AI and Technology Ethics Podcast
by AITEC
Welcome to The AI and Technology Ethics Podcast, where we explore the ethical side of AI and emerging tech.
Episodes
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#36 Daniel J. Solove: Privacy, Power, and the Failure of the Law
What if the biggest threat to privacy isn’t technology itself—but the laws that let powerful institutions use it without meaningful accountability? In this episode of the AITEC Philosophy Podcast, Roberto speaks with privacy scholar Daniel J. Solove about his book On Privacy and Technology. They...
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#35 Jiayin Zhi: When AI Helps Thinking—and When It Replaces It
AI can speed up your work flow. But does it make you any smarter? In this episode of the AITEC Philosophy Podcast, Roberto and Sam talk with Jiayin Zhi, a PhD student in computer science at the University of Chicago, about what large language models are doing to our thinking. Her research asks a...
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#34 John MacCormick: Can Machines Think Like Us?
When an AI tells a joke, writes an essay, or solves a complex programming problem, is it just performing a statistical magic trick—or is there something deeper happening under the hood? On this episode of The AITEC Philosophy Podcast, Roberto and Sam sit down with computer scientist John…
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#33 Michael Gerlich: How AI is Stealing Your Ability to Think
Are we trading our critical thinking skills for the sake of digital convenience?In this episode of The AITEC Philosophy Podcast, Roberto Carlos García sits down with Michael Gerlich. Michael is the Head of the Center for Strategic Corporate Foresight and Sustainability, the Head of Executive...
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#32 Yochai Ataria: Why Blade Runner is Secretly About Fake Realities
Have you ever suspected that the technology you use isn't just a tool, but an entirely fake reality replacing the natural world? On this episode of The AITEC Podcast, Sam Bennett sits down with Israeli philosopher Yochai Ataria to explore the brilliant philosophical undercurrents of Ridley…
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#31: Jacob Browning: Unmasking the Fake Minds of Large Language Models
Have you ever wondered if AI models actually understand the words they generate, or if they are just really good at faking it? On this episode of The AITEC Podcast, Roberto García and Sam Bennett are joined by philosopher Jacob Browning (Baruch College, CUNY) to unpack his article, Intentionality...
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#30 Andrea Pinotti: Beyond the Frame—Virtual Reality, Narcissus, and the Desire to Enter the Image
Philosopher Andrea Pinotti joins us to discuss At the Threshold of the Image: From Narcissus to Virtual Reality. What begins as a conversation about image theory quickly becomes a sweeping exploration of immersion, identity, and the strange pull of simulated worlds. Why do we long to enter the...
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#29 Justin Tiehen: Why AI Can't Make a Promise—The Hidden Limits of Large Language Models
Have you ever felt like ChatGPT genuinely understands you? What if the reality is that it doesn't even have the foundational capacity to "speak" to you at all? On this episode of The AITEC Podcast, Roberto Carlos García and Sam Bennett sit down with philosopher Justin Tiehen (University of Puget...
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#28 Mathilda Marie Mulert: Sex Robots, Simulation, and the Question of Moral Harm
In this episode of the AITEC Podcast, we’re joined by philosopher Mathilda Marie Mulert, a doctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, to explore one of the most difficult questions in contemporary tech ethics: when, if ever, is it morally permissible to simulate sexual violence?…
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#27 Matheus Ferreira de Barros: Technology, Spheres, and the Human Being
In this episode of the AITEC podcast, Sam Bennett and Roberto Carlos speak with Matheus Ferreira de Barros, a philosopher of technology at PUC-Rio and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, about the work of Peter Sloterdijk. Ferreira de Barros introduces Sloterdijk’s philosophy of technology,...
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#26 Iwan Williams: Do Language Models Have Intentions?
In this episode of the AITEC podcast, Sam Bennett speaks with philosopher of mind and AI researcher Iwan Williams about his paper “Intention-like representations in language models?” Williams is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and received his PhD from Monash University....
