Happy International Podcast Day!
Shout outs to our faves
In honor of International Podcast Day, we thought we'd give a shout out to a few podcasts we enjoy that we think Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 fans would also like.
404 Media
404 Media is a recently (as in, a bit over a year ago) established independent journalism outfit that consistently provides some of the best coverage of the tech industry. They are on the AI beat, keeping track of what's going on in surveillance, synthetic media, non-consensual deepfake porn, security, and many other topics. Their podcast is a great way to catch up with what's going on, and also provides some of the backstory that doesn't make it into the written articles, including a lot of really interesting insights into how they run their investigations. This is definitely a breaking news type outlet, so you'll probably just want to check out the most recent episodes, but if you want to look deeper into the catalogue, we recommend their episode from September 4 on the NaNoWriMo AI faux pas: Is Criticizing AI Ableist?
Our Opinions Are Correct
Hosted by science journalist and science fiction author Annalee Newitz and science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders, Our Opinions Are Correct brings insightful --- even correct! --- discussions of key social issues through the lens of how they are illuminated by speculative fiction. Some recent favorite episodes of ours include Fascism and Book Bans (with Maggie Tokuda-Hall) and Why Silicon Valley is doomed to misunderstand the future, with Dr. Joy Buolamwini.
Tech Won't Save Us
Paris Marx, by his own description, used to be a big tech fan. Now, when faced with tech company's grand claims, he's not having any of it. Tech Won't Save Us is a refreshing exploration of the harms being done behind the shiny claims. Paris brings on a really interesting range of guests and asks them great questions. Some starting points: Tech’s Plan to ‘Ethnically Cleanse’ San Francisco, with Gil Duran and Big Tech Won’t Revitalize Indigenous Languages, with Keoni Mahelona.
The Sunday Show
The Sunday Show from Tech Policy Press is a great way to keep up with what's going on in tech policy, with extremely thoughtful discussions with knowledgeable guests about what laws are under consideration, how they are being shaped, and what their impact will be. These episodes are timely, but many are also timeless --- they remain relevant and it's worth going into the back catalogue. We appreciated their coverage of DAIR's Data Workers' Inquiry in the episode Data Workers, In Their Own Words and their coverage of the Shadow Report (response to Senator Schumer's report on AI) in the episode Shadow Report on AI Addresses What the US Senate Missed.
Shameless plugs...
And just in case you're reading this message because someone forwarded it to you, and you're not yet a MAIHT3k listener, welcome! Here are a couple of episodes which we think might be particularly informative and/or enjoyable places to start:
- Episode 11: A GPT-4 Fanfiction Novella, April 7 2023
- Episode 14: Henry Kissinger, Machines of War, and the Age of Military AI Hype (feat. Lucy Suchman), July 21 2023
- Episode 25: An LLM Says LLMs Can Do Your Job, January 22 2024
- Episode 29: How LLMs Are Breaking the News (feat. Karen Hao), March 25 2024
- Episode 31: Science Is a Human Endeavor (feat. Molly Crockett and Lisa Messeri), April 15 2024
You can of course find our full catalogue here --- with links to video versions (PeerTube), audio (podcast) and transcripts --- and on your favorite podcatcher.
Can't get enough of us? Check out this previous round-up of our appearances on other podcasts.