Algorithms may now be our most important knowledge technologies, “the scientific instruments of a society at large,” (Gitelman) and they are increasingly vital to how we organize human social interaction, produce authoritative knowledge, and choreograph our participation in public life. Search engines, recommendation systems, edge algorithms on social networking sites, and “trend” identification algorithms: these not only help us find information, they provide a means to know what there is to know and to participate in social and political discourse. In this talk Tarleton Gillespie will highlight one particular dimension of these algorithms, their production of calculated publics: algorithmically produced snapshots of the “public” around us and what most concerns it. Understanding the calculations and motivations behind the production of these calculated publics helps highlight how these algorithms are relevant to our collective efforts to know and be known.

Tarleton Gillespie is an associate professor at Cornell University, in the Department of Communication and the Department of Information Science. This semester he is a visiting researcher with Microsoft Research, New England. He is the co-editor of Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society (2014), and the author of Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture (2007), and the co-founder of the scholarly blog at culturedigitally.org.

Tarleton Gillespie: “Algorithms, and the Production of Calculated Publics”

Speaker(s): Euclid Tsakalotos | What are the prospects of the Left in government after the summer agreement? Can that agreement be incorporated into a political strategy that furthers social justice and a different economic model? Can Greece act as catalyst for wider progressive changes in the Eurozone and the EU? Euclid Tsakalotos (@tsakalotos) is the Greek Finance Minister. Kevin Featherstone is Hellenic Observatory Director, Eleftherios Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies & Professor of European Politics and LSEE-Research on South Eastern Europe Co-Chair.

Economic Blues: the left in government times [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Robert J. Shiller | Ever since Adam Smith, the central teaching of economics has been that free markets provide us with material well-being, as if by an invisible hand.  Robert Shiller delivers a fundamental challenge to this insight, arguing that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, sellers will systematically exploit our psychological weaknesses and our ignorance through manipulation and deception. Rather than being essentially benign and always creating the greater good, markets are inherently filled with tricks and traps and will “phish” us as “phools.” This represents a radically new direction in economics, based on the intuitive idea that markets both give and take away. We spend our money up to the limit, and then worry about how to pay the next month’s bills. The financial system soars, then crashes. We are attracted, more than we know, by advertising. Our political system is distorted by money. We pay too much for gym memberships, cars, houses, and credit cards. Drug companies ingeniously market pharmaceuticals that do us little good, and sometimes are downright dangerous. Phishing for Phools explores the central role of manipulation and deception in each of these areas and many more. It thereby explains a paradox: why, at a time when we are better off than ever before in history, all too many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation. Robert J Shiller (@RobertJShiller), the recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in economics, is a best-selling author, a regular contributor to the Economic View column of the New York Times, and a professor of economics at Yale University. His books include Finance and the Good Society, Animal Spirits (co-written with George A. Akerlof), The Subprime Solution, The New Financial Order and Irrational Exuberance. Wouter Den Haan is Professor of Economics at LSE and Co-Director of the Centre for Macroeconomics. The Department of Economics at LSE (@LSEEcon) is one of the largest economics departments in the world. Its size ensures that all areas of economics are strongly represented in both research and teaching. The Centre For Macroeconomics (@CFMUK) brings together world-class experts to carry out pioneering research on the global economic crisis and to help design policies that alleviate it.

Phishing for Phools: the economics of manipulation and deception [Audio]

Speaker(s): Dr Susan George | Can Progressives slow the success of neo-liberalism? In recent years links between big business and government have become stronger and more far-reaching than ever, impeding the possibility for progress. Ahead of the Spanish elections and climate change negotiations, Susan George will draw on her new book about the power of big business and her decades of activism and writing to analyse the possibilities for progress. Susan George is a political activist, widely-translated author and President of the Transnational Institute. Her latest book is Shadow Sovereigns: how global corporations are seizing power. Robin Archer is Director of the Ralph Miliband Programme at LSE. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry. The next lecture in the “Progress and its Discontents” series will be taking place on Thursday 19 November with Professor Michael Cox Red Flag over Houghton Street? The Radical Tradition at the LSE - Myth, Reality and Fact.

Shadow Sovereigns: how global corporations are seizing power [Audio]

Speaker(s): Dr Kate Devlin, Dr Mateja Jamnik, Professor Huw Price, Dr Mark Sprevak 
Chair: Dr Jonathan Birch

Recorded on 7 December 2015 at Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

AI is progressing fast. What level has it reached? Is human-level AI a realistic possibility? And if it is achieved in the near future, what will the consequences be for humanity? Could AI threaten our very existence? In this panel discussion, philosophers Huw Price and Mark Sprevak and computer scientists Mateja Jamnik and Kate Devlin discuss these and other questions concerning AI and the future of humanity. 

Kate Devlin is a Lecturer in Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

Mateja Jamnik is Senior Lecturer in Computing at Cambridge. 

Huw Price is Professor of Philosophy, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, Cambridge. 

Mark Sprevak is Senior Lecture of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. 

Dr Jonathan Birch is Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, LSE and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow. 

The Forum for European Philosophy (@ForumPhilosophy) is an educational charity that organises a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK.

Will Machines Rule the World?

Speaker(s): Professor David Harvey | David Harvey's politicised work on geography, social theory, urban political economy and capitalism has shaped academic debate for decades. He is one of the most cited social scientists in the world, and his works have been translated into multiple languages. Here, Harvey joins a panel of experts to explore his ideas - and alternative views. David Harvey (@profdavidharvey) is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Michael Storper (@michaelstorper) is Professor of Economic Geography at LSE, and holds Professorships at Sciences-Po and UCLA. Jane Wills is Professor of Human Geography, Queen Mary, University of London. Murray Low is Associate Professor of Human Geography in the LSE Department of Geography & Environment. The LSE Department of Geography & Environment (@LSEGeography) is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change.

The Power of Ideas: a discussion with David Harvey [Audio]

Featuring a wide assortment of interviews and event archives, the MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing podcast features the best of our field's critical analysis, collaborative research, and design -- all across a variety of media arts, forms, and practices.

You can learn more about us, including info about our faculty and academic programs and how to join us in person for events, at cmsw.mit.edu.