KQED's Forum - TopPodcast.com

Latest Episodes:

How to Wrap Our Heads Around These New Shockingly Fluent Chatbots Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

The latest generation of chatbots, powered by their ingestion of huge chunks of writing from the internet, have continued to wow and frighten. ChatGPT and an experimental bot from Microsoft’s Bing are shockingly fluent in English. And being humans, we struggle to imagine anything that could master our language without tremendous intelligence. So, what, then, do we make of a machine that can output sentences in any style about any thing? Forum brings together three people – a writer, a coder and a policy expert working on ethics guidelines for AI – to help us make sense of this new generation of tools.

Guests:

Simon Willison, independent researcher and developer

Ted Chiang, science fiction writer; author, "Exhalation: Stories." His latest piece for The New Yorker is "ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web."

Claire Leibowicz, head of AI & media integrity, Partnership on AI

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Investigation: Migrant Children Routinely Employed in Violation of U.S. Labor Laws Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

Across the U.S., migrant children are employed in violation of child labor laws, in under-the-table operations and in global corporations alike, according to a new New York Times investigation. They work in dangerous conditions in construction, in factories and in slaughterhouses. They work long hours in kitchens, hotels and farm fields. They fall asleep in high school after working night shifts; some drop out of school altogether. Reporter Hannah Dreier spoke with more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states as well as the companies employing them and the government agencies meant to protect them. She joins to talk about how this “new economy of exploitation” exploded over the past two years and how the Biden Administration has responded to her reporting.

Guests:

Hannah Dreier, reporter on the investigations team, The New York Times

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Preserving Your Family Recipes with the Authors Behind ‘The Woks of Life,’ a Chinese American Cookbook Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

“Food was a life raft that connected our families to where we came from, “ writes Judy Leung in the new cookbook, “The Woks of Life.” Her daughters, Sarah and Kaitlin grew up loving their parents’ Chinese cooking but when they moved out of the house, they realized that they had no idea how to cook their family favorites. There were no written recipes or helpful YouTube videos. So the women started a blog, “The Woks of Life,” which is now a cookbook, to document their family’s patrimony of recipes. We’ll talk to the Leungs, as part of our All You Can Eat series with KQED food editor Luke Tsai, and hear from you: What’s a family recipe you wish you had in writing?

Guests:

Luke Tsai, food editor, KQED Arts & Culture

Kaitlin Leung, Co-author, "The Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family

Sarah Leung, Co-author, "Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family

Reyna Maldonado, Owner, La Guerreras Kitchen

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How to Help Teens Navigate Their Complicated, Intense 'Emotional Lives' Feb 28, 2023

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Being a teenager has always been hard, writes clinical psychologist and adolescent mental health expert Lisa Damour. But coming of age amid a global pandemic, intense political division and a national reckoning with police violence "makes the work of a teenager -- or raising one -- that much more difficult." We talk to Damour about how to help the teens in our lives navigate the powerful emotions they feel and why she thinks we should all become less afraid of painful feelings like anger, frustration and sadness.

Guests:

Lisa Damour, clinical psychologist, author, "The Emotional Lives of Teenagers" - co-host of the podcast "Ask Lisa"

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Does Palo Alto Represent Everything That Is Wrong about Capitalism? Feb 28, 2023

Show notes

“Palo Alto is nice,” begins Malcolm Harris in his new book, aptly named “Palo Alto.” But according to Harris, Palo Alto, where he grew up, is also a microcosm for much of what is wrong with capitalism and the California Dream. Charting the history of the town from its founding to the present day, Harris looks at the impact Stanford University, Republican politics, unions and the tech industry have had on the town that has become synonymous with astronomical home prices and venture capital. We’ll talk to Harris and hear from you: Does Palo Alto represent a dream gone awry?

Guests:

Malcolm Harris, author, "Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism and the World" - Harris is also the author of "Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials"

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A Texas Federal Court Could Block Access to a Key Abortion Drug Nationally Feb 27, 2023

Show notes

More than half of all abortions in the United States are performed with medication, according to the Guttmacher Institute. But a federal court case in Texas could block access to mifepristone, a key abortion drug, nationally. “Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA” contests the FDA’s approval of mifepristone in 2000 and regulation since. If federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk sides with the anti-abortion group, mifepristone would be pulled from the market — further reducing abortion options after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June. We’ll take stock of the case, the projected impacts of losing this gold-standard abortion drug, and where abortion access in the U.S. stands, state by state.

