Open Transcripts

Daniel Pick on Psychoanalysis and Fascism

presented by Daniel Pick

The thing I’ve been really interested in the last few years in my research is thinking about the problem of fascism and Nazism, and the way in which in the human sciences, the history of the human sciences, these phenomena came to be understood.

Towards an Artificial Brain

presented by David Cox

The goal of MICrONS is threefold. One is they asked us to go and measure the activity in a living brain while an animal actually learns to do something, and watch how that activity changes. Two, to take that brain out and map exhaustively the “wiring diagram” of every neuron connecting to every other neuron in that animal’s brain in the particular region. And then third, to use those two pieces of information to build better machine learning. So let it never be said that IARPA is unambitious.

Recreating the Brain

presented by David Cox

The thing that makes us unique is our complexity. But not complexity in some generic sense. Nature is rife with complexity. What makes us special is the complexity of our brains.

Open Discussion on Lucas Introna’s “Algorithms, Performativity and Governability”

presented by Lisa Gitelman, Lucas Introna, Matthew Jones

I just want to be clear that I’m not saying that the details of the algorithms are irrelevant. In a way they can matter very much, and you know, in a certain circumstance, in a certain situated use, it might matter significantly what the algorithm does but we can’t say that a priori. So we need to both open up the algorithms, we need to understand them as much as possible, but we must not be seduced to believe that if we understand them therefore we know what they do.

Comments on Lucas Introna’s “Algorithms, Performativity and Governability”

presented by Matthew Jones

We can’t govern through knowledge, properly speaking. Even if many algorithms are trade secrets, Lucas and others have reminded us nearly all would not be surveillable by human beings, even if we had access to their source code. We have to begin whatever process from this fundamental lack of knowledge. We need to start from the same epistemological place that many of the producers of algorithms do.

Algorithms, Performativity and Governability

presented by Lucas Introna

I think this question “what do algorithms do,” which points to the question of agency, I think is an inappropriate way to ask the question. I think we should rather ask the question, what do algorithms become in situated practices?

2013 Internet Hall of Fame Interviews: Jun Murai

presented by Jun Murai

In order to make the Internet be a kind of global entity, I’ve been involved as one of the key persons outside the US for the development of the Internet.

Why Are Dogs Special?

presented by Clive Wynne

We realized there was nothing special about dogs when it came to their intellect. Dogs were just doing what any animal would that had been raised around people and is completely dependent on people for the fulfillment of all of its needs. Dogs pay close attention to everything people do that produces an outcome that matters to the dog. There’s no special intelligence involved in doing that.

After the Next Attack: Terrorism in the Trump Era

presented by Saud Al-Zaid

My prediction was that there would be some form of an attack in the United States or possibly in the foreign territories or interests. My talk would have been a breakdown or dissection and contextualization of the event. And of course, so far in the Trump administration there’s no attack. Well, at least no real ones. Some of us might remember Bowling Green.

The True Costs of Misinformation
Producing Moral and Technical Order in a Time of Pandemonium

presented by Joan Donovan

Of course we’re avid, avid watchers of Tucker Carlson. But insofar as he’s like the shit filter, which is that if things make it as far as Tucker Carlson, then they probably have much more like…stuff that we can look at online. And so sometimes he’ll start talking about something and we don’t really understand where it came from and then when we go back online we can find that there’s quite a bit of discourse about “wouldn’t it be funny if people believed this about antifa.”