The Good Robot
Join Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry McInerney as they ask the experts: what is good technology? Is ‘good’ technology even possible? And how can feminism help us work towards it? Each week, they invite scholars, industry practitioners, activists, and more to provide their unique perspective on what feminism can bring to the tech industry and the way that we think about technology. With each conversation, The Good Robot asks how feminism can provide new perspectives on technology’s biggest problems.
Episodes
91 episodes
Hot Take: Does AI Know How You Feel?
In this episode, we chat about coming back from summer break, and discuss a research paper recently published by Kerry and the AI ethicist and researcher Os Keyes called "The Infopolitics of Feeling: How race and disability are configured in Em...
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25:59
The EU AI Act Part 2, with Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West from AI NOW
In this episode, we talk to Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West of the AI Now Institute, who are the co directors of this leading policy think tank. In the episode, which is the second installment of our EU AI Act series, Amba and Sarah explore why d...
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31:33
The EU AI Act Part 1, with Caterina and Daniel from Access Now
In this episode, we talk to Daniel Leufer and Caterina Rodelli from Access Now, a global advocacy organization that focuses on the impact of the digital on human rights. As leaders in this field, they've been working hard to ensure that the Eur...
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36:32
What on Earth Is Ethical Maths? with Maurice Chiodo
We often think that maths is neutral or can't be harmful, because after all, what could numbers do to hurt us? In this episode, we talk to Dr. Maurice Chiodo, a mathematician at the University of Cambridge, who's now based at the Center for Exi...
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38:42
Can Technology Save us from Housework? with Helen Hester
This is a special live episode because Kerry is talking to Professor Helen Hester at the tech transformed conference in London. Helen is a leading thinker of feminism technology and the future of work, and she explores the history of domestic t...
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37:08
Poisoning AI and Silencing Alexa with Heather Zheng
In this episode, we talk to Heather Zheng, who makes technologies that stop everyday surveillance. This includes bracelets that stopped devices from listening and on you, to more secure biometric technologies that can protect us by identifying ...
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27:57
Gamergate, Harassment, and Feminist Design with Caroline Sinders
In this episode we talk to Caroline Sinders, the human rights researcher, an artist, and the founder of convocation, design and research. We begin by talking about Gamergate, when women were harassed for being gamers. We also talk a...
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35:59
The curse of online beauty culture with Ellen Atlanta
We’re expected to look amazing online, but also natural. We’re fighting against the gender pay gap, but also spend thousands on cosmetics. In this episode, Ellen Atlanta talks us through the paradoxes of feminism and beauty in the digital spher...
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33:25
Needlework and History's Hidden Technologies with Isabella Rosner
In this episode, we talk to Dr. Isabella Rosner, a curator at the Royal School of Needlework and a research consultant at Witney Antiques. Isabella tells us about the evolution of embroidery as a technology, and the complex relationship b...
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33:09
How China surveils Uyghur Muslims with Darren Byler
In this episode, we talked to Darren Byler, author of Terror Capitalism and In the Camps, Life in China's High Tech Penal Colony. We discussed his in depth research on Uyghur Muslims in China and the role played by technology ...
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26:39
The Racial History of Dermatology with Thuy Linh Tu
In this episode we talk to Thuy Linh Thu, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU. We talk about how good technology disperses power, while bad technology concentrates power, the racial history of dermatology, including the conne...
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27:46
Hot Take: The Good Robot BOOK!
In this very special Good Robot hot take we talk about our new book, The Good Robot: Why Technology Needs Feminism. It's a beautiful new illustrated book where the top scholars, activists, artists, writers, technologists, all come together to r...
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29:15
Feminist care ethics, techno-virtues and vices, and the 'AI Mirror' with Shannon Vallor
In this episode we chat to Shannon Vallor, the Bailey Gifford professor in the ethics and data of AI at the University of Edinburgh and the Director for the Centre for Technomoral Futures. We talk about feminist care ethics; technologies, vices...
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30:52
Why You Shouldn't Believe the AI Hype with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
In this episode, we talk to Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna. AI ethics legends and now the co-hosts of the Mystery AI Hype Theatre 3000 podcast which is a new podcast where they dispel the hype storm around AI. Emily is a professor of ling...
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29:18
Why the Stories We Tell About AI Matter with Melissa Heikkilä
This week we chat to Melissa Heikkilä, a senior tech reporter for MIT Tech review, about ChatGPT, image generation, porn, and the stories we tell about AI. We hope you enjoy the show.
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27:05
Large Language Models, Language and Meaning, and How Children Learn Languages with Rebecca Woods
In this episode, we talked to Rebecca Woods, a Senior Lecturer in Language and Cognition at Newcastle University. We have an amazing chat about language learning in AI, and she tells us how language is crucial to how ChatGPT functions. Sh...
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45:15
Hot Take: Happy Holidays & a new book from Eleanor!
Happy holidays from your favourite jingle belles at the Good Robot podcast! In this episode we celebrate both the holidays and Eleanor's new book, The Planetary Humanism of European Women's Science Fiction: An Experience of the Imposs...
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31:19
Rewriting Wikipedia with Jess Wade
In this episode we talk to British physicist Jess Wade about the 1923 Wikipedia pages (and counting) she’s created and edited in her aim to put more women and more people of colour onto the online encyclopaedia.
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35:05
Hot Take: Can you own your data?
In this episode we welcome Eleanor back from Slovenia, where she was speaking at a conference on digital sovereignty. But what is digital sovereignty, and what does it mean for you and your data?
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38:15
Digital Authoritarianism and Press Freedom with Arzu Geybulla
In this episode, we talked to Azerbaijani journalist Arzu Geybulla, a specialist on digital authoritarianism and its implications on human rights and press freedoms in Azerbaijan. She now lives in self-imposed exile in Istanbul. Aside fro...
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36:59
Technology, psychedelics and healing with K Allado-McDowell
In this episode, we speak to K Allado-McDowell a writer, speaker, and musician. They've written three books and an opera libretto, and they've established the artists and machine intelligence program at Google AI. We talk about good techn...
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36:54
Good corporations, AI ethics and value pluralism with Giada Pistilli
In this episode, we talk to Giada Pistilli, Principal Ethicist at Hugging Face, which is the company that Meg Mitchell joined, following her departure from Google. Giada is also completing her PhD in philosophy and ethics of applied conversatio...
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36:26
Facial Recognition and Surveillance in Palestine with Matt Mahmoudi
In this episode, we talk to Dr. Matt Mahmoudi, a researcher and advisor on artificial intelligence and human rights at Amnesty International, and an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. We discuss h...
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38:20
Hot Take: Fighting Fears and Fantasies of East Asia (and AI)
In this episode, we hear all about Kerry’s trip to Japan (spoiler alert: she loved it) and explore her work on anti-Asian racism and AI. Kerry explains what the very long word ‘techno-Orientalism’ means and how fears and fantasies of East Asia ...
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31:24
Generative AI, Creativity, and what AI means for the Music Industry with Hayleigh Bosher
In this episode, we talk to Dr. Hayleigh Bosher, Associate Dean and Reader in intellectual property law at Brunel University and host of the podcast Whose Song is it Anyway?, a podcast on the intersections of IP [intellectual property] and the ...
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40:00