How Smart Is AI? (Part One) with Meredith Broussard

Every time you interact with a targeted advertisement, use a drop-down menu, or scroll through TikTok, you’re engaging with an algorithm. And these algorithms are anything but objective. This week, Meredith Broussard returns to the show for a special two-part episode about algorithms and artificial intelligence—and how they shape our daily lives.

In part one, we’re learning all about chatbots like ChatGPT, the origins of algorithmic bias, and WTF Francis Galton has to do with all of this. Join us tomorrow for part two, featuring an in-depth discussion about gender and racial bias in algorithms, the current state of the tech industry, and the future of AI.

Meredith Broussard is Associate Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and Research Director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (MIT Press). Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, BBC, Wired, the Economist, and more. She appears in the 2020 documentary Coded Bias and serves on the advisory board for the Center for Critical Race & Digital Studies.

Make sure to check out Meredith’s new book More Than A Glitch, out now from MIT Press.

You can follow Meredith on Instagram and Twitter @merbroussard, and at meredithbroussard.com. MIT Press is on Instagram and Twitter @mitpress.

Curious for more? Here’s a list of people, projects, and other resources mentioned in this episode:

Algorithmic Justice League (Joy Buolamwini)
Algorithms of Oppression (Safiya Noble)
Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights
DAIR Institute (Timnit Gebru)
Deb Raji’s work
Design Justice (Sasha Costanza-Chock)
Mimi Onuoha’s work
Race After Technology + Viral Justice (Ruha Benjamin)
Rumman Chowdhury’s work
Take My Hand (Dolen Perkins-Valdez)
The Gender Shades Project
The Markup (Julia Angwin)
Under the Skin (Linda Villarosa)
Weapons of Math Destruction + ORCAA (Cathy O’Neil)

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation.

Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook.

Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com.

Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our editor is Andrew Carson.

Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com.