Human Centered

Legendary tech journalist John Markoff (CASBS fellow, 2017-18) chats with 2023-24 CASBS fellow Young Mie Kim on her groundbreaking efforts to identify how shadowy groups use algorithms and targeted disinformation campaigns during presidential election cycles; measure their real-world distorting effects on voter mobilization or suppression; and illuminate our understanding of resulting political inequalities and their implications for American democracy.YOUNG MIE KIM: CASBS bio |  Univ. of Wisconsin faculty page |  "The Disinformation Detective" (On Wisconsin magazine) |Kim leads Project DATA (Digital Ad Tracking & Analysis) at UW. | Project DATA on X |Kim is lead author of the article "The Stealth Media? Groups and Targets Behind Divisive Issue Campaigns on Facebook," Political Communication, v35 n4 (2018). The article won the Kaid-Sanders Award for the Best Political Communication Article of the Year by the International Communication Association.Coverage of findings: The New York Times here and here | Wired |  Kim's testimony delivered to the Federal Election Commission | Kim is a founding member of the International Panel on the Information Environment. Coverage of IPIE in The New York Times |Kim among the authors of "The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election: A deactivation experiment," Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, v121 n2 (2024) |Kim a coauthor of several articles appearing in a special issue of Science on Social Media and Elections (2023) |At the beginning of the episode, Kim discusses the influence of Phil Converse. Converse was a CASBS fellow in 1979-80 and later served as CASBS director (1989-94). Learn more about Converse's work.---------Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand  (Penguin Random House, 2022)  Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​Human CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Stefan Link, a 2023-24 CASBS fellow, chats with Barry Eichengreen, a 1996-97 CASBS fellow and world renowned for his expertise at the nexus of international economics and economic history. They discuss some of Eichengreen's most prominent works — including "The European Economy Since 1945," which emerged from his CASBS experience, and "Golden Fetters," his most cited book — interrogating their durability and applicability to contemporary industrial, financial, and monetary policy challenges and governance.BARRY EICHENGREEN: UC Berkeley faculty page | Homepage & CV | on Wikipedia | STEFAN LINK: CASBS bio | Dartmouth faculty page | Mentioned in the episode:Eichengreen's talk on "Steering Structural Change" (session 2) at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (16 April 2024)Eichengreen & Temin NBER paper on "The Gold Standard and the Great Depression" (June 1997)Select Eichengreen booksElusive Stability: Essays in the History of International Finance 1919-1939 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990)Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression 1919-1939 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1992)International Monetary Arrangements for the 21st Century (Brookings Institution, 1994)Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System (Princeton Univ. Press, 1994)European Monetary Unification: Theory, Practice, and Analysis (MIT Press, 1997)Toward a New International Financial Architecture: A Practical Post-Asia Agenda (Peterson Institute for International Economics, 1999)Financial Crises and What to Do About Them (Oxford Univ. Press, 2002)Capital Flows and Crises (MIT Press, 2004)Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods (MIT Press, 2006)The European Economy Since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton Univ. Press, 2006)Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System (Oxford Univ. Press, 2012)Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses — and Misuses — of History (Oxford Univ. Press, 2015) Stefan Link bookForging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order  (Princeton Univ. Press, 2020)Winner of the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, as well as the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, American Historical Association  Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​Human CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Labor historian & 2023-24 CASBS fellow Gabriel Winant in conversation with 2018-19 CASBS fellow Ruth Milkman, among the nation's most renowned sociologists of labor. In addition to interrogating divisions within and segmentation across labor markets in recent decades, Milkman also has remained attuned to the complexity of the overall working class experience, essential for illuminating ways in which workers can unite and organize.RUTH MILKMAN: CUNY faculty page | personal website | ASA bio |Milkman's book Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat (2020) | Polity Press Q&A |GABRIEL WINANT: CASBS bio | Univ. of Chicago faculty page |  faculty Q&A |Winant's book The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America (2022)  Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​Human CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Nathan Matias, an Assistant Professor at Cornell University, leads the Citizen and Technology Lab focusing on technology's societal impacts. In this conversation, he addresses the often-overlooked public interest concerns surrounding algorithms and AI. Matias emphasizes the need for transparency and collaboration between tech firms and civil society. He discusses the implications of adaptive algorithms on accountability, drawing from significant legal cases, and highlights the importance of independent research to foster better governance and public involvement in technology.

