structural inequality

New year, same Bullshit Mountain. Alex and Emily are joined by feminist technosolutionism critics Eleanor Drage and Kerry McInerney to tear down the ways AI is proposed as a solution to structural inequality, including racism, ableism, and sexism -- and why this hype can occlude the need for more meaningful changes in institutions.

Dr. Eleanor Drage is a Senior Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Dr. Kerry McInerney is a Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and a Research Fellow at the AI Now Institute. Together they host The Good Robot, a podcast about gender, feminism, and whether technology can be "good" in either outcomes or processes.

Watch the video version of this episode on PeerTube.

References:

HireVue promo: How Innovative Hiring Technology Nurtures Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Algorithm Watch: The [German Federal Asylum Agency]'s controversial dialect recognition software: new languages and an EU pilot project

Want to see how AI might be processing video of your face during a job interview? Play with React App, a tool that Eleanor helped develop to critique AI-powered video interview tools and the 'personality insights' they offer.

Philosophy & Technology: Does AI Debias Recruitment? Race, Gender, and AI’s “Eradication of Difference” (Drage & McInerney, 2022)

Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies: Copies without an original: the performativity of biometric bordering technologies (Drage & Frabetti, 2023)

Fresh AI Hell

Internet of Shit 2.0: a "smart" bidet

Fake AI “students” enrolled at Michigan University

Synthetic images destroy online crochet groups

“AI” for teacher performance feedback

Palette cleanser: “Stochastic parrot” is the American Dialect Society’s AI-related word of the year for 2023!

You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute.

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Alex

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Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park.
Production by Christie Taylor.

COVID has exposed and possibly amplified the polarization of society. What can we learn from taking a multiscale approach to crisis response? There are latencies in economies of scale, inequality of access and supply chain problems. The virus evolves faster than peer review. Science is politicized. But thinking across scales offers answers, insights, better questions…

Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.

This week on Complexity, we conclude our conversation (recorded on December 9th last year) with SFI External Professors Kathy Powers, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico, and Melanie Moses, Director of the Moses Biological Computation Lab at the University of New Mexico.

If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/give. Please also be aware of our new SFI Press book, The Complex Alternative, which gathers over 60 complex systems research points of view on COVID-19 (including those from this show). Learn more at SFIPress.org. Thank you for listening!

Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.

Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.

Follow us on social media:
Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn

Related Reading & Listening:

“Spatially distributed infection increases viral load in a computational model of SARS-CoV-2 lung infection”
by Melanie E. Moses et al. incl. Stephanie Forrest

“Sunsetting As An Adaptive Strategy”
by Roberta Romano and Simon A. Levin

“The Virus That Infected The World”
by David Krakauer & Dan Rockmore

A Model For A Just COVID-19 Vaccination Program
Legacies of Harm, Social Mistrust & Political Blame Impede A Robust Societal Response to The Evolving COVID-19 Pandemic
How To Fix The Vaccine Rollout
Models That Protect The Vulnerable
Complexities in Repair for Harm (Kathy’s SFI Seminar)

"The inevitable shift towards science as crisis response is a call to arms for complexity science. How well we will be able to meet these challenges will determine the future path of humanity."
- Miguel Fuentes

Also Mentioned:

Jessica Flack, James C. Scott, Sam Bowles, Wendy Carlin, Joseph Henrich, Luis Bettencourt, Matthew Jackson, David Kinney

Some people say we’re all in the same boat; others say no, but we’re all in the same storm. Wherever you choose to focus the granularity of your inquiry, one thing is certain: we are all embedded in, acting on, and being acted upon by the same nested networks. Our fates are intertwined, but our destinies diverge like weather forecasts, hingeing on small variations in contingency: the circumstances of our birth, the changing contexts of our lives. Seen through a complex systems science lens, the problem of unfairness — in economic opportunity, in health care access, in susceptibility to a pandemic — stays wicked. But the insights therein could steer society toward a much better future, or at least help mitigate the worst of what we’re left to deal with now. This is where the rubber meets the road — where quantitative models of the lung could inform economic policy, and research into how we make decisions influences who survives the complex crises of this decade.

Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.

