PODCAST · society
Data & Society
by Data & Society
Presenting timely conversations about the purpose and power of technology that bridge our interdisciplinary research with broader public conversations about the societal implications of data and automation.For more information, visit datasociety.net.
Episodes
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Power and Resistance in the Age of Tech Oligarchy ('Against Tech Oligarchy' and 'Muskism') | Book Talk
In Silicon Valley, economic, political, and state power have fused, and tech oligarchs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg are reshaping the world in their image. Two new books examine this decades-long trajectory from very different angles: In Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Quinn...
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How Data Center Fights are Renewing Local Power Across the US | Climate Week NYC | Data & Society with the Pulitzer Center (Retro Report)
To hear many in the tech industry tell it, data centers will bring wealth and prosperity not only to those who build them, but to the communities that ultimately live with and around them. But drawing a longer historical arc is essential: AI is proposed as a new industrial moonshot in communities...
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Protecting Democracy's Data ('Data Are Made, Not Found' by danah boyd) | Book Talk
The United States census, conducted every ten years, is one of the world’s oldest and biggest data-making endeavors, and one of the country’s most consequential. In her urgent new book 'Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census,'…
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The Limits of Human Oversight in the Age of AI Agents | Primer Launch
AI agents have begun to move from speculative promise into everyday deployment. They translate high-level goals into plans and carry them out across connected digital environments. Agent builders often promise that users will remain in control through approval prompts and pause buttons. Yet these...
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The Craft of Science with AI: Evidence, Judgment, and Practice | Public Panel
As AI is integrated into scientific practice, the practice of science itself is changing. AI models that summarize, categorize, simulate, and predict not only stand to accelerate scientific research; they now sit inside these practices, alternately enhancing and eroding craft while shifting how...
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Mental Health, Chatbots, and the Future of Care | Databite No. 165
While many people have found benefit and respite in using chatbots for companionship, mental health, and emotional support, the widespread adoption of these tools has also resulted in harm and raised deep concerns about identity and safety. How are chatbots shaping people’s understanding of...
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(404) Job Not Found: The AI Literacy Trap at Work | Databite No. 164
In her new report (404) Job Not Found: What Workforce Training Can’t Fix for Black Atlantans in the Age of AI, Data & Society researcher Anuli Akanegbu provides the first ethnographic examination of how AI-related skills are defined, taught, and valued across Atlanta’s growing tech economy.…
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One Year Later: What We’ve Learned About Trump’s AI Agenda | Databite No. 163
The second Trump administration has launched a full-scale effort to achieve “unchallenged global technological dominance.” It is accelerating the construction of AI infrastructure, from opening up federal lands to ramping up energy production. It has invoked AI-enabled “efficiency” in order to...
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Standing Up for Human Value in the AI Economy | 'Understanding AI' — NYPL x D&S Event Series [4]
Generative AI models are marketed as the next revolution in workplace automation, but they ultimately rely on human labor — from the people labeling content and checking outputs, to the content creators and workers whose data are extracted to build the systems. As management and organizational...
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Reorienting AI for the Public Interest | 'Understanding AI' — NYPL x D&S Event Series [3]
The concentration of power and lack of regulation in the technology industry directly shapes how AI is designed and deployed, and whose interests it serves. That means decisions about these tools often reflect corporate priorities over public benefits. While AI is often held up as a tool to...
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The Environmental Costs of AI Are Surging – What Now? | 'Understanding AI' — NYPL x D&S Event Series [2]
Artificial intelligence technologies run on powerful computers that require vast amounts of energy, water, and critical minerals. As AI use grows, so does its environmental footprint. Yet there is little consensus on how to assess and address the technology’s toll on the climate before…
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Understanding AI: What the Public Needs to Know | 'Understanding AI' — NYPL x D&S Event Series [1]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping many aspects of our daily lives: from the way people are hired for jobs, to how housing applications are reviewed, to how government services are delivered in healthcare, education, and beyond. But while organizations of all kinds have been introducing AI...
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Climate-Conscious Tech Workers: Turning the Tide from Within | Databite 162
In this moment of AI ascendance and data center accelerationism, there are thousands of tech workers who are concerned about the realities of climate change and see the tech industry’s growing role in it — and who are actively working to create change, develop better tools, and organize for...
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A Roadmap for Rewiring Democracy in the Age of AI | Book Talk
Democracy faces challenges worldwide, and artificial intelligence has become an increasing part of that. In their book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, cybersecurity technologist Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan E. Sanders methodically...
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Challenging AI Hype and Tech Industry Power | Book Talk
Visit datasociety.net for to learn more about this Book Talk's speakers, access resources and referenced materials, and to purchase copies of The AI Con and Empire of AI. Purchase copies of these books from our Bookshop: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by...