Recorded before a live audience, Margaret Levi, Alison Gopnik, & Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss a CASBS project, "The Social Science of Caregiving," which is reimagining the philosophical, psychological, biological, political, & economic foundations of care and caregiving. The goal is a coherent empirical and theoretical account or synthesis of care that advances understandings and policy discussions. [The episode notes provide links for further exploration.]Article on CASBS's project on The Social Science of CaregivingWeb page for the project on The Social Science of CaregivingRelated: Human Centered episode #61, "Developing AI Like Raising Kids" (Alison Gopnik & Ted Chiang)Alison Gopnik: CASBS bio | UC Berkeley Bio | Gopnik article, "Caregiving in Philosophy, Biology & Political Economy" (Dædalus)Margaret Levi: CASBS bio | CASBS program on Creating a New Moral Political Economy | Anne-Marie Slaughter:  New America bio | Slaughter articles, "Care is a Relationship" (Dædalus) | "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" (The Atlantic)Slaughter book, Unfinished Business (Penguin Random House)   Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​Human CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist & 2017-18 CASBS fellow John Markoff chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellow Rebecca Slayton on how the field of computing expertise evolved, eventually giving rise to the niche of professionals who protect systems from cyber-attacks. Slayton's forthcoming book explores the governance & risk implications emerging from the fact that cybersecurity experts must establish their authority by paradoxically revealing vulnerabilities and insecurities of that which they seek to protect.REBECCA SLAYTONCornell University faculty page | |  CASBS page | Slayton's book Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012 (MIT Press)Slayton's article "What is the Cyber Offense-Defense Balance?," International SecurityVideo: Talk on "Shadowing Cybersecurity: Expertise, Transnationalism, and the Politics of Uncertainty" at Stanford Univ.JOHN MARKOFFNew York Times pageMarkoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Steward Brand (Penguin Random House, 2022) Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University75 Alta Road | Stanford, CA 94305 | CASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​View the Fall 2023 CASBS Newsletter  Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​Human CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel | 

The podcast explores the impact of storytelling on collective memory, the dangers of manipulating historical accounts, the intersection of storytelling, infrastructure, and history, the connection between millenarian Marxism and neo-Christian vision in Silicon Valley, the collision of old myths and new technologies, unity and diversity in debating the past in democracy, and the importance of civil debate and diverse stories.

Renowned sociologist Michèle Lamont discusses her new book, Seeing Others, with Woody Powell. They explore topics such as societal dynamics during the Trump era, challenges faced by marginalized groups, the importance of recognition for a more egalitarian society, and the need for empathy and understanding towards different social classes. They also discuss the role of media and philanthropies in fighting inequality and the challenges of dignity and recognition in different cultural settings.

Angela Aristidou, a CASBS fellow, and Phil Howard, a renowned scholar of tech innovation, discuss the challenges of understanding and regulating our information ecosystems, interdisciplinary collaboration, the impact of the information environment, AI language models, and more.

Elizabeth Loftus, a distinguished professor renowned for her groundbreaking research on memory malleability, joins Dan Simon for a fascinating discussion. They dive into the disturbing implications of how eyewitness testimony can be influenced by false memories, shedding light on high-profile legal cases. Loftus elaborates on the 'memory wars' and the delicate balance between memory errors and wrongful convictions. They explore the intersection of scientific understanding and societal pressures, ultimately advocating for improved legal practices in light of memory research.