A Deep Dive into the Ethics, Literacy, and Application of AI
Highlights from Season 7 of The Tao of WAO podcast
We’ve recently wrapped the seventh season of our podcast where we explored the complex and ever-evolving world of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
From ethical considerations and societal implications to the nuances of AI literacy, the season offered a comprehensive exploration that went beyond the technical jargon. Laura and Doug engaged in critical conversations that aimed to demystify this transformative technology, offering listeners a balanced perspective on its potential and pitfalls.
This blog post serves as a retrospective, highlighting key moments and insights from a season dedicated to understanding AI in all its dimensions.
Relevant links
- Season overview page
- RSS feed
- Pod.link (provides links to subscribe via your favourite platform)
Episode 1 — Curiosity is Human
We discuss concept of curiosity with guests Paul Ashcroft and Garrick Jones. The conversation explores the historical evolution of curiosity, its role in innovation, and its impact on emotional and physical well-being. The guests explore into how curiosity can be nurtured like a muscle and its significance in the age of AI and digital transformation.
- Paul Ashcroft: “Essentially you can hack your own biological system just by being curious.”
- Garrick Jones: “It’s fascinating how I think the curious and the innovative were relegated to the ninth level of hell, which is the worst hell in Dante’s Inferno. And because they want to mess with the structures.”
Episode 2 – Credentials & AI
Tim Riches and Omid Mufeed join us to discuss the evolution and future of Navigatr, a platform focused on skills recognition through Open Badges. They highlight the role of AI in simplifying the badge creation process and its potential to personalise learning pathways. The platform aims to bridge the gap between skills and employment opportunities, offering a live jobs feed linked to badges.
- Omid Mufeed: “Why can’t we have the technologies that tell us what to learn next to change our lives?”
- Tim Riches: “It’d be great if you could just kind of switch the app on wherever you were…and it could start to show you things which just got you interested first and got you engaged in learning and then started to open up opportunities for work.”
Episode 3 — Cognitive Liberty
Laura and Doug tackle the ethical and societal implications of AI. They discuss its potential as a ‘thought partner’ in decision-making, the concept of cognitive liberty, and the risks of AI entrenching existing power structures.
- Laura Hilliger: “How do we ensure that people keep cognitive liberty if they’re being manipulated by these algorithms or by AI?”
- Doug Belshaw: “Our democratic and civic infrastructure is being replaced by decision-making tools which are beholden to a small elite.”
Episode 4 — Public Service and AI
Matt Jukes comes on the podcast to discuss his career journey, which spans various roles in the public sector, including his current (at the time) position at the Office for National Statistics. He talks about the challenges of digital transformation in the public sector, emphasising the importance of user needs and data. Matt also shares his views on leadership, AI, the role of blogging, and the need for a supportive culture to drive change.
- Matt Jukes: “Ministers particularly are fascinated with [AI] and are pushing departments and and digital teams and their policy people across every corner of government to to see how it can be used.
Episode 5 — Workforce development
Prof. Krystal Rawls joins to advocate the importance of community involvement in technology adoption, particularly in bridging the digital divide. She emphasises that solving community issues is not just about providing devices but also about removing the fear of innovation and technology. Krystal argues for a more holistic, respectful approach to community needs, advocating for the use of AI and other technologies as tools for empowerment. She also touches on the ethical considerations of technology adoption, stressing the need to respect different cultures and perspectives.
- Krystal Rawls: “And so from my lens, things as simple as right, I have to train people on how to use this technology. How about I provide you with some prompts of AI and a training in AI and let you go and learn for yourself and interrogate for yourself the things that you need to know. And so I can be used in some really innovative ways to help close the digital divide.”
Episode 6 — AI Literacy
Doug and Laura wrap up the season by exploring the complexities of AI literacy, and emphasising the need for critical thinking and mentorship when interacting with AI tools. They discuss the limitations of AI, likening it to a “competent intern,” and discuss the ethical and societal implications of AI’s lack of transparency and potential for bias. The conversation also touches on the need for collective decision-making in AI governance and the importance of understanding the data on which AI models are trained.
- Doug Belshaw: “It’s interesting because one of the things that people have said is that it means that everybody gets a tutor now, but. Everyone doesn’t get a tutor as much as a research assistant.”
- Laura Hilliger: “You know, when the when the printing press was was invented, it’s the time between the printing press being invented and like the masses being able to read because there is huge cultural and societal shift during like during these kind of in-between times. And I feel like with tech, we’ve been in that in-between time for 20, 30 years and with AI moving faster and faster, it feels like being web literate, information literate, media literate, tech literate, AI literate, anything that puts the literacy on it is, you know, is a it’s a moving target. Right?”
Next season
We’ve already begun recording Season 7 and are in the planning stages of Season 8, which will focused on Shaping a Media Literate Society: Exploring the Future Landscape of Media and Information Literacy.
