technology and society

  • black box

    “The conceptual metaphor ‘black box’ was originally an engineering term for any component designed to take in certain kinds of inputs (energy, signals, information, etc.) and convert them into specified outputs (e.g., a radio, a voltage transformer, a codec for converting digital into analog audio/video): the details inside the components can just stay ‘hidden’ (‘black-boxed’,…

  • Podcast on language models with Joanna Bryson and Daniel Leufer

    In the past few days, generative Artificial Intelligence systems like ChatGPT and Stability AI have caught great attention. In the first part of the podcast, we discuss to what extent these language models are actually new, and the potential societal transformations they can drive with Joanna Bryson, Professor of Ethics and Technology at The Hertie…