The Good Robot

In this episode, we talk to N. Katherine Hayles who's the distinguished research professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the James B. Duke Professor Emerita from Duke University. Her prolific research focuses on the relationship between science, literature and technology in the 20th and 21st centuries. We explore her newest book, Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with Our Nonhuman Symbionts, and discuss how the biological concept of symbiosis can inform the relationships we have with AI; how a neural network experiences the world; and whether ChatGPT can be conscious.

In this episode, Eleanor talks to Alexander Thomas, a filmmaker and academic who leads the BA in Media Production at the University of East London. They discuss his new book about transhumanism, a philosophical movement that aims to improve human capabilities through technology and whose followers includes Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Larry Page, and also apparently the DJ Steve Aoki. Alex is himself one of the foremost commentators on transhumanism. He explores transhumanist fantasies about the future of the human, is obsessed with the extremes of possibility: they either think that AI will bring us radical abundance or total extinction. Transhumanism, Alexander says in this episode, reduces life down to information processing and intelligence, which amounts to a kind of IQ fetishism.

In this episode, we talk to digital media theorist and artist Laila Shereen Sakr, who also performs under the name VJ Um Amel. We discuss her work making data about the outer world both visible and emotional. We explore what Laila calls the "surveyed and targeted Arab data body" and the incredible work she does creating Arab futuristic video games that both represent Arab cultures and project them into the future. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode we talk to Kyla Wazana Tompkins, chair of the Department of Global Gender and Sexuality studies at the University of Buffalo. She gives incredible insight into the relationship between the history of science and the history of food law and policy. We look at legislation like the 1906 Food and Drug Act to examine how food policy shaped and was shaped by American ideas about race, national identity, and the body. From $40 LA smoothies to the fermentation practices of the Appalachian peoples, we explore how the way we eat is always bound up with race and gender, both in the past and in the present. 

To develop voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, companies spend years investigating what sounds like a human voice and what doesn't. But what we've ended up with is just one possibility of the kinds of voices that we could be interacting with. In this episode, we talked to sound engineer Frederik Juutilainen, and Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Stina Hasse Jørgensen, about their participation in [multi'vocal], an experimental research project that created an alternative voice assistant by asking people at a rock festival in Denmark to speak into a portable recording box. We talk about voice assistants' inability to stutter, lisp and code switch, and whether a voice can express multiple personalities, genders and ages. 

In this episode, we go shopping with artist and performer, Laura Allcorn. We enter into her practice, which is called the Institute for Comedic Inquiry, to learn how she pairs humour and entertainment with participatory public engagement methods to raise awareness about bizarre and dangerous uses of AI.  Laura uses comedy to skewer all manner of ethically questionable technologies, from gait surveillance to shopping algorithms. We participate in one of Laura's performances in this episode, 'SKU-MARKET', an algorithmic shopping platform that promises to know you better than you know yourself. Stay tuned for what the algorithm says about us...

In this episode, we talk to Anne Pasek, the Canada Research Chair in Media Culture and the Environment, and an Associate Professor between the Department of Cultural Studies and the School of the Environment at Trent University. We love Anne for lots of reasons, not least because she has a 50 watt solar panel, a little Raspberry Pi computer, and an acid battery, all in her backyard, hosting a server. Together we discuss pleasurable ways of responding to climate anxiety,  what would happen if the internet wasn't always on, but instead functioned in tandem with the sun, and why addressing climate crisis isn't necessarily about living with less, but learning to live in sync.

Sarah Ciston, an innovative artist, coder, and critical AI scholar, shares her insights on developing the LadyMouth chatbot that humorously engages with online trolls. The conversation dives into the tough reality of content moderation and the emotional weight it carries. Ciston highlights the surprising similarities between incels and feminists, sparking a thought-provoking discussion on how AI might bridge these divides. Their work embodies a blend of feminism and technology, challenging traditional design biases while advocating for a more inclusive digital landscape.

In this episode we talk to two activists, Hat and Nell, from the organisation Stop Oxevision, who are fighting against the rollout of surveillance technologies used on mental health wards in the United Kingdom (UK). We explore how surveillance on mental health wards affects patients who never know exactly when they're being watched, and how surveillance technologies in mental health wards are implemented within a much wider context of unequal power relationships. We also reflect on resistance, solidarity, and friendship as well as the power of activism to share information and combat oppressive technologies. Please note that this episode does contain distressing content, including references to self harm. 

In this episode, we talk to Sebastián Lehuedé, a Lecturer in Ethics, AI, and Society at King's College London. We talk about data activism in Chile, how water-intensive lithium extraction affects people living in the Atacama desert, the importance of reflexive research ethics, and an accidental Sunday afternoon shot of tequila.