Good Code

Throughout History, workers have always been quantified: from the time they spent at work, to their productivity, while on the job. But digital technologies have brought this process to a whole new level. The hiring process itself is now determined in large part by algorithms. Our guest this week is Ifeoma Ajunwa, an Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. Her forthcoming book is called The Quantified Worker.  

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.

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.

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.   

In this episode, we speak with Solon Barocas, an Assistant Professor in Information Science at Cornell University. He is currently on leave at Microsoft Research in New York. But he will be returning to Cornell to teach. We ask him about a class on ethics in data science he has designed for aspiring computer scientists. Similar classes are burgeoning all around the country. How do you best infuse a culture of ethics in the field? What more do young professionals need to assess the social impact of their work? It’s important to make sure that students know to reject certain applications of machine learning, Barocas says. But it's not enough to then expect them to go and change the world, he warns.

In this episode, we speak with Timnit Gebru, a research scientist in the Ethical Artificial Intelligence team at Google AI. We talk about algorithmic biases, and Gebru explains why she created the group "Black in AI", to address the lack of diversity in the field. She calls for a standardization of algorithms, and cautions against focusing on making them more fair, without thinking about whether they should exist in the first place.

In this episode, we speak with Deborah Estrin. She’s a professor of Computer Science and an Associate Dean at Cornell Tech. She works on "small data" : the individual traces we leave behind us online. How can these seemingly uninteresting digital "breadcrumbs" help us improve our health? And how can we use them without sacrificing our privacy? We discuss participatory mobile health, we talk about our digital dependencies, and we ask Estrin about the "Genius Grant" she's received last year.   

In this episode, we speak with Ellen Goodman. She’s the co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy and Law, in Camden, New Jersey. And at the moment, she’s conducting research on Smart Cities. What’s the future of our urban lives? Should we be excited about it, or resist it? We discuss the texture of life in cities built from the Internet up, and we talk about Sidewalk Toronto, one of the hottest smart city projects at the moment.  

In this episode, we speak with Peter Asaro. He’s a Philosopher and the vice-chair and co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. There, he is lobbying for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapon systems, or killer robots. Are they science fiction? What are some of the technical, legal and moral issues they raise? Listen as our guest helps us navigate these complex questions. Thanks to the Future of Life Institute for giving us permission to use extracts from their Slaughter Bots video. You can watch the video, and more, at the following link: https://autonomousweapons.org

In this episode, we speak with Luke Stark. He’s a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research Montreal and a Historian of Computing and Artificial Intelligence. He looks at the ways in which Humans interact with machines, and analyzes how technologies shape our feelings and emotions. We ask him about emojis and other reaction icons, we get his view on the Disney-Pixar movie “Inside Out”, and we talk about facial recognition, a set of technologies that constitute, in his view, “the plutonium of AI”.  

In this episode, we speak with Philosopher Helen Nissenbaum. She’s a professor of Information Science at Cornell Tech, and the director of the Digital Life Initiative. She has spent the last two decades working on redefining online privacy, and calling for a “post-consent” approach. We ask her about her theory of privacy as contextual integrity, we discuss the obfuscation techniques she’s developed to fight online surveillance, and we visit SPYSCAPE, an immersive spy museum which opened last year in midtown Manhattan.  

In this episode (our very first!), we speak with journalist Julia Angwin. After years covering technology at The Wall Street Journal and ProPublica, she is now the co-founder and editor-in-chief of a startup nonprofit newsroom called The Markup. The Markup should start publishing in the Spring. Its goal? Investigating technology, and the way it impacts society. Its secret weapon? Data-driven journalism, produced by a staff that is made up of half journalists and half technologists.  

Introducing our new weekly podcast on ethics in our digital world.  Every Tuesday, we'll look at ways in which our increasingly digital societies could go terribly wrong. And we'll speak with those trying to prevent that.  If you like TV shows, think of it as Black Mirror meets The Good Place: Dystopian scenarios, with a way out.  Good Code is a collaboration of Cornell Tech's Digital Life Initiative and visiting journalist Chine Labbe.