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#25 Pilar López-Cantero: The Ethics of Breakup Chatbots
What if your ex never really left—because you trained a chatbot to be them? In this episode of the AITEC Podcast, we’re joined by philosopher Pilar López-Cantero to explore her provocative article, The Ethics of Breakup Chatbots. From the haunting potential of AI relationships to the dangers of...
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#24 Kevin Crowston and Francesco Bolici: The Death of Expertise?
In this episode of the AITEC Podcast, we sit down with Kevin Crowston and Francesco Bolici—two leading scholars of information science and organizational behavior—to explore the hidden risks of generative AI in the workplace and the classroom. Their recent paper on deskilling and upskilling with…
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#23 Sebastian Purcell: Rootedness, Not Happiness — Aztec Wisdom for a Slippery World
In this episode, we speak with philosopher Sebastian Purcell about his new book The Outward Path: Lessons on Living from the Aztecs. Purcell shows that Aztec philosophy offers a strikingly different vision of the good life — one that rejects the modern obsession with happiness and invulnerability...
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#22 Iain Thomson: Why Heidegger Thought Technology Was More Dangerous Than We Realize
What if our deepest fears about AI aren't really about the machines at all—but about something we've forgotten about ourselves? In this episode, we speak with philosopher Iain D. Thomson (University of New Mexico), a leading scholar of Martin Heidegger, about his new book Heidegger on…
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#21 Jayashri Bangali: AI in Education
In this episode, we sit down with Jayashri A. Bangali, a researcher and educator whose work explores the evolving role of artificial intelligence in education—both in India and around the world. We discuss how AI is transforming learning through personalization, interactivity, and…
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#20 Bernardo Bolaños and Jorge Luis Morton: On Stoicism and Technology
In this episode, we speak with Bernardo Bolaños and Jorge Luis Morton, authors of On Singularity and the Stoics, about the rise of generative AI, the looming prospect of superintelligence, and how Stoic philosophy offers a framework for navigating it all. We explore Stoic principles like the...
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#19 Joshua Hatherley: When Your Doctor Uses AI—Should They Tell You?
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Joshua Hatherley, a bioethicist at the University of Copenhagen, about his recent article, “Are clinicians ethically obligated to disclose their use of medical machine learning systems to patients?” Dr. Hatherley challenges what has become a widely accepted view...
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#18 Jeff Kane: Why Human Minds Are Not Computer Programs
Philosopher Jeff Kane joins us to discuss his new book The Emergence of Mind: Where Technology Ends and We Begin. In an age where AI writes poems, paints portraits, and mimics conversation, Kane argues that the human mind remains fundamentally different—not because of what it does, but because of...
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#17 Caroline Ashcroft: The Catastrophic Imagination
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Caroline Ashcroft, Lecturer in Politics at the University of Oxford and author of Catastrophic Technology in Cold War Political Thought. Drawing on figures like Arendt, Jonas, Ellul, and Marcuse, Ashcroft explores a powerful yet underexamined idea: that modern...
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#16 Teresa Baron: The Artificial Womb on Trial
Philosopher Teresa Baron joins us to discuss her book The Artificial Womb on Trial. As artificial womb technology edges closer to reality, Baron asks a different question: not just what ectogenesis means for society, but how we ethically get there. From human subject trials to questions of…
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#15 Stephen Kosslyn: Learning to Flourish in the Age of AI
What does it mean to live well in an AI-driven world—and how can we use AI to help us get there? In this episode, we speak with psychologist and neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Kosslyn. Stephen Kosslyn is Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, and he is former chair of the Harvard psychology...
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#14 Alice Helliwell: The Art of Misalignment
What if the best AI art doesn’t care what we think? In this episode, we talk with philosopher Alice Helliwell about her provocative idea: that future AI might create aesthetic value not by mimicking human tastes, but by challenging them. Drawing from her 2024 article “Aesthetic Value and the AI...
