David Robinson on Algorithms in the Courtoom

05/14/19 • 27 min

In this episode, we speak with David Robinson, the managing director and cofounder of Upturn, a nonprofit promoting "equity and justice" in digital technology. He is currently on leave from Upturn, and a visiting scientist in the AI policy and practice initiative at Cornell University. We ask him about algorithms in the criminal justice system, from predictive policing to pre-trial risk assessment tools. Can they help build a fairer system ? Are they projecting bias ? Listen as David Robinson guides us through these complex questions.

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Julia Powles on Scrutinizing Big Tech

In this episode, we speak with Julia Powles, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Western Australia, in Perth. The bulk of her work, both as a journalist and as a law and technology researcher, has always been about scrutinizing big tech. We ask her about our society’s tendency to be beguiled by these companies; we discuss the reasons why governments and public institutions, in the US, but also in Canada and the UK have signed contracts favorable to these giants without asking much in return; and Powles calls for more innovative regulation.

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Jessica Vitak on Digital Personal Assistants

The Internet of Things is making its way into our workplaces, our cars, our homes. Everything is getting "smarter" around us. And many of us are turning to digital personal assistants to help with mundane tasks, such as finding recipes and playing music. But as we engage intimately with these new members of our lives, we should not forget that they are listening devices, says our guest Jessica Vitak, an Assistant Professor in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland.