Definitely Not The Ivory Tower

Episode 2 - Unraveling the way we discuss AI

Episode Summary

On this episode, host Natalie Meisner sits down with Mount Royal University researcher Crystal Chokshi and Mount Royal Information Design student Maren Walker. The use of AI technology has rapidly become a pervasive presence in people's lives today. Largely due to the huge push tech companies are making to market their AI products. AI is now being used for a range of applications, from mundane tasks like writing emails to being utilized in the crafting of government economic policy. It seems that AI is here to stay. But what does that mean for society? In this interview, Chokshi breaks down the strategies and language big tech companies use to market AI and what the hidden costs of these technologies are.

Episode Notes

Resources 

• Gina Neff & Peter Nagy - Conjuring algorithms: Understanding the tech industry as stage magicians. 
• Luddites
• Lawsuits against OpenAI for copyright infringement
• Billy Perrigo - OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic
• Nick Couldry & Ulises Ali Mejias - The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism
• Google claims Smart Compose saves 2 billion characters from being typed each week - Details from a 2018 Founder's Letter 
• Johanna Drucker - Performative Materiality 
• Ronald Deibert - Reset: Reclaiming the internet for civil society
• ChatGPT water consumption
• Water Scarcity - United Nations 
• Mel Hogan - Data Flows and Water Woes
• Anatomy of an AI System 
• Emma Strubell, Ananya Ganesh & Andrew McCallum - Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP. Quantifying the emissions cost of training an AI model 

Discussion Segments

• 1:36: Introduction 
• 3:27: Pracademic vs. Changemaker 
• 6:36: Research Impact
• 9:28: Personal relationship with AI 
• 12:45: How big tech markets their AI products 
• 16:30: AI & Accountability 
• 18:15: How AI is perceived by the public 
• 25:30 Consequences of AI 
• 29:12 AI and Climate Change
• 38:55 Maren Walker intro 
• 39:30 How a student uses AI 
• 41:07: Researching AI for school 
• 46:50: Automation vs. Augmentation 

Crystal Chokshi's Research 

• Chokshi, C. (2021). In other words: Smart Compose and the consequences of writing in the age of AI. Culture Machine, 20. https://culturemachine.net/vol-20-machine-intelligences/in-other-words-smart-compose-and-the-consequences-of-writing-in-the-age-of-ai-crystal-chokshi/
• Chokshi, C. (2024). X-gram and/as techsposure: Spelling out the climate consequences of generative AI. Journal of Digital Social Research, 6(4), 118-133. https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v6i440480
• Chokshi, C., & Mansell, R.E. [Eds.] (forthcoming). The need to rename tech. Palgrave Macmillan. (This book explores words that fool us into thinking the digital technologies we use every day are beautiful, benign, and consequence-free)