Tech in Check

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Worried that AI will replace you? It may not seem like the Hollywood writers’ strike has anything in common with the Luddite rebellion in England in 1811, but they are surprisingly similar. Today we use the term “Luddite” dismissively to describe a technophobe, but the original Luddites – cloth workers – organized and fought Industrial Revolution automation and the factory bosses who were replacing humans with cotton spinning machines and steam powered looms. Find out what our age of AI can learn from textile workers of 200 years ago about keeping humans in the loop. Guest: Brian Merchant - Los Angeles Times tech columnist and author of “Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech” Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Originally aired January 14, 2024 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
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0:19.8	I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Safeguarding sound science,
0:23.3	Evolution Edition. Evolution is the unifying principle of biology, yet it still breeds controversy
0:29.4	a century and a half after Charles Darwin. Join us as we meet the passionate researchers
0:35.3	and communicators who are expanding our knowledge
0:38.1	and fighting to keep good science
0:40.1	in our schools and politics.
0:42.8	Subscribe to Safeguarding Sound Science
0:44.8	on Apple, Spotify, Amazon,
0:47.4	or wherever you like to listen.
0:49.3	Music Artificial intelligence is changing the way we talk, live, and work, and it's touted as a generational shift in our relationship with technology.
1:09.0	Last week, the artificial intelligence company,
1:11.6	Open AI, unveiled Chat GPT4, the AI language tool that is fascinating and frightening people around the world.
1:22.6	These powerful and unprecedented tools are making many people uneasy about the future of automation.
1:29.3	You can make millions or billions of pieces of misinformation a day with whatever your own alternative set of facts are.
1:36.3	It's incredibly plausible, it has references and data and so forth that looks really real,
1:41.3	and most humans aren't going to be able to tell the difference.
1:50.2	AI poses a threat to our notion of what's true, but it also threatens to take our jobs.
1:55.1	Maybe you've been thinking about your own job and wondering whether AI might replace you and what you could do to stop it. It may surprise you, but you have distant allies in the fight.
	...

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