Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist John Markoff chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellow Nathan Matias about often-overlooked public interest questions and concerns regarding the deployment of tech platform algorithms and AI models. Specifically, Matias is a player in filling the two-way knowledge gaps between civil society and tech firms with an eye on governance, safety, accountability, and advancing the science — including the social science — of human-algorithm behavior.

Recorded before a live audience, Margaret Levi, Alison Gopnik, & Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss a CASBS project, "The Social Science of Caregiving," which is reimagining the philosophical, psychological, biological, political, & economic foundations of care and caregiving. The goal is a coherent empirical and theoretical account or synthesis of care that advances understandings and policy discussions. [The episode notes provide links for further exploration.]

Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist & 2017-18 CASBS fellow John Markoff chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellow Rebecca Slayton on how the field of computing expertise evolved, eventually giving rise to the niche of professionals who protect systems from cyber-attacks. Slayton's forthcoming book explores the governance & risk implications emerging from the fact that cybersecurity experts must establish their authority by paradoxically revealing vulnerabilities and insecurities of that...

Two-time CASBS fellow Fred Turner engages CASBS board of directors chair Abby Smith Rumsey before a live audience to discuss her new book "Memory, Edited: Taking Liberties with History." When the erasure or distortion of collective memory through storytelling hijacks fact, truth, and history itself, what kind of information infrastructures can effectively confront those false narratives? Turner and Rumsey explore the tensions between history and storytelling and resulting implications for...

Renowned sociologist Michèle Lamont (CASBS fellow, 2002-03) discusses her new book, Seeing Others, with former CASBS director Woody Powell. The book assembles decades of Lamont’s scholarship, engaging some of contemporary society’s most elemental challenges and advancing key building blocks toward a shared human experience marked by greater inclusion, belonging, dignity, empathy, and equality.

Fully understanding and regulating our complex information ecosystems will require creating new cultures and modes of collaborating, new organizational frameworks and, yes, working with generative AI models in service of aggregating actionable scientific knowledge. Angela Aristidou (CASBS fellow, 2022-23) thinks through the crucial questions and challenges with Phil Howard (CASBS fellow, 2008-09), a renowned scholar of tech innovation and public policy as well as co-founder and chair of the...

Dan Simon, a 2022-23 CASBS fellow and USC law professor, joins in conversation with Elizabeth Loftus, a 1978-79 CASBS fellow and Distinguished Professor at UC Irvine. Loftus is known in the public sphere through her decades-long study of memory – specifically, its malleability and fallibility – as well as her application of findings as an expert witness or consultant in hundreds of legal cases. Loftus's book "Eyewitness Testimony," completed at the Center, charted the course of her career...

While you're listening to this episode, 2016-17 CASBS fellow Jonathan Jansen likely will write another few thousand words. As a scholar of education & leader of education institutions, Jansen is South Africa's most towering figure. To call him prolific is a gross understatement. He writes a steady stream of books & more books. As a public intellectual he writes a separate steady stream of columns & essays. And he's written a family memoir too. We bring 2022-23 CASBS fellow Zimitri...

What are the most effective collective actions that social protest movements can or should undertake in the context of deep societal conflict and polarization? CASBS fellows Eran Halperin (2022-23) & Robb Willer (2012-13, 2020-21) compare their cross-national research findings and explore Halperin's real-time applied work with the dramatic, ongoing protests in Israel.

Drawing upon a career of scholarship extending from studies of labor, citizenship, and the state in Africa to explorations of global empire, colonialism, and globalization, three-time CASBS fellow Frederick Cooper – in conversation with 2022-23 fellows Jean Beaman and Martin Williams – gives a master class on how critical and relational thinking serve historical inquiries that advance our understandings.

Should we care for machines the way we do for children? The question helps animate this fascinating conversation between renowned psychologist Alison Gopnik, a former CASBS fellow and current leader of a CASBS project on "The Social Science of Caregiving," and acclaimed science fiction author Ted Chiang.

John Ahlquist (2017-18 CASBS fellow), Oren Cass, & Veena Dubal (2022-23 CASBS fellow) join in conversation with Roy Bahat to explore how we can build effective workers' organizations in an era of precarious employment, fissuring workplaces, distributed supply chains, & outmoded labor laws & regulations.

2022-23 CASBS fellow Rohini Somanathan chats with renowned economist, public intellectual, & 2015-16 CASBS fellow Glenn Loury. Having recently completed a draft of his memoir, Loury reflects on why he pursued economics; the role of institutions in providing intellectual space and stimulus; his latest thoughts on the persistence of racial inequality, and much more.

Three-time CASBS fellow and social science titan Robert Keohane chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellows Henry Farrell and Rebecca Slayton on applying aspects of his classic works in international relations theory to the comparative politics of climate change policy; projects that failed or went unrecognized; the genesis of the famous methods book coauthored with King and Verba, and more.

Former associate director and CASBS legend Robert A. Scott discusses the open-access compendium "Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences," a cross-referenced collection of hundreds of essays by leading scholars. We learn why Bob was uniquely positioned to shepherd the project. We also hear about his history with the Center, what makes interdisciplinary efforts succeed, and why volleyball is more than just volleyball.

How can scholarly researchers and government policymakers advance their collaborative relationships in service of generating evidence-informed outcomes that yield more prosperous, equitable, and inclusive communities? Panelists Jake Bowers, Carrie Cihak, Dan Hopkins, and Piyush Tantia join IDinsight CEO & 2019-20 CASBS fellow Ruth Levine in this enriching conversation.

Debra Satz, a 2017-18 CASBS fellow and dean at Stanford Univ., moderates a discussion on prospects for economic theory to contribute to a more equitable, dignified & ethical political economy. The panel consists of Elizabeth Anderson, Samuel Bowles, Nobel laureate Sir Angus Deaton, and Amy Kapczynski.

Legendary political scientist & two-time CASBS fellow Sid Tarrow discusses his new book as well as his decades-long exploration of protests, social movements, and contentious politics with 2021-22 CASBS fellow Edward Walker.

NBC News correspondent & former CASBS fellow Jacob Ward leads a discussion with Kristian Hammond, Daniel Ho, and Jennifer Logg on the role social sciences must play in developing safer, more effective, and ethical artificial intelligence technologies.

Don Norman, cognitive scientist, design legend, and 1973-74 CASBS fellow chats with 2021-22 fellow Piyush Tantia. They discus the evolution of behavioral science in contemporary design practice. From an early run-in with B.F. Skinner, to the study of neural networks and cognitive processes, his time at Apple, CASBS, and more.

Authors Roberta Katz, Sarah Ogilvie, Jane Shaw, & Linda Woodhead chat with Kat Tenbarge about their new book "Gen Z Explained" -- the product of a CASBS project -- which explores the values, perceptions, motivations, and habits of the generation that has never known a world without the internet.

Psychology scholar & 2020-21 CASBS fellow Vivian Zayas interviews David O. Sears, a two-time CASBS fellow (1988-89, 1992-93) and distinguished professor of psychology and political science at UCLA. The two discuss political attitudes and biases in the context of immigrant and minority communities, rural America, and social media.

Renowned pedagogical theorist, educator, & 2003-04 CASBS fellow Gloria Ladson-Billings chats with 2020-21 CASBS fellow Nuraan Davids about the history, progress, and challenges of creating more equitable institutions of education.

CASBS research affiliate Henry Farrell and former CASBS fellow Marion Fourcade engage in a roundtable discussion with danah boyd, William Janeway, Charlton McIlwain, and Zeynep Tufekci on creating a moral political economy of high-tech governance.