This week on Complexity, in a conversation recorded on December 9th 2021, we speak with SFI External Professors Kathy Powers, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico, and Melanie Moses, Director of the Moses Biological Computation Lab at the University of New Mexico. In the first part of a conversation that — like COVID itself — will not be contained, and spends much of its time visiting the poor and under-represented, we discuss everything from how the network topology of cities shapes the outcome of an outbreak to how vaccine hesitancy is a path-dependent trust fail anchored in the history of oppression. Melanie and Kathy offer insights into how to fix the vaccine rollout, how better scientific models can protect the vulnerable, and how — with the help of complex systems thinking — we may finally be able to repair the structural inequities that threaten all of us, one boat or many.  Subscribe for Part Two in two weeks!

If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/give. Please also be aware of our new SFI Press book, The Complex Alternative, which gathers over 60 complex systems research points of view on COVID-19 (including those from this show) — and that PhD students are now welcome to apply for our tuitionless (!) Summer 2022 SFI GAINS residential program in Vienna. Learn more at SFIPress.org and SantaFe.edu/Gains, respectively. Thank you for listening!

Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.

Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.

Follow us on social media:
Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn

Related Reading & Listening:

A Model For A Just COVID-19 Vaccination Program
Legacies of Harm, Social Mistrust & Political Blame Impede A Robust Societal Response to The Evolving COVID-19 Pandemic
How To Fix The Vaccine Rollout
Models That Protect The Vulnerable
Complexities in Repair for Harm (Kathy’s SFI Seminar)
How a coastline 100 million years ago influences modern election results in Alabama @ Reddit
🎧 Better Scientific Modeling for Ecological & Social Justice with David Krakauer (Transmission Series Ep. 7)
🎧 Cris Moore on Algorithmic Justice & The Physics of Inference
🎧 Mirta Galesic on Social Learning & Decision-making
🎧 Matthew Jackson on Social & Economic Networks
🎧 Luis Bettencourt on The Science of Cities

Mentions Include:

Johan Chu, James Evans, Sam Scarpino, Simon DeDeo, Tony Eagan, Matthew Jackson, Mirta Galesic, Stuart Firestein, David Kinney, Jessica Flack, Samuel Bowles, Wendy Carlin, Cris Moore, Miguel Fuentes, Stephanie Forrest, David Krakauer, Luis Bettencourt

Many additional resources in the show notes for the next episode!  Stay tuned…

Will you help us meet our goal to raise $5,000 that will be matched, but only if we meet our goal?  Donate at https://LauraFlanders.org/donate  We do not accept advertisements or government funding.  We are media for the people!

From the contest for governor of Virginia to school board races across the country, opposition to Critical Race Theory proved an effective tactic for Republican candidates to defeat Democrats in this November’s election. Does that justify the conclusions drawn by many in the media that Democrats need to stop talking so much about racism, history, and structural inequality? Must progressives face electoral reality, as many editorials have recently suggested, and tone down the so-called woke agenda? Or are there other ways to report the CRT story, and different conclusions to draw from November’s elections? Can the media go beyond the horserace? In this month’s “Meet the BIPOC Press” episode of The Laura Flanders Show, Laura leads a roundtable conversation exploring all of the above with URL Media co-founders Sara Lomax-Reese and Mitra Kalita and Editor-in-Chief at The Real News Network, Maximillian Alvarez.  Music in the Middle:  Jacques Renault's remix of “Keep It Working” by The Pendeltons from the collection ’20 Years of Bastard Jazz’ courtesy of DJ DRM’s own Bastard Jazz Records. 

Full Episode Notes are posted at Patreon.com/theLFShow for members and non-members.  Support the show by becoming a member as a monthly supporter at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow We do not accept corporate or government funding. We rely on you! 

