Virtual Sentiments

On today's episode of Virtual Sentiments, host Kristen Collins interviews John Kaufhold on the history of image recognition and deep learning. With over 30 years of experience in the artificial intelligence and machine learning world, John shares his history starting from his early days in speech recognition in the 90s. He covers the ImageNet Big Bang in 2012, the dramatic improvement of image recognition error rates and hardware power, neural networks, the development of chatbots, terminology, and discusses challenges such as data privacy, bias reproduction, existential risk, transparency in data sets, and more!Dr. John Kaufhold is an expert with over 30 years of experience in artificial intelligence and deep learning. He is the founder of Deep Learning Analytics, a machine learning company, and serves on the Advisory Board of the DC Data Community.References and related works to this episode: "Munk Debate on Artificial Intelligence | Bengio & Tegmark vs. Mitchell & LeCun" and Data Science DC's "How Attention in 2017 got us Chat GPT."Read more work from Kristen Collins.If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

On today's episode of Virtual Sentiments, host Kristen Collins interviews Salomé Viljoen on relational data, governance, and privacy. Salomé shares insights into some of the key positions and debates about legal reforms relating to digital privacy and data governance, particularly the relational nature of digital data. In this conversation, Salomé balances serious concern for the harms presented by the status quo and the dangers of surveillance with a true desire to also appreciate and improve the benefits that we in our communities can derive from digital data.Salomé Viljoen is an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she teaches and writes about contracts, privacy, commercial surveillance and data governance. Her work includes "A Relational Theory of Data Governance," "Data Relations," "Design choices: Mechanism design and platform capitalism," and "Valuing Social Data."References and related works to this episode: Janet Vertesi's "My Experiment Opting Out of Big Data Made Me Look Like a Criminal"Read more work from Kristen Collins.If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

Kristen Collins interviews Eric Schliesser on playing, liberty, and the Das Adam Smith Problem. In their conversation, they discuss the "Das Adam Smith Problem" which addresses the perceived inconsistency between Smith's works, "Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," as well as other topics including Smith's critique of Stoicism, how Smith's ideas still apply today in the modern era of AI technology, the invisible hand and its reinterpretation, and the division of labor and the side affects of social alienation. They converse on the role of childhood play and innovation on liberalism and building a sense of togetherness in society, and more!Eric Schliesser is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of Adam Smith: Systematic Philsopher and Public Thinker (Oxford University Press, 2017), and he received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Chicago. Eric runs a substack called "Digressions Impressions."Read more work from Kristen Collins.If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

Kristen Collin interviews James Goodrich on data monopolies and the neo-Brandeis movement. They begin their conversation by addressing the political nature of algorithmic bias and how we define data property rights. They discuss how certain firms have a sort of monopoly power over behavioral data gathering and converse on consumer welfare and market morality, the neo-Brandeis antitrust movement, the Sherman Act, the right to exclude, data as being nonrivalrous, concerns for privacy, cautions regarding the use of unvetted AI, and more!James Goodrich is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of UW-Madison's interdisciplinary cluster in the ethics of computing, data, and information. He works primarily in normative ethics and the interdisciplinary field of philosophy, politics, and economics. He is an alum of the Mercatus Adam Smith Fellowship.Read more work from Kristen Collins.References and related works to this episode: Sanjukta Paul's "Recovering the Moral Economy Foundations of the Sherman Act," Linda Khan's "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," Robert Bork's The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself, and “The Fallacy of AI Functionality” by Inioluwa Deborah Raji, I. Elizabeth Kumar, Aaron Horowitx, and Andrew D. Selbst.If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

