Artificial Intelligence Ethicology (WILL A.I. CRASH OUT?) with Dr. Abeba Birhane

Who’s babysitting AI? Will it steal your job? What happens when you’re rude to a chatbot? Cognitive scientist, Trinity College professor and Artificial Intelligence Ethicologist  Dr. Abeba Birhane lets me ask her not-smart questions about legislation around AI, auditing datasets, environmental impacts, booby traps, doorbell narcs, commonly used fallacies, how the “godfathers’ of AI feel about their creation, robots doing your homework, and and whether or not AI is actually the root of all evil. Also: bacon ice cream and why Siri is a girl.

Listen via Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Podbay, Podcast Addict, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Visit Dr. Birhane’s website and follow her on Bluesky and Google Scholar

A donation went to The Municipality of Gaza and UNRWA


Links to things we discussed:

Dr. Birhane’s Ph.D thesis: Automating Ambiguity: Challenges and Pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence

Most AI avatars look female, young and attractive. Are they a passing trend or here to stay?

Cognitive Hexagon

Every AI Copyright Lawsuit in the US, Visualized

One rebel’s malicious ‘tar pit’ trap is driving AI web-scrapers insane

1986: Learning representations by back-propagating errors

2025: A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse

2025: One of Google’s recent Gemini AI models scores worse on safety

2025: Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview Model Card

2024: McDonald’s ends AI drive-thru trial as fast-food industry tests automation

2024: Should We Respect LLMs? A Cross-Lingual Study on the Influence of Prompt Politeness on LLM Performance

2024 TikTok: AI can’t handle the drive-thru lane

2023: ChatGPT can now access up to date information

Police Are Monitoring Black Lives Matter Protests With Ring Doorbell Data and Drones, Activists Say

Is Ring's Doorbell Camera Notifying Locals About ICE Raids? What We Know

People are building Tarpits to trap and trick AI scrapers

AI Art Generators Spark Multiple Copyright Lawsuits

Transformer (deep learning architecture)

2018 Google walkouts

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

Judge allows 'New York Times' copyright case against OpenAI to go forward

Artists Score Major Win in Copyright Case Against AI Art Generators

Attention (machine learning)

Signal Messenger 

AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand


Other episodes you may enjoy:

Neurotechnology (AI + BRAIN TECH)

Architectural Technology (COMPUTER PROGRAMMING)

FIELD TRIP: A Hollywood Visit to the Writers Guild Strike Line

Futurology (THE FUTURE)

Gizmology (ROBOTS)

Genocidology (CRIMES OF ATROCITY)


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Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee

Managing Director: Susan Hale

Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth 

Transcripts by Aveline Malek

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

MechanicsAlie Ward