Malcolm Harris joins Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to discuss Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. A native of Northern California, Malcolm attended Palo Alto High School and that High School experience is a jumping off point of sorts — and a dark one — for the book that Malcolm joins us to discuss. 

Malcolm's hefty tome, a history of California told through a Marxist lens, opens with a grim reflection on the spate of suicides that darkened his high school years. Teens who took their lives on the train tracks over which Leland Stanford built Palo Alto and much of the booming Western economy that has made the Bay Area and California in general such a dominant pole of global wealth, innovation, and the allure of good, easy living. 

It's that darker side to this history that Malcolm brings into focus throughout PALO ALTO, a history of Silicon Valley that traces the region's celebrated ideologies, technologies, and policies to its roots in Anglo settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and the ravages of an extractive system that builds glittering new worlds and opportunities for a few, too often at the expense of everyone else up to and including the earth itself. Malcolm explores how the histories of big tech, the military industrial complex, and Stanford University converge in the story of Palo Alto, braided together in a way that at once builds the world we have today at the cost of a potentially better one.

Also, Emmanuel Iduma, author of I Am Still With You, returns to recommend three books: The Return by Hisham Matar, Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah, and A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo.

Malcolm Harris' "Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World"

The Arbor (Stanford) Live Performance Set (June 2, 2023) by Ray Hotate

Ray Hotate - The Arbor (Stanford) Live Performance Set (June 2, 2023)

March 15, 2023
Speakers: Allen Weiner, Bailey Ulbricht 

A discussion with Professor Allen Weiner (Stanford Law School) and Bailey Ulbricht (Stanford Humanitarian Program), moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023. 

Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University. 

Professor Allen Weiner is the director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law and the director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Bailey Ulbricht is Executive Director of the Stanford Humanitarian Program at the Stanford Law School. Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. 

With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran.

Human Rights Data Collection for Judicial Processes in Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy

March 16, 2023
Speakers: Larry Diamond, Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani

A discussion with Professor Larry Diamond (Political Science, Stanford) and Professor Michael McFaul (FSI, Stanford), moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023. 

Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University. 

Professor Larry Diamond is the Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. Professor Michael McFaul is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. 

With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran.

Learn more about the conference: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/conference-dialogues-irans-transition-secular-democracy

The Challenges of Iran's Transition in Comparative Perspective

April 21, 2023

A conversation with prominent Iranian-American business leaders Faraj Aalaei, Siavash Alamouti, Fay Arjomandi, Afsaneh Beschloss, Hamid Moghadam, and Shane Tedjarati about the role of dynamic entrepreneurship, the role of women in the future economy, and the impact of the Iranian diaspora on the transition to a future democratic Iran.  The conference was moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani and held April 21, 2023 at Stanford University. 

Part of the Iranian Studies series "Prospects and Challenges for Transition to Democracy in Iran": https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/initiatives/series-prospects-and-challenges-transition-democracy-iran

SPEAKERS:

Faraj Aalaei, an Iranian American immigrant and a 40-year veteran of the communications industry, is currently the Founding Managing Partner at Candou Ventures. As an entrepreneur Mr. Aalaei has raised several hundred million dollars for his semiconductor companies from private and public investors, executed several M&A deals and as CEO has taken two previous start-ups, Centillium and Aquantia, through IPO.

Siavash Alamouti is an Iranian American scientist and entrepreneur. He has held senior executive positions in many Fortune 100 and startup companies, and is currently Executive Chairman of the Board at mimik Technology in Oakland, California. Mr. Alamouti was awarded the prestigious Marconi Prize (also known as the Nobel Prize in Communications) in 2022. He is most known as the inventor of the Alamouti Code used in billions of wireless devices.

Fay Arjomandi is the founder and CEO of mimik, the pioneering hybrid edge cloud (HEC) company and has held executive positions in telecom, digital health, software, and augmented reality enterprises. Ms. Arjomandi is also a serial entrepreneur, investor, advisor, author, and advocate for women in tech and equality. She was recognized as one of the most influential women in Silicon Valley by San Francisco Business Week in 2014, was named the Edge Woman of the year in 2020 by the Linux Foundation, and received the Canadian Top 20 Tech Titans Award in 2022.

Afsaneh Beschloss is an economist and leader in the private, public, and multilateral sectors and has focused her career on harnessing the power of sustainable finance to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. A pioneer in climate policy and investments, Ms. Beschloss is the founder and CEO of RockCreek, one of the largest diverse-owned investment firms. The executive roles she has held, including the Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer of the World Bank, has enabled her to work closely with central banks and advise governments and regulatory agencies on global public policy, financial policy, as well as renewable energy.

Hamid Moghadam is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Prologis, the global leader in logistics real estate and a member of the S&P 100. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Stanford University and currently serves on the boards of Stanford Management Company, Stanford Health Care and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, he is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. In its latest ranking, Harvard Business Review voted him as the #17 Best Performing CEO in the world.

Shane Tedjarati is the founder, chairman and CEO of the Tribridge Group, a global investment group applying leading technologies to global megatrends. Mr. Tedjarati was a former president and CEO of the Global High Growth Regions in Honeywell International Inc. He is also a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and the co-founder of its Middle East Leadership Initiative and China Fellowship Program. He is a member of the advisory board of Antai College of Economics and Management and the industry co-chair of China Leaders for Global Operations of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Challenges and Prospects for Dynamic Entrepreneurship in Iran’s Transition to Democracy

Inspiring, vibrant, rap and marching band number about Retro making it into the Ivy Leagues as a person of color — despite bullying.

