Containing Big Tech

Audio of this conversation is available via your favorite podcast service. This episode features two segments. In the first, Rebecca Rand considers the social consequences of “machine allocation behavior” with Cornell researchers Houston Claure and Malte Jung, authors of a recent paper on the topic with coauthors Seyun Kim and René Kizilcec. In the second segment, I speak with Tom Kemp, author of a new book out August 22 from Fast Company Press titled Containing Big Tech: How to Protect Our Civil Rights, Economy, and Democracy. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the episode. Justin Hendrix: So this week we’re introducing Evidence Base, a segment where we highlight new research on the relationships between technology and people, politics, and power. This week we’ve got an interesting story about fairness and machines. And Rebecca, our Tech Policy Press audio intern is here to talk about it. Hello, Rebecca. Rebecca Rand: Hi, Justin. Justin Hendrix: So what do you have for us today? Rebecca Rand: Well, I think the best way to start is actually on a little tangent. I have a video to show you. It’s an experiment that was run by a team of researchers on Capuchin monkeys. Justin Hendrix: Okay, so now I’m supposed to watch this thing. Rebecca Rand: Yes. So you can see there are two monkeys in separate cages side by side. They can see each other, and there’s a researcher in scrubs. She has two containers, one with pieces of cucumber and the…Containing Big Tech