Audio Archives | Alex Taylor

A changing academic life

Alex Taylor — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 09:02:04 +0000

So grateful to Geraldine Fitzpatrick for spending the time talking to me and giving me the chance to put words to my still ill-formed thoughts on living an academic life. Such a privilege to be part of her podcast series, Changing Academic Life.

In talking to Geraldine, I’ve tried to be honest, finding space between my naivety and the intellectual environment I’d love to help build with the many amazing academics I work with. Find the podcast and abbreviated transcript here (along with some other great interviews: I highly recommend Ali Black’s).

New podcast with @alxndrt on research at the boundaries, moving from industry to academia, the labour of academia & the power of the collective https://t.co/E6ppqPQux6
— ChangingAcademicLife (@ChangeAcadLife) July 24, 2019

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Interview with Nora Young on CBC Radio Spark Show

Alex Taylor — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 12:20:38 +0000

I was interviewed just over a week ago by Nora Young, for the great Spark programme, aired on CBC Radio One.
In short, I try to give Nora a sense of how AI could open up some radically different possibilities if we were able to approach intelligence differently. I try to capture how we might see intelligence not in restrictive human terms (as stable cognitive capacities in the head/mind), but as something always emergent, always enacted and tied to the many unfolding relations we find ourselves entangled in. I see this to be a generative orientation to AI, building on ideas from Donna Haraway, Isabelle Stengers, Vinciane Despret, Sarah Whatmore and many others grappling with the possibilities of us extending our capabilities, of being somehow more-than-human.
If you’re in Canada, the programme is broadcast this coming Sunday afternoon at 1:05 PM local time (in most parts of Canada) and again on Wednesday at 2:05 PM. Alternatively, my segment of the show is available here, titled:

How should we
define “intelligence”?

I want to give a special thanks to Marcus Carter and the University of Melbourne’s Social NUI Centre for allowing me to share their amazing work with Orangutans.

Canadian public broadcaster

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IOT on Claude Lévi-Strauss

Alex Taylor — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:22:46 +0000

BBC’s In Our Time does it again with a wonderful eulogy to Claude Lévi-Strauss. There are some nice insights into Lévi-Strauss’ structuralism and specifically his predispositions to universals and comparative analyses. I hadn’t known about his disagreements with Satre; I can’t say it disappoints me.
(Photo ‘borrowed’ from In Our Time)

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