science friction

To imagine the future of artificial intelligence, it's important to reflect on some of the big moments in it's past.

This week, James Purtill from Science Friction brings us a story of competition, surprise and thinking machines.

This is the only time you'll hear Science Friction in the All in the Mind feed. To hear the full six-part series on AI, Hello AI Overlords, search for Science Friction in your podcast feed.

Science journalist, biologist, podcaster, teacher and activist Dr Ilya Kolmanovsky is a superstar science communicator.He hosts one of the biggest Russian language podcasts. Bigger than podcasts on sex or politics.But he's no stranger to the brutality of Russia's political leadership.Now, with Putin's violent invasion of Ukraine and as a new Iron Curtain descends, Ilya and thousands of others inside Russia have just made the most wrenching decision of their lives.

For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in March 2022.Guest:Dr Ilya KolmanovskyScience journalist, biologist, podcaster, presenterFurther information:Goliy Zemlekop (Naked Mole-Rat) podcast

https://zemlekop.libsyn.com/websiteSound engineer: Matthew Sigley

Leading computer scientist and co-founder of Black in A.I, Dr Timnit Gebru, was hired by Google to co-lead its Ethical AI team with another tech industry trailblazer Dr Margaret Mitchell.

The team investigated the ethics of artificial intelligence to understand and prevent its potential harms.

Timnit was the first Black woman the company had employed in a research scientist role.

Then Google terminated her contract sparking an international outcry.

Some 7000 industry colleagues and others, including thousands within Google itself, signed a petition protesting her departure.

Then Dr Margaret Mitchell was fired too.

Now Timnit is driving "community-rooted" artificial intelligence research free from what she describes as "Big Tech's pervasive influence".

For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in April 2022.

Guest:

Dr Timnit Gebru@TimnitGebruComputer scientist and engineerFounder of the Distributed A.I Research Institute (DAIR)Co-founder, Black in A.I

Further info:

The Algorithmic Justice League

Coded Bias (documentary film)

Data in Society

Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification (Buolamwini, Gebru; 2018)

Timnit Gebru's publications (Google Scholar)

Petition in support of Dr Timnit Gebru

Why Timnit Gebru Isn’t Waiting for Big Tech to Fix AI's Problems (Time, 2022)

Timnit Gebru is building a slow AI movement (IEEE Spectrum, 2022)

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? (Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Mitchell; 2021)

AI at Google (Sundar Pichai, 2018)

"The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google" (Platformer, 2020)

"We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here's what it says" (MIT Technology Review, 2020)

"Inside Timnit Gebru's last days at Google - and what happens next" (MIT Technology Review, 2020)

Google fires top AI ethics researcher Margaret Mitchell

On racialised tech organisations and complaint - a goodbye to Google (Alex Hanna, 2022)

Constructing a Visual Dataset to Study the Effects of Spatial Apartheid in South Africa (Sefala, Gebru, Mfupe, Moorosi, 2021)

The In/justices of AI (Science Friction, ABC RN, 2020)

Chatbot mania and algorithms of oppression (Science Friction, ABC RN, 2017)

What does it take to reimagine your life?In this occasional Science Friction series, scientists who end-up their lives and strip themselves of their professional identity to become artists.Kolkata-born engineer Nishant Jain flew in the face of expectations, threw in a PhD in biomechanics, and reinvented himself as a cartoonist, writer, and self-taught artist.Now the self-described 'Sneaky Artist' hosts a podcast of the same name and sells his urban artworks to a growing global fanbase.For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in April 2022.Guest:Nishant Jain@SneakyArt

The Sneaky Artist

Artist, cartoonist, writer, urban sketcherVancouver, Canada

Sex is complicated. Oh yes indeed.

Science is way personal.

Lace up your boots. Get down and dirty. We're hunting the impossible.

Nature's rules are made to be broken. Paul Steinhardt just had to find a way.

Big Pharma has helped get life-saving COVID-19 vaccines into billions of arms. The profits are pouring in, but at what cost?

Jane Goodall wants you to gird your loins. What does that mean? Well ... for hope, push PLAY.

By day, she's making molecules dance. By night, this vintage fashionista has a different dance on her mind.

Timnit Gebru was fired by Google in a cloud of controversy, now she's making waves beyond Big Tech's pervasive influence

You need a new organ. But there aren't enough to go around. Would you accept one from a pig? Hearts, kidneys, corneas ... xenotransplantation is here.

Indian-born engineer Nishant Jain flew in the face of expectations to radically reinvent himself as the Sneaky Artist

Ilya Kolmanovsky is a popular science superstar in Russia. Like so many anti-Putin activists, he’s just made the most wrenching decision of his life. 

Why are we so weirdly paradoxical about food? Food, farms, revolution with two women closer to it all than most.

If you sell the gun but don’t pull the trigger ... are you to blame?  

After 25 years of painstaking research, could scientists be getting close to unlocking the mysteries of Buruli ulcer?

When people from a small beach town on Phillip Island started developing severe skin lesions, scientists were left scratching their heads as to what was causing them.