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#13: Marianna Capasso: Manipulation as Digital Invasion
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Marianna Capasso, a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, about her 2022 book chapter “Manipulation as Digital Invasion: A Neo-Republican Approach”, which can be found in The Philosophy of Online Manipulation, published by Routledge. Drawing on a...
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#12 Elyakim Kislev: Relationships 5.0
Elyakim Kislev is a senior lecturer in the School of Public Policy and Governance at the Hebrew University; there he specializes in relationships, technology, loneliness, and singles studies. Today we’ll be discussing his book Relationships 5.0: How AI, VR, and Robots Will Reshape Our Emotional...
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#11 Kelly McDonough: Indigenous Science and Technology
Kelly McDonough is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. We'll be discussing her new book Indigenous Science and Technology: Nahuas and the World around Them (2024). This is a work in Nahua intellectual history, and it examines how Nahuas have explored, understood, and...
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#10 Sara Migliorini: Biometric Harm
Sara Migliorini is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Macau, specializing in international law, AI, and big data. We'll be discussing her 2023 article "Biometric Harm," which examines how the use of biometric identification—identifying people by their bodily or behavioral…
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#9 Amy Kind: Biometrics and the Metaphysics of Personal Identity
Amy Kind is the Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, as well as the Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies. She is a leading philosopher in the philosophy of mind, with a focus on imagination and consciousness. Her books include Imagination and...
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#8 Muriel Leuenberger: Track Thyself(?)
Muriel Leuenberger is a postdoctoral researcher in the Digital Society Initiative and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Zurich. Her research interests include the ethics of technology and AI, medical ethics (neuro-ethics in particular), philosophy of mind, meaning in life, and the...
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#7 Peter Hershock: Buddhism and Intelligent Technology
Peter Hershock is Manager of the Asian Studies Development Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai'i. Most recently, he has helped launch the East-West Center’s initiative on Humane Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on the societal impacts and ethical issues raised by emerging...
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#6 Thomas Nys and Bart Engelen: Manipulative Online Environments
Thomas Nys is in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Bart Engelen is an associate professor at Tilburg University, also in the Netherlands. Together, they have co-authored a number of essays. Today we will be discussing their chapter from the recently published The…
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#5 Giovanni Rubeis: Liquid Health
Giovanni Rubeis is a professor and head of the Department of Biomedical Ethics and Healthcare Ethics at the Karl Landsteiner Private University in Vienna. He also has worked as an ethics consultant for various biotech companies. He is the author of the recently published Ethics of Medical AI. And...
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#4 Giovanni Rubeis: Ethics of Medical AI
Giovanni Rubeis is a professor and head of the Department of Biomedical Ethics and Healthcare Ethics at the Karl Landsteiner Private University in Vienna. He also has worked as an ethics consultant for various biotech companies. And he is the author of Ethics of Medical AI. Some of the topics we...
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#3 David Martens: Data Science Ethics
David Martens is a professor of data science in the department of engineering management at the University of Antwerp, and he is the author of Data Science Ethics: Concepts, Techniques, and Cautionary Tales. Some of the topics we discuss are the relationship between data science and artificial...
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#2 Carlos Montemayor: A Humanitarian Artificial Intelligence
Carlos Montemayor is a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University. He is the author of many articles and books, including his 2023 work The Prospect of a Humanitarian Artificial Intelligence: Agency and Alignment. Some of the topics we discuss are the centrality of attention when…
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#1 Thomas Telving: Empathy for the Robots
Thomas Telving has an MA in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Southern Denmark. He is the author of several articles on the ethics of artificial intelligence and human-robot interaction. And he is the author of the recent book Killing Sophia: Consciousness, Empathy, and…
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Trailer
In this trailer, we introduce the podcast and give you a glimpse into what's in store!
About this show
Welcome to The AI and Technology Ethics Podcast, where we explore the ethical side of AI and emerging tech.
Hosted by
AITEC
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