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What is Work Worth? Exploring What Generative AI Means for Workers’ Lives and Labor | Keynote Event
Recorded on May 6, 2025 at The Greene Space in NYC Featuring Dr. Julián Posada and Aiha Nguyen Resources and recordings are available here: https://datasociety.net/events/what-is-work-worth/
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[Live] The Cloud is Dead: Living with Legacies of Resource Extraction
Books Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond (Tamara Kneese) The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City (Alexis Madrigal) Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside (Xiaowei Wang)
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Resisting Predatory Data | Book Talk
At the turn of the 20th century, the anti-immigration and eugenics movements used data about marginalized people to fuel racial divisions and political violence under the guise of streamlining society toward the future. Today, as the tech industry champions itself as a global leader of progress…
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AI Assistant or AI Boss? w/ Data & Society
Two years ago, we were told that ‘prompt engineer’ would be a real job — well, it’s not. Is generative AI actually going to replace and transform human labour, or is this just another shallow marketing narrative? In this episode of Computer Says Maybe, host Alix Dunn speaks with Data & Society...
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Connective (t)Issues: Stories of Digitality, Infrastructures, and Resistance | Public Panel
Physical and digital infrastructures have raised tensions around the world, seeding land disputes, climate effects, and disrupting social fabrics. Yet they are also intertwined with myths of progress, transformation, and speculation. To explore these themes, we were joined by Nia Johnson, Ekene...
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[Databite No. 161] Red Teaming Generative AI Harm
What exactly is generative AI (genAI) red-teaming? What strategies and standards should guide its implementation? And how can it protect the public interest? In this conversation, Lama Ahmad, Camille François, Tarleton Gillespie, Briana Vecchione, and Borhane Blili-Hamelin examined red-teaming’s...
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The Taiwan Bottleneck w/ Brian Chen
Do you ever wonder how semiconductors (AKA chips) — the things that make up the fine tapestry of modern life — get made? And why does so much chip production bottleneck in Taiwan? Luckily, this is a podcast for nerds like you. Alix was joined this week by Brian Chen from Data & Society, who...
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Living in the Shadow of AI and Data (Code Dependent by Madhumita Murgia) | Network Book Forum
On November 14, in a conversation moderated by Data & Society Senior Researcher Ranjit Singh, Madhumita Murgia and Armin Samii discussed Murgia’s new book, Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI. Together, they explored living with data by describing their journeys into understanding it,...
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Data & Society at 10: Foreseeable Futures
When Data & Society was founded ten years ago, it was rooted in the insight that data-centric technologies have broad and often unseen impacts on society — and that to better understand those impacts and realize technologies that reflect our highest values, we need interdisciplinary, empirical...
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[Databite 160] Black Maternal Health is in Crisis. Can Technology Help?
In the United States, Black maternal health is in steep decline. Despite increased awareness and better data about the depths of racial health disparities, outcomes for Black birthing people remain poor. At the same time, a revolution in healthcare technologies is underway, and as they provide…
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[Podcast] The Formalization of Social Precarities
The Formalization of Social Precarities podcast explores platformization from the point of view of precarious gig workers in the Majority World. This conversation was moderated by Aiha Nguyen and Murali Shanmugavelan featuring the voices of Ambika Tandon, Ludmilla Costhek Abílio, and Ananya…
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[Databite 159] Doing the Work: Therapeutic Labor, Teletherapy, and the Platformization of Mental Health Care
Data & Society’s report, Doing the Work: Therapeutic Labor, Teletherapy, and the Platformization of Mental Health Care, written by Livia Garofalo, explores how these new arrangements of therapeutic labor are affecting how therapists provide care and make a living in the US. By focusing on the...
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[Databite 158] Adaptation | Generative AI's Labor Impacts
Generative AI has seeped into many corners of our lives, and threatens to upend the economy as we know it, from education to the film industry. How do workers’ encounters with it differ from their experiences with other systems of automation? How are they similar, and how might this help us...
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What's Trust Got To Do With It? | 'Trust Issues' Workshop Public Panel
This public keynote was part of Trust Issues, a Data & Society workshop organized by the Trustworthy Infrastructures program. That team includes Sareeta Amrute, Livia Garofalo, Robyn Caplan, Joan Mukogosi, Tiara Roxanne, and Kadija Ferryman.
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Data In/Visibility (Queer Data Studies) | Network Book Forum
Purchase your own copy of Queer Data Studies here: https://bookshop.org/a/14284/9780295751979.
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[Databite No. 157] Recognition | Generative AI's Labor Impacts
Generative AI has seeped into many corners of our lives, and threatens to upend the economy as we know it, from education to the film industry. How do workers’ encounters with it differ from their experiences with other systems of automation? How are they similar, and how might this help us...
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[Databite No. 156] Hierarchy | Generative AI's Labor Impacts
About the Series Generative AI has seeped into many corners of our lives, and threatens to upend the economy as we know it, from education to the film industry. How do workers’ encounters with it differ from their experiences with other systems of automation? How are they similar, and how might...
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Caring for Digital Remains | Tamara Kneese and Tonia Sutherland | Network Book Forum
When people die, they leave behind not only physical belongings, but digital ones. While they might have had specific wishes for what happens to their online profiles and accounts after their deaths, preserving these digital remains is complex and requires specialized forms of care. Because…
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Decoding the AI Executive Order
On October 30, the White House issued its long-awaited executive order on artificial intelligence. We’re heartened by the order’s focus on some of AI’s most pressing real-world harms, and especially encouraged by its commitment to apply mandatory rights-protecting practices to the federal...
