Understood Introduces: “The Human Cost of AI: Money, Sex, and Tools” from No Small Endeavor
4/23/202651 min
Today, we are sharing a special episode from No Small Endeavor, the Signal Award-winning podcast that explores what it means to live a good life through conversations about culture, ideas, and the habits that help people flourish.
This episode is the first instalment of their new two-part series, “The Human Cost of AI.” In part one, host Lee C. Camp examines artificial intelligence through a sobering insight: every ship we build also creates the possibility of a shipwreck. The question is not whether AI will save us or destroy us, but how our own formation may already be the collateral damage of its rise.
To trace the human cost of AI, the series follows three fault lines: tools, sex, and money. Camp also brings together leading scholars and technologists, including computer scientist Josh Brake, MIT professor Rosalind Picard, and journalist Garrett Graff, to discuss how these technologies shape our habits and desires, and how they are shaped by the systems of power we live within.
To listen to part two of the series, follow No Small Endeavor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJoseph Cox0:00
Hey, I'm Joseph Cox, the host of another podcast I think you'll like, the 404 Media Podcast. We're an independent news outlet covering the bleeding edge of technology, and every week we discuss our latest stories, whether that's how AI images are taking over Facebook and fooling people, how drugs are being sold on Instagram, or the spread of AI-enabled surveillance cameras, we hold tech to account. Catch me and the rest of the 404 Media gang wherever you listen. Just search for the 404 Media Podcast. Chat to you soon.
Speaker 10:31
[upbeat music] This is a CBC podcast.
Lee C. Camp· Host0:34
Hello, Understood listeners. I'm Lee C. Camp, host of No Small Endeavor, the Signal award-winning podcast that explores what it means to live a good life. We do that through conversations about human flourishing with scientists, philosophers, artists, poets, and much more. Today, we're sharing the first installment of our new two-part series, The Human Cost of AI. In part one, you'll hear us examine artificial intelligence through a sobering insight that when you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck, that neither dystopian fear-mongering nor utopian idealism are the most helpful ways forward. Instead, we ask how AI is already right now forming us, shaping us for good or for ill. To trace the human cost of AI, we follow three fault lines: sex, money, and tools. [laughs] You'll hear our conversations with leading scholars and writers like computer scientist