Guests:

Michele Goodwin, Chancellor's professor, UC Irvine School of Law; author, "Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood"

Shefali Luthra, health reporter covering the intersection of gender and health care, The 19th, an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy.

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How Immigrant Writers Are Shaping New Genre of Undocumented Literature Feb 27, 2023

Show notes

The public discourse about undocumented immigrants often lacks humanity and complexity according to writers Reyna Grande and Rafael Agustin, who have written acclaimed memoirs about their immigrant experiences. They and many others bring nuanced narratives to the burgeoning genre of undocumented literature. Grande co-edited “Somewhere We Are Human,” an anthology released last year that features work by 41 undocumented or formerly undocumented writers, poets and artists. The editors’ note states, “Opportunities and infrastructure for immigrants to tell their own stories in their own words are few and far between.” In this hour of Forum, we’ll hear some of those stories and discuss the undocumented experience in America.

Guests:

Reyna Grande, author, "A Ballad of Love and Glory," "The Distance Between Us," "A Dream Called Home," "Across a Hundred Mountains," and "Dancing with Butterflies"

Aline Mello, poet and author of the poetry collection, "More Salt Than Diamond," and essay "Fit," which appears in the anthology, "Somewhere We Are Human."

Kaveh Bassiri, Iranian poet, translator who is currently a Tusla Artist Fellow in Oklahoma; his poems appeared in the anthology, "Somewhere We Are Human."

Rafael Agustin, television writer; CEO, the Latino Film Institute; author, "Illegally Yours"

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Supreme Court Considers Upending Legal Liability Rules for Online Platforms Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

The Supreme Court this week held oral arguments in a pair of cases that have tech companies, First Amendment advocates and digital rights-watchers on edge. On Tuesday it heard arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, a case that could redefine a decades-old law that protects online platforms from liability for third-party content they host. And on Wednesday it debated Twitter v. Taamneh, which asks whether the social media company violated an anti-terrorism law based on videos its algorithm promoted. We'll talk about how the justices appeared to be leaning and how they might rule.

Guests:

Sophia Cope, senior staff attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Daphne Keller, director, Program on Platform Regulation at the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford Law School

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The Radical Act of Leisure Celebrated in “Resting Our Eyes” Art Exhibit Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

Relaxing might not seem like a radical act, but it is for Black women, according to the curators of “Resting Our Eyes,” a new exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Francisco. Pulling together artists from a variety of mediums, the exhibit celebrates how Black women find liberation through rest, leisure, and adornment. Photographs, video, and mixed media works create a visual vocabulary for how Black women have used these forms of self-expression to combat oppression for generations. We’ll talk with the curators as well as contributing artists about the art in the exhibition and why rest is not a luxury, but a necessity. What does rest mean to you?

Guests:

Tahirah Rasheed, artist and co-curator, "Resting Our Eyes"; founder, “Fresh Made Productions” and “See Black Women”

Autumn Breon, artist and co-curator, "Resting Our Eyes"

Leila Weefur, writer; curator; featured artist, "Resting Our Eyes"; lecturer, Stanford's Department of Art and Art History.

Traci Bartlow, featured artist, "Resting Our Eyes"; entrepreneur; dancer and hip-hop dance scholar; 90's hip-hop photojournalist; Oakland native

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The War in Ukraine: One Year Later Feb 23, 2023

Show notes

On February 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine, setting in motion a brutal, bloody war that has left tens of thousands of people dead and millions forcibly displaced. A year later, Ukraine is still standing, defying expectations that it would quickly fall to a more powerful Russian military and reclaiming key portions of territory it lost at the outset of the invasion. But as the war wears on, resolution remains elusive, and a negotiated peace is all but off the table. We’ll look back on the conflict and hear reflections from experts and Ukrainian nationals who joined us on Forum when the war began.

Guests:

Steven Pifer, affiliate, Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; former ambassador to Ukraine and a senior director at the National Security Council in the Clinton administration

Oleh Kuzo, trustee, Ukrainian Heritage Club of Northern California

Alina Polyakova, President and CEO, Center for European Policy Analysis; adjunct professor of European Studies, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Luke Harding, foreign correspondent, The Guardian - His recent book is "Invasion: The inside Story of Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for Survival"

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