On this episode, Kristen Collins interviews Boris Litvin on spectatorship, memes, and Rousseau. Kristen and Boris delve into the relevance of Rousseau's insights on politics and the public stage, relating them to today's social media-driven democracy. They explore the concept of "audience democracy" coined by Bernard Manin, which distinguishes between those in power and the spectators of politics. They discuss the complexities of spectatorship, its passive nature, surveillance, and the role of social media in shaping political discourse and authenticity. They also examine how video technology, like body cams and bystander videos, impacts power dynamics and public scrutiny, highlighting the need for active participation alongside spectatorship for meaningful democratic change.Boris Litvin is a Visiting Instructor, Ancient Studies and General Education at Eckerd College. His research interests include intellectual history, democracy, spectatorship, political representation, authority, rhetoric, media, and textual interpretation.Read more work from Kristen Collins.References and related works to this episode: Bernard Manin's The Principles of Representative Government, Jeffrey Edward Green's Eyes of the People" Democracy in the Age of Spectatorship, Nadia Urbinati's Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth, and the People and Me the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy, Boris Litvin's "'This Hearing Should Be Flipped': Democractic Spectatorship, Social Media, and the Problem of Demagogic Candor" and "Staging Emile".If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

Explore the history of surveillance capitalism with Christopher Coyne, from the evolution of surveillance to the ethical challenges of data collection. Learn about the impact of foreign interventions on civil liberties and the risks of information monopolization. Delve into the world of targeted advertising and the ethical implications of personalized marketing in the digital age.

On the last episode of Season 1 of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins interviews Eileen Hunt, a Professor and Political Theorist at the University of Notre Dame, on Mary Shelley and the Ethics of AI. Hunt begins by providing historical context of Mary Shelley regarding her parents and Shelley as a child of the Enlightenment. Hunt explains the interdisciplinary nature of Mary Shelley’s work, rooted in a Grecian philosophical past and concerned with future-oriented questions about the rights of human beings, tying in Mary Shelley’s famous Gothic novel, Frankenstein, to modern considerations of the ethics and rights of artificial life. She encourages us to think of ourselves as artificial, technological creatures and to contemplate the rights of all artificial creatures, including humans and other forms of artificial intelligence. Additionally, Hunt discusses issues of genetic engineering, humanity as a built environment, Jeremy Bentham and reproductive justice.Read more about Eileen Hunt.Read more work from Kristen Collins.If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

Lucia Rafanelli discusses global justice, biased technology, and the ethics of resistance. She explains the importance of acknowledging human biases in technologies and the role of data in reflecting certain value systems. The podcast explores the interconnectedness of the world, the implications of global justice on ethics and AI, and the responsibility of individuals in addressing structural injustices. The concepts of group agency, moral responsibility, and the ethics of resistance are also explored. Additionally, the complexities and unintended consequences of structural injustice are discussed.

On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins interviews Theodore Lechterman, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at IE University, on automating the democratic process. Lechterman begins by discussing his book on philanthropy, The Tyranny of Generosity: Why Philanthropy Corrupts Our Politics and How We Can Fix It, and its intersection with the ethics and politics of artificial intelligence. Lechterman defines "democracy" and considers what it means to have equality within an institution. He examines the tradeoffs of political automation, detailing what happens when we delegate democratic power to AI. Lechterman weighs the benefits and costs of democractic AI, explaining how AI can help people to educate themselves in their political knowledge and judgment, facilitate the public's participation, and harness AI's processing power to provide more political opinions. Additionally, Lechterman acknowledges political theories in favor of complete automation of the political process and how they fail to solve our political concerns.Read more about Lechterman's work.Read more work from Kristen Collins.If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins interviews Leilani Gilpin, an Assistant Professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, on self-explaining machines and autonomous cars. Gilpin begins by highlighting the limits of artificial intelligence, detailing how machine learning struggles with interpreting details with reference to a broader context. She points out that machines make decisions based on rules but struggle to make exceptions to those rules. Gilpin suggests that since humans learn through self-explanation and dialogical reflection, automonous cars could use these same methods to improve their decision making. Additionally, Gilpin emphasizes the possible role of community input in deciding machine rules.Read more work from Leilani Gilpin.Read more work from Kristen Collins.If you like the show, please leave a 5-star review for us on Apple Podcasts and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever else you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus