Leigh M. Johnson

Hotel Bar Sessions podcast: A brief history

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Hotel Bar Sessions, Philosophy, podcast, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

I can’t be sure who’s still regularly checking in on this blog, but those of you who are have surely noticed that I’ve shifted my energies from blogging to podcasting over the last year. Beginning in November 2020, I did a 22-episode run of my first podcast BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, in which I interviewed philosophers,…

Read More

No Exit: The Problem with Facebook’s Algo-Policing

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Artificial Intelligence, Emergent Tech, Ethics, Facebook, Politics, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Social Media, Technology, Technology and Human Values 1 Comment

On Tuesday, this blog– which I very much consider an extension of myself– was finally released from Facebook jail, after having been “inside” for more than a month. I was reported by a user (who I do not know IRL and who is not a “Facebook friend” of mine) for violating Facebook’s “Community Standards,” specifically the…

Read More

Black Mirror Reflections podcast

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, BMR podcast, Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

  I’m in the process of recording the first few episodes of a (limited series) podcast entitled Black Mirror Reflections, which will be released next week. I’ve written a lot about Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror on this blog over the years, I regularly teach a course entitled “Technology and Human Values,” and I incorporate Black Mirror episodes in several…

Read More

BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, Ep1: “15 Million Merits” with Shannon Mussett

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, Emergent Tech, Ethics, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values, Television 0 Comments

  I’m sooooo excited to announce the release of our first episode of BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast! As you may have heard– from my endless self-promoting on FB and Twitter– this podcast will be structured as a series of conversations between myself and some very smart people as we talk/think through the technology, philosophy, morality,…

Read More

A Conversation with Your Past Self

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson coronavirus, Online Learning, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

This semester, I’m giving my students the option to submit a video “Conversation with My Past Self” in lieu of taking the Final Exam. I was inspired by this video that I saw on Julie Nolke’s YouTube channel, in which she sits down at the breakfast table and chats with the January 2020 version of herself….

Read More

MEMPHIS VIRTUAL TIP BUCKET

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Ethics, Memphis, Music, Politics, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Working in Memphis Documentary 1 Comment

HELP SUPPORT LOCAL MEMPHIS MUSICIANS! To mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the Center for Disease Control has urged U.S. citizens to cancel all events of more than 50 people and to practice social distancing for the next 8 weeks. Cities and states across the nation are ordering all bars, clubs, and restaurants to close.  No doubt, the same will…

Read More

Studenting White Quarantined

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson coronavirus, COVID-19, Open Source Pedagogy, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching 0 Comments

I created this infographic for my students. Feel free to steal, share, edit, whatevs. You can also access it at this link.

Read More

What If You Were Gerald McGrew?: A “Rebuild the Internet” Thought Experiment

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Anonymity, Big Data, Ethics, Internet, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Privacy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

You may remember the story by Dr. Seuss (né, Theodore Seuss Geisel) from 1950 entitled If I Ran the Zoo, in which the pint-sized protagonist, Gerald McGrew, imagines the amazing creation he could bring about if he were allowed to run the zoo. If I Ran the Zoo is not only a great story about the never-before-seen exotic animals…

Read More

Why You Should Care That Artificial Intelligence Can Lie (Part 1)

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Emergent Tech, Ethics, Philosophy, Posthuman, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

Many people, myself included, are willing to affirm the near-future possibility of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or machines capable of performing all of the cognitive functions normally associated with human minds. The most important of these capabilities, not yet achieved by our extant “narrow” AI, is consciousness (sometimes, problematically, called “self-awareness”): an imprecise, indefinite, and…

Read More

Why You Should Care That Artificial Intelligence Can Lie (Part 2)

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Emergent Tech, Ethics, Philosophy, Posthuman, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

If you haven’t already, please read Part 1 of “Why You Should Care That Artificial Intelligence Can Lie” before continuing, because I’m picking up in this post where I left off in the last one. Again, the concern here is whether or not robots (AI systems) can lie. As I demonstrated in Part 1, there…

Read More