The Laura Flanders Show Crew:  Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper

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ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Full episode notes are at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow

Thousands of Americans recently received direct payments from their government as part of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan to address unemployment and poverty exacerbated by the Covid Pandemic. But what if direct payments like those came every month as a way to combat structural inequality? For a group of people in two California cities, that’s not just an idea, it’s a reality thanks to an innovative experiment. The Compton Pledge in Compton is paying 800 local women $300 to $600 per month, to give them a leg up. The money, which until now has been privately raised, is deposited via direct debit card, Venmo, direct deposit or whatever works best and doesn’t replace any other supplements they might get from the government. So far, unemployment is down 50% since the program started and the idea, which has deep roots in American history, is paying off for recipients and the community they’re in. It’s also getting serious attention well beyond California as we’ll hear. In this episode, Laura meets some of the women who are receiving the funds and speak with Compton’s mayor, Aja Brown, as well as former Stockton mayor, Michael Tubbs, founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, who was the first big city mayor to experiment in this way. We’ll also hear from Nika Soon-Shiong Executive Director of the Fund for Guaranteed Income.Could direct cash payments go national and be sustained? Should they?  “Time For A Dialogue” by Soul Clap featuring Rich Medina released, from their album World Transformation Force or W-T-F, it’s a call for radical love and radical hope, courtesy of Fools Gold Records.

While mainstream media or money media keeps you in a bubble, we’re committed to popping that bubble by continuing to bring you radical, intersectional media! Can we depend on you to chip in? Go to https://LauraFlanders.org/donate and join our team by making a donation today. Thanks

The Laura Flanders Show Crew:  Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper

FOLLOW The Laura Flanders Show

Twitter: twitter.com/thelfshow

TikTok:  tiktok.com/@thelfshow

Facebook: facebook.com/theLFshow

Instagram: instagram.com/thelfshow

YouTube:  youtube.com/@thelfshow

ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

After a break due to summer term assessments, Can You Hear Us is happy to be back with a new theme: Race in Academia, where we aim to highlight both academics and students' perspectives as women and femmes of color within the sector. In the first of a two-part series, we interview Professor Mahvish Shami, co-director of the Development Management program here at the LSE, and Shingira Masanzu a PhD student from the LSE’s department of Law. Together they bring their insights on challenges faced both in in and out of the academic world and in the sphere of international development.

“When Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was made head of the WTO, there’s this mass celebration about finally a person from Africa is head of the WTO […], but it is in 2021 that we are getting excited about a black person right in the WTO, that to me speaks to the structural thing, to think about who is occupying positions of leadership in powerful institutions”.  –  Shingi Masanzu

“For me the project of decolonizing is asking questions around what voices, ideas and perspectives have dominated the space and what voices have been obscured, [..] and how do we swivel some light to pay attention to those voices that we have not heard”.   –  Shingi Masanzu

“I am a woman of color, but I am also an LSE staff member, part of the LSE community, I am also a big fan of modern-popular-movies I also like a certain kind of music. All these identities allow me to relay to different kinds of groups and position myself into different categories.”  –   Dr Mahvish Shami on positionality based on Sen’s “Identity and Violence” (2007)

“You guys come from all over the world, you are aware of all sort of different ideas and literatures and voices out there that we may not know, so that’s how you can play a major role [decolonizing academia]: you could bring it to our attention, you could bring it to your seminars, you could take it to your lectures […] I think a lot of students underestimate how important their background is and the knowledge they bring to the classroom”.   –  Dr Mahvish Shami

Welcome to the final episode of season 2. We’ve had some great guests this season and the show has attracted thousands of new listeners in large parts of the world. Thank you all for listening and for all the positive and most encouraging feedback that we have received this year.

Our guest this week is Emma Mawdsley, who is a reader in human geography at Newnham College and Director of the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies at the University of Cambridge. She recently received the Royal Geographical Society’s Busk Medal for her exceptional engagements with fieldwork, research and knowledge production about the Global South.

• "From recipients to donors: the emerging powers and the changing development landscape"
• ‘From billions to trillions’: Financing the SDGs in a world ‘beyond aid’
• "Human Rights and South-South Development Cooperation: Reflections on the "Rising Powers" as International Development Actors"

Please follow our Twitter account @GlobalDevPod and share our episodes with your colleagues and friends. We will be back in a couple of months in season 3 of the show with another bunch of great guests. 

Thank you and I wish you all an enjoyable summer.

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Professor Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)

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Rebecca talks to Dave about what it has been like living in Rural NorCal as a Bay Area transplant.  We hear about  what it’s like on the front lines as an essential worker. Balancing work and  keeping one’s family safe is precarious balance. Especially  in a pandemy plagued by wildfires, structural inequality, and the politicalization of the virus.