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[Databite 155] Democratizing AI: Principles for Meaningful Public Participation
As AI presents technical and engineering innovations, the systems present fundamental risks to people, their families, and their communities. Public participation in AI will not be easy. But there are foundational lessons to apply from other domains. Author and legal scholar Michele Gilman’s…
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Network Book Forum | Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City | Katie Wells and Kafui Attoh
As a tech platform and a company, Uber has become emblematic of an economic shift toward precarious, low-wage gig work and declining labor standards, which has unfolded under the guise of innovation. But an overlooked dimension of Uber’s rise is how the company capitalized on deeper tensions at…
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Fellows Capstone Conversation: "Make a Way" | Lindsey Cameron with Sareeta Amrute
"I've always loved the term triple threat: someone who can do research, consulting, and teaching together, consulting being engaged with the world. I knew, yes, I want to be a triple threat. That's been my steadiness, or my purpose, that I've held onto for a long time." - Lindsey Cameron…
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Fellows Capstone Conversation: "What Guides Us" | Christina Harrington with Sareeta Amrute
“I always say that my research, even in the academy, has these parallel interests of thinking about how we make the technology itself more equitable, but then also thinking about -- how do we make the methods, whether they be the design methods or the research methods, more equitable and more...
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[Databite 154] The Trauma of Caste in Tech: In Conversation with Thenmozhi Soundararajan
Despite the ban on untouchability 70 years ago, caste, one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world, is thriving — impacting 1.9 billion people worldwide. And the wreckages of caste are replicated in the US and elsewhere, showing up at work, at school, in housing, and in technology, and...
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[Databite 153] Essentially Unprotected: Health Data and Surveillance of Essential Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Data & Society’s report Essentially Unprotected is based on interviews with 50 people who worked in grocery, warehousing, manufacturing or meat and food processing during the pandemic. The report highlights their experiences and efforts to manage the confusing and often terrifying challenges of…
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Databite No. 152 Cuidado Digital—Derechos Reproductivos, Aborto y Redes Digitales de Cuidado en América Latina
Desde hace mucho tiempo, el activismo en América Latina ha combatido - y en algunos casos ganado - la batalla por la libertad reproductiva. Dada la reciente revocación de Roe vs Wade, la “ola verde”, el color asociado con el movimiento para el aborto legal, seguro y gratuito que originó en...
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Databite No. 152 Cuidado Digital—Reproductive Rights, Abortion, and Digital Networks of Care in Latin America
With the repeal of Roe v. Wade in the US, the “green wave” — a color associated with the movement for safe and legal abortion that started in Argentina and spread to the rest of the continent — has reached American shores. With it have come debates about bodily autonomy and, in an increasingly...
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Databite No. 151 Power and Retail at the Digital Doorstep
Read the Report: "At the Digital Doorstep"
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Databite No. 150 AI in/from the Majority World – Unscripted Conversation
A PRIMER ON AI IN/FROM THE MAJORITY WORLD—An Empirical Site and a Standpoint
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In Fellowship: 2021-2022 Capstone Conversation
Recorded on June 3, 2022. Learn more at www.datasociety.net.
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Book Forum Series: Democracy's Data
On August 11, 2022 Dan Bouk discussed his latest book, Democracy's Data: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them, with Dr. Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute. The conversation was moderated by Data & Society People and Culture Manager,...
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Book Forum Series: Experiments of the Mind
Join author Emily Martin (Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology, NYU), panelists Iretiolu Akinrinade (Research Analyst, Data & Society), and Noelle Stout (faculty member, Program in Advanced Teaching and Research, Apple University), and host Emanuel Moss (Join Postdoctoral Scholar, Data &...
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Book Forum Series: Nice White Ladies
Nice White Ladies: The Truth About White Supremacy, Our Role in it, and How We Can Help Dismantle it, by D&S 2018-2019 Fellow Jessie Daniels, and hosted by Principal Researcher & Race and Tech Program Director Sareeta Amrute -- Named a Best Book of 2021 by Kirkus An acclaimed expert illuminates…
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Conversations on the Datafied State – Part Three: Race, Surveillance, Resistance
Tamara K. Nopper and Chaz Arnett in conversation with Raúl Carrillo and Alyx Goodwin This panel focuses attention on how datafication processes are related to social control and surveillance, whether policing and the criminal punishment system or credit scoring systems and monitoring the use of...
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Conversations on the Datafied State – Part Two: The Automated State
Ranjit Singh, Researcher at D&S, in conversation with Joanna Redden, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario and the co-director of the Data Justice Lab, and Michele E. Gilman, Venerable Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Presenting timely conversations about the purpose and power of technology that bridge our interdisciplinary research with broader public conversations about the societal implications of data and automation.For more information, visit datasociety.net.
HOSTED BY
Data & Society
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Data & Society currently has 140 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
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Presenting timely conversations about the purpose and power of technology that bridge our interdisciplinary research with broader public conversations about the societal implications of data and automation.For more information, visit datasociety.net.
How often does Data & Society release new episodes?
Data & Society publishes regularly with 140 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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