Public Interest Technologies

In TechnoSlipstream podcast episode 36 we discuss AI and whether or not Apple is really behind in the AI race.

In TechnoSlipstream podcast episode 35 we consider whether advanced AI models like LLMs are conscious, what it takes for AI to be conscious, and what it would take for us to know whether or not an AI is conscious.Join to support the show and for exclusive content, including episode notes, scripts, and other writings: patreon.com/kendallgiles.

In TechnoSlipstream Podcast episode 34 we examine the creation myth of the digital computer by doing a deep dive into the book Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson.Join to support the show and for exclusive content, including episode notes, scripts, and other writings: patreon.com/kendallgiles

How true are the myths and legends of Silicon Valley? To help us answer that question, starting with this episode, in a special two-part podcast series we'll work our way through the book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America written by Margaret O'Mara.Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/kendallgilesJoin to support the show and for exclusive content, including episode notes, scripts, and other writings: patreon.com/kendallgiles

How true are the myths and legends of Silicon Valley? To help us answer that question, starting with this episode, in a special two-part podcast series we'll work our way through the book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America written by Margaret O'Mara.Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/kendallgilesJoin to support the show and for exclusive content, including episode notes, scripts, and other writings: patreon.com/kendallgiles

"Public interest technology" is a growing field made up of those interested in developing technologies that serve the public good, such as those for the government and non-profits. So in Episode 31 we'll do a deep dive into the book Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology by Tara McGuinness and Hana Schank.

Given the temptations around each one of us in the world and the decisions we need to make in our lives about what paths to take regarding future events it might at least be worthwhile to try to get a better understanding of risk, and so in Episode 30 I wanted to do a deep dive on exactly that--the history of and just what do we mean by risk. We'll do this by diving into the book Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, written by Peter Bernstein.

In Episode 29 we focus on the issues with the software engineering people, practices, and technologies currently used to create flawed machine learning and artificial intelligence systems. We'll do this by doing a deep dive into the book Responsible Machine Learning by Patrick Hall, Navdeep Gill, and Benjamin Cox.Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kendallgilesJoin to support the show and for exclusive content, including episode notes, scripts, and other writings: https://patreon.com/kendallgiles

In Episode 28 we'll be looking at what philosopher Luciano Floridi calls the "infosphere". You may have heard of the "biosphere"--all the ecosystems on earth that support biological life. The infosphere then is the environment that supports information, which is another term for reality, if you look at today's reality from an informational perspective. Thus, in The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality we'll investigate how ICTs (information and computing technologies) are blurring our online and offline worlds.Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kendallgilesJoin to support the show and for exclusive content, including episode notes, scripts, and other writings: https://patreon.com/kendallgiles

In Episode 27 we will try to better understand the importance of the metaphysics for the statistics we use to power our machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms by doing a deep dive on the book  Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, and the Logic of Capitalism by Justin Joque.Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kendallgilesJoin to support the show and for exclusive content, including episode notes, scripts, and other writings: https://patreon.com/kendallgiles