The Fight for the Future: AI, Privacy & Power with CARISSA VÉLIZ

“Algorithms are deciding whether you are eligible for a loan, a job, an apartment or insurance. They determine what you see online, who reads your social media posts and who connects with you on dating apps. They may even decide whether you get arrested or go to jail. Your very life hangs in the balance of prophecies.”

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Carissa Véliz, an associate professor at the University of Oxford, about her new book,Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future—from Ancient Oracles to AI. Linking this work to her previous book, Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data, Véliz writes: “ surveillance and prediction are digital technology’s original sins.”

In our wide-ranging discussion, we talk about how both massive and intrusive invasions of privacy at all levels of society and false claims to be able to predict the future erode democracy, are corrosive to ethics, and undermine people’s ability to think for themselves. Instead, we are conditioned to trust an unregulated band of “effective altruists” who claim to know better than we what kinds of lives we should prefer and the choices we should make. Véliz argues instead that we should embrace the uncertain to build resilience, to prepare for contingency but not be determined by what we cannot see, and to foster curiosity and imagination.

EPISODE CHAPTERS

(0:00) Digital Technology's Original Sins

(2:34) How Books and Prophecies Choose Their Readers

(5:50) The Link Between AI, Mass Surveillance, and Profit

(8:46) Why Ethics Is the Hidden Foundation of Democracy

(13:52) The Future Tense as a Tech Executive Power Play

(16:20) Predictions as Speech Acts and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

(22:04) Artificial Intelligence as the Ultimate Bullshitter

(26:38) Effective Altruism, Utilitarianism, and the Dangers of Infinity

(35:10) Losing Connection to the Analog World and Critical Thinking

(42:16) Family Stories and Absorbing the Shock of Life

(46:56) Cultivating Bravery and Defying Tech’s Probabilistic Vision

(49:19) Practical Advice for Everyday Life and Preparation

Episode Website

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