How Smart Is AI? (Part Two) with Meredith Broussard

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

We’re back with the second half of our special two-part episode about algorithms and artificial intelligence, featuring returning guest Meredith Broussard. Yesterday, we got the T on ChatGPT, and learned why we can’t trust algorithms to be fair or objective. Today, Jonathan and Meredith get personal about their encounters with algorithms, and consider what an equitable tech industry could look like. Plus, deepfakes, TikTok, the Supreme Court, and Jonathan’s take on M3GAN!

Meredith Broussard is Associate Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and Research Director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (MIT Press). Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, BBC, Wired, the Economist, and more. She appears in the 2020 documentary Coded Bias and serves on the advisory board for the Center for Critical Race & Digital Studies.

Make sure to check out Meredith’s new book More Than A Glitch, out now from MIT Press.

You can follow Meredith on Instagram and Twitter @merbroussard, and at meredithbroussard.com. MIT Press is on Instagram and Twitter @mitpress.

Curious for more? Here are some people, projects, and other resources mentioned in this episode, all linked in the episode entry on jonathanvanness.com:

Algorithmic Justice League (Joy Buolamwini)

Algorithms of Oppression (Safiya Noble)

Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights

DAIR Institute (Timnit Gebru)

Deb Raji’s work

Design Justice (Sasha Costanza-Chock)

Mimi Onuoha’s work

Race After Technology + Viral Justice (Ruha Benjamin)

Rumman Chowdhury’s work

Take My Hand (Dolen Perkins-Valdez)

The Gender Shades Project

The Markup (Julia Angwin)

Under the Skin (Linda Villarosa)

Weapons of Math Destruction + ORCAA (Cathy O’Neil)

Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN.

Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com.

Find books from Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn.

Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our editor is Andrew Carson.

Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com.

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