8. Ivy League (feat. Jasmine Tompkins)

Trust & safety as a concept, function and profession is relatively new - largely a creation of technology platforms connecting users around the globe over the last decade or so. But as an academic discipline, trust & safety is even less developed. In fact, just in the last few years have significant investments been made to develop trust & safety curriculum in order to train educators, teach students and advance the profession. During this episode of the Platform Podcast, Stanford Internet Observatory Research Scholar Shelby Grossman dives into the significant advances being made to study, train and educate about trust & safety, including through the Trust and Safety Research Conference, Journal of Online Trust and Safety, and the Trust and Safety Teach Consortium. 

You can learn more here:
*Trust and Safety Research Conference: tinyurl.com/trustsafetyconference
*Journal of Online Trust and Safety: tsjournal.org
*Trust and Safety Teach Consortium: tinyurl.com/teachingtrustsafety10

Leading the Academic Forefront of Trust & Safety

Hello and welcome back to AI Tech News Today! It’s February third, twenty twenty-five, and we have a critical update and some fascinating news in the world of Artificial Intelligence. Let’s dive right into it.

deepseek exposed user data, chat histories in open database. Researchers from cloud security firm Wiz discovered that DeepSeek had an unprotected database that left sensitive user information, such as chat histories, API authentication keys, and system logs, in plain view for anyone to access. The database was publicly accessible and required no authentication, raising serious concerns about data security and privacy.

berkeley researchers replicate deepseek AI for just thirty dollars. In response to the vulnerabilities identified with DeepSeek, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new model called TinyZero. This smaller-scale alternative utilizes reinforcement learning and is available on GitHub for public experimentation—all for the low price of thirty dollars.

openAI o3-mini: faster, smarter AI for STEM, now free for ChatGPT users. This latest model is targeted at science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, providing enhanced capabilities while lowering costs and reducing latency. Brought to you free of charge for ChatGPT users, it builds on the advancements of its predecessor while pushing the boundaries for small-scale AI applications.

openAI unveils ChatGPT deep research agent for in-depth AI analysis. The new Deep Research agent is designed for professionals in finance, science, engineering, and policy-making, offering a more analytical approach than traditional chat responses. It supports users researching significant purchases, such as cars and appliances, providing detailed analysis to facilitate informed decisions.

stanford’s virtual lab uses AI agents to advance scientific research. Stanford researchers are utilizing specialized AI agents to simulate collaborations among chemists, biologists, and machine learning experts. This innovative approach has the potential to accelerate breakthroughs across various fields, including medicine, climate science, and engineering.

That wraps up today’s AI Tech News! As the development of artificial intelligence continues to evolve rapidly, it’s crucial to stay informed about the implications for privacy, security, and technological advancements. Keep tuning in and remember: the future is bright for AI, so let’s keep our eyes on the horizon!

DeepSeek Data Breach Sparks Development of Affordable AI Alternatives and Advanced Research Tools

Today’s Youth is about all the sketchy things young people do to find comfort in the modern world. Drugs, buzz cuts, and the like. I was pretty eager to diss the “manosphere” - the guys online who say that women are beneath men and won’t shut up about mewing. The “redpill” is another name for it. There was a time when I drank that Kool-Aid, and I’m not proud of it. But you can always come around. I sure did. If you’re living in that part of the internet, do consider leaving it. You won’t find the answers you’re looking for.

Today's Youth

Darlings, I'm a hip-hop emcee with a pin-up girl aesthetic, a 1940's film noir style and a passion for God, diversity, women and social change. #Retro

The Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies fosters the interdisciplinary study of Iran as a civilization. Each academic year, the Program offers undergraduate courses related to Iran in such disciplines as language, literature, economics, and political science. It provides a wealth of events for scholars, students and the general public, which include conferences, symposia, forums, lectures and performances.

Listen to one our podcasts or check out our youtube channel to discover Iran!

Hi, I’m Ray Hotate from Tokyo, Japan, currently in California, USA!
My electronic music is a combination of the beats of EDM and the serenity of piano and other classical instruments!
Hope you enjoy my music!

現在Stanford大学三年のRay Hotateです！
2022年4月に東京大学理科三類に入学し、同年9月からStanford大学でコンピュータサイエンス(CS)を専攻中です！
僕の電子音楽はEDMのビートとクラシック(ピアノやオーケストラ)の穏やかさを融合したものとなっています！
ぜひ聞いてください！

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ray_hotate/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rayhotate

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh19mJ-APvnzDi18jWsnq0w

The Los Angeles Review of Books is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and disseminating rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts.

The Los Angeles Review of Books magazine was created in part as a response to the disappearance of the traditional newspaper book review supplement, and, with it, the art of lively, intelligent long-form writing on recent publications in every genre, ranging from fiction to politics. The Los Angeles Review of Books seeks to revive and reinvent the book review for the internet age, and remains committed to covering and representing today’s diverse literary and cultural landscape.

New tracks tagged #stanford university