Podcast #36: Jerry Mander

Author and activist Jerry Mander reflects on a long life of technoskepticism and how it relates to the current global moment.

By Mo Lotman | January 5, 2021 | Advertising, Community, Culture, Economics, Environment, Media, Podcasts, Society | Capitalism, Coronavirus, Environment, Exploitation, Globalism, Grand Canyon, Image, Indigenous Rights, Internet, Media, Native Americans, Nature, Power, Propaganda, Television, The Sierra Club

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Book Review: Re-Engineering Humanity

Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger warn that real freedom of will and human agency will require the ability to be “off.”

By Laura Drake | February 19, 2020 | Artificial Intelligence, Cognition, Philosophy, Society | Agency, Algorithms, Authoritarianism, Control, Democracy, Dumbing Down, Efficiency, Entertainment, Freedom, Humanity, Intelligence, Power, Simulation, Skills, Smart Environments, Social Engineering, Systems, Taylorism

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Podcast #29: Jim Keenan on Environmentalism, Justice, and Faith

Father Jim Keenan of Boston College discusses Pope Francis’s views on environmentalism and social justice, and how those resonate across belief systems.

By Mo Lotman | March 27, 2019 | Community, Economics, Environment, Ethics, Family, Human Rights, Philosophy, Podcasts, Religion, Society | Abuse, Accountability, Amoris Laetitia, Bioethics, Boston College, Canon, Capitalism, Cardinals, Catholicism, Charlie Curran, David Satcher, Disease, Divorce, Ecumenicalism, Education, Environment, Equality, Gender, Genetic Engineering, Greed, Hierarchy, Honesty, Image, Immigration, Interdenominationalism, Jesuits, Justice, Labor, Laudato Si, Malaria, Marriage, Mother Teresa, Ordaining Women, Ordination, Paul Ramsey, Playing God, Pope Francis, Pope John Paul II, Poverty, Power, Privilege, Protestantism, Sexual Abuse, Sexuality, Social Justice, Socialism, St. Ignatius, Stewart Brand, Surgeon General, Sustainability, The Bible, The Jesuit Institute, Theology, Transportation, Tuberculosis, Working Class

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Podcast #24: Michael Zimmerman Gets Philosophical on Tech

In a wide-ranging conversation, philosopher Michael Zimmerman contextualizes our technological journey within the history of Western thought.

By Mo Lotman | January 9, 2019 | Artificial Intelligence, Culture, Employment, Environment, Ethics, Knowledge, Philosophy, Podcasts, Religion, Society | Acts of Enclosure, Addiction, Agriculture, Ancient World, Anger, Aristotle, Arnold Toynbee, Artificial General Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Authenticity, Axial Age, Behavior, Bible, Bolsheviks, Boundaries, Buddhism, Capitlism, Carolyn Merchant, Christianity, Civilization, Control, Craving, Creativity, CRISPR, David Loy, Death, Decadence, Deep Ecology, Delusion, Desire, Distraction, Earth, Ease, Embodiment, Engineering, Environment, Eternity, Exploitation, Exponential Growth, Facebook, Fake News, Fate, Finitude, Fire, Francis Bacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gnosticism, Golden Rule, Google, Greed, Hatred, Hegel, Heiddeger, Hubris, Human Nature, Humanness, Immaturity, Immortality, Industrial Revolution, Infantilization, Isaiah, Islam, Jaron Lanier, Karl Jaspers, Karl Marx, Knowledge, Lab-Grown Meat, Life, Loss, Martin Rees, Marxism, Master-Slave Dialectic, Meaning, Meat-Eating, Mediation, Medieval World, Metallurgy, Mind, Mining, Modernity, Money Economy, Morality, Mortality, Native Americans, Nature, Nazis, News, Nihilism, Obesity, Pain, Pascal, Peter Thiel, Philosophy, Plato, Playing God, Power, Production, Progress, Propoganda, Protestant Reformation, Ray Kurzweil, Reincarnation, relationships, Religion, René Descartes, Resentment, Resources, Respect, Sailing, Security, Self-Mastery, Silicon Valley, Smartphones, Socialism, Soviets, Spirituality, Splintering, Steve Jobs, Suffering, The Overman, The Singularity, Trade, Traditional Societies, Transhumanism, Twitter, Utopia, Wealth, Wildfires, Will to Power, Wisdom, Wonder

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When Developers Can’t Explain Their AI, Laws No Longer Apply

The hows and whys of the decisions of machine-learning algorithms are increasingly opaque, even to their programmers. That makes laws and norms increasingly difficult to apply.

By Lynne Peskoe-Yang | May 23, 2018 | Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Health, Law, Prediction, Society | Accountability, AI, Algorithms, Asimov's Laws, Big Data, Black Boxes, Code, Corruption, Crime, Deep Learning, Efficiency, Fake News, Google, Harm, Health Care, Injustice, Isaac Asimov, Judgment, Law, Neural Networks, Palantir, Power, Predictive Policing, Programming, Racial Bias, Robots, Rules, Social Groups, Syntax, The Brain, Trust, Unintended Consequences

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