#57: Bytes — The Black Box

Host Nono Martínez Alonso and Aziz Barbar on how complex machines work, technological polarization, and the growing need to make algorithms understandable. Nono hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence. Aziz is an architect and design technologist. He occasionally teaches design courses on computation and the built environment. Favorite quotes "Do we have a backup plan? Very few of us know, we're just blindly trusting these black boxes." "We're going to have to find ways - we as in the people making the algorithms and people who are technical - to explain how these programs are making decisions for them." Links Pascaline (Pascal's calculator) Open Source Software Python (programming language) C# (programming language) People mentioned Lex Fridman Travis Oliphant Chapters 00:00 · Intro 00:22 · What's the machine doing? 01:21 · Visible mechanisms and the Pascaline 02:49 · Obscuring how mechanisms work 05:02 · Open Source Software 06:13 · Computers excel at complex and repetitive tasks 07:07 · Who's making the background algorithms we use daily? 08:51 · What does 'black boxing' mean? 10:03 · Two types of black box 10:37 · Machine learning and explainability 11:33 · Polarization and a growing need to make algorithms understandable I'd love to hear from you. Submit a question about this or any previous episodes. Join the Discord community. Meet other curious minds. If you enjoy the show, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds and really helps. Show notes, transcripts, and past episodes at gettingsimple.com/podcast. Follow Nono Twitter.com/nonoesp Instagram.com/nonoesp Facebook.com/nonomartinezalonso YouTube.com/nonomartinezalonso