Google Protest Leader Meredith Whittaker on the Future of Tech Activism and the Deep Flaws of ‘The Social Dilemma’

Big Technology Podcast

Alex Kantrowitz

Technology, Religion & Spirituality, Business News, Business, Religion, Science, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Entrepreneurship, Management, Marketing, Politics, News Commentary, Government, Investing, Tech News, Social Sciences, News

4.6 • 395 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When I interviewed Tristan Harris about The Social Dilemma earlier this month, my mentions filled with people saying, "You should speak to the people who were critical of the social web long before the film.” One name, Meredith Whittaker, stood out. An A.I. researcher and former big tech employee, Whittaker helped lead Google’s walkout in 2018 amid a season of activism inside the company. On this edition of the Big Technology Podcast, we spoke not only about her views on the film, but of the future of workplace activism inside tech companies in a moment where some are questioning if it belongs at all.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From LinkedIn News, I'm Jesse Hempel, host of the Hello Monday podcast.
0:05.1	Start your week with the Hello Monday podcast.
0:08.1	We'll navigate career pivots.
0:10.1	We'll learn where happiness fits in.
0:11.9	Listen to Hello Monday with me, Jesse Hempel on the LinkedIn Podcast Network or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:31.6	Thank you. or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Big Technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Today, we're coming to
0:38.9	you live from the World Summit AI, so it's a little bit different from our typical recording, but it's
0:43.7	going to be a great conversation. Joining us today is Meredith Whitaker. She's the co-founder of the AI Now
0:49.5	Institute, a former Google employee who founded Google's open research group and played an instrumental
0:54.8	role in Google's walkout, which protested payouts to executives accused of sexual harassment,
1:01.8	as well as, you know, a lot of other activism inside the company, which we're going to talk
1:05.5	about at length in the second segment. She's also the Minderu Research Professor at New York University.
1:11.9	Meredith, welcome to the show.
1:13.8	Thank you, Alex.
1:14.8	Really happy to be here.
1:16.8	So let's get started with the social dilemma.
1:19.6	Actually, the way this interview came about is that I conducted an interview with Tristan Harris,
1:26.0	talking a little bit about the criticisms of the social dilemma movie.
1:32.0	And then my mentions filled up with folks saying, hey, you know, why are we asking Tristan?
1:37.1	Why don't we, you know, ask some folks who have been critical of these things for a long time?
1:41.8	And your name was mentioned.
1:43.5	And that's what brought us together.
	...

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