically? Recorded April 19. Released June 10, 2024. How to Be a Better Reactionary: Time and Knowledge in Technology Regulationhttps://sts-news.medium.com/how-to-be-a-better-reactionary-1630b5098fbc Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Lisa Messeri and M. J. Crockett discuss how scientists are in danger of overlooking AI tools’ limitations, and how science is made stronger by questioning its obsession with objectivity. Recorded April 18, 2024. Released May 27, 2024.Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific researchLisa Messeri & M. J. Crockett  Nature volume 627, pages49–58 (2024)Cite this articlehttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07146-0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Researcher Shaolei Ren discusses the impact of water in data centers for generative AI, highlighting the environmental concerns and future water demands of AI projects. The conversation explores the need for transparency in water usage reporting by big tech companies and proposes solutions for a more sustainable future for AI.

With Catherine Stinson and Sophie Vlaad, we discuss what diversity means in the context of AI -- its applications, conceptualizations, teams, institutions, networks, members, and ideals. As they ask in a recent article, "diversity" is often proposed as a solution to ethical problems in artificial intelligence (AI), but what exactly is meant by "diversity" and how it can it solve those problems? Recorded March 22, 2024. Released April 22, 2024.A feeling for the algorithm: Diversity, expertise, and artificial intelligenceStinson, C., & Vlaad, S. (2024). A feeling for the algorithm: Diversity, expertise, and artificial intelligence. Big Data & Society, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231224247 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Author Matthew Archer discusses the pitfalls of corporate sustainability metrics. They delve into the tension between good intentions and corporate initiatives, exploring the need for transparency in environmental and social impacts. The conversation challenges the status quo of sustainability and advocates for diverse perspectives for social and ecological justice.

Together, Sireesh Gururaja, Amanda Bertsch and Clara Na explain the paradigm shifts in Natural Language Processing that they've noticed themselves, observed in the community, and documented through a series of interviews with NLP researchers. They share their hopes for the NLP field -- as less focused on benchmarks, and as more self-reflexive and ethically-driven -- moving forward. Recorded Jan 19, 2024. Released March 25, 2024. To Build Our Future, We Must Know Our Past: Contextualizing Paradigm Shifts in Natural Language Processingby Sireesh Gururaja, Amanda Bertsch, Clara Na, David Gray Widder, Emma Strubellhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2310.07715 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.