Techtonic

Techtonic is a new podcast from human rights organisation Article 19, hosted by tech reporter Chris Stokel-Walker and produced by Christopher Hooton and Nicola Kelly.

The new series looks at freedom of expression online with a focus on the human impact of Big Tech and social media. We speak to experts around the world, including the former Head of Elections at Twitter, digital rights activists and journalists and we hear from those at the sharp end of AI, deepfake technologies, internet shutdowns and more.

Subscribe to Techtonic wherever you get your podcasts to hear new episodes, released every Monday, fortnightly.
To learn more about ARTICLE 19, head to our website here: www.article19.org

In this week's episode, we look at the language biases inherent in AI technologies with guests Aliya Bhatia and Gabriel Nicholas from the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Chris, Aliya and Gabriel discuss how large language models work, the underrepresentation of non English-language nations in training data and the effects of an AI trained largely in English. They look at how this might affect communities in India and dialects such as Catalan, where translations are viewed through an anglo-centric lens and the mistakes that commonly get made. And they explore how companies might redress the balance, to ensure a diversity and quality of data which cover different cultural contexts.

Follow the show and don’t miss an episode, published fortnightly on Mondays.

Hosted by tech reporter Chris Stokel-Walker
Produced by Christopher Hooton and Nicola Kelly.

Find out more about ARTICLE 19's work and follow us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/article19org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ARTICLE19org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/article19/

The Israel-Hamas war has proven to be a particularly fraught conflict on social media.

Finding out what’s happening on the ground has been complicated by a number of issues: the divisiveness of the debate on both sides, and how entrenched each viewpoint is; the ease with which alternative narratives are broadcast; and the immediate emotional responses that content can trigger.

In this, the last episode of the series, host Chris Stokel-Walker speaks to Valerie Wirtschafter, a Fellow in Foreign Policy and the Artificial Intelligence Initiative at the Brookings Institution about the solutions to these issues and how we can verify truth in the fog of war.

Producers: Christopher Hooton and Nicola Kelly.

Find out more about ARTICLE 19's work and follow us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/article19org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ARTICLE19org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/article19/

The world grows ever more dominated by artificial intelligence. We’re promised huge productivity gains and streamlining benefits to make our lives easier, but there are significant drawbacks.

The data underpinning AI is biased, the technology can amplify inequalities, and it's unclear who will set crucial standards for the sector and how they will be imposed.

In this episode, host Chris Stokel-Walker speaks to Rumman Chowdhury, Responsible AI Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center, who has long been a campaigner for equality in technology. She fears we’re giving the keys to our society to a small group of companies that have shown they can’t be fully trusted.

Find out more about ARTICLE 19's work and follow us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/article19org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ARTICLE19org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/article19/

When Eric Meyer answered the door to the home he shared with his mother on August 11, 2023, he couldn’t have expected what was waiting on the other side.

The editor and proprietor of a small Kansas newspaper was being raided by police, who were looking for evidence of supposed illegal data access by one of his reporters.

Not used to seeing the police intervene so overtly and unabashedly in the workings of the press, Americans sent letters of support to the newspaper in their tens of thousands.

In this episode, Eric tells host Chris Stokel-Walker how he believes the raid was politically motivated; this small town scuffle potentially being an augur for the future of press freedom in a world where opinion is increasingly replacing fact-based news.

Producers: Christopher Hooton and Nicola Kelly

Find out more about ARTICLE 19's work and follow us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/article19org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ARTICLE19org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/article19/