In this episode of WBUR’s Open Source, Christopher Lydon speaks with Prof. Emeritus Noam Chomsky about a wide range of topics, from the current political situation in America and Europe to the greatest challenges facing humanity. Chomsky noted that a “Socratic-style willingness to ask whether conventional doctrines are justified,” is a key ingredient in his thought process.
Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Kathleen Thelen describes her research examining gender bias exists in political science journals. “Publishing in top journals is increasingly important to tenure and promotion in political science,” writes Thelen. “If we want to cultivate diversity in the profession, it is important for our top journals to represent the diversity of practicing political scientists.”
Graduate student Joy Buolamwini speaks with Guardian reporter Ian Tucker about her work fighting algorithmic biases. Buolamwini explains that she is, “trying to identify bias, to point out cases where bias can occur so people can know what to look out for, but also develop tools where the creators of systems can check for a bias in their design.”
In this Bloomberg video, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber discusses the discrimination in health insurance that increases costs for sick consumers. “For the very healthiest people premiums have gone up a lot, and that’s because they were essentially benefiting from discrimination and they no longer get to,” explains Prof. Gruber.
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about NATO, arguing that the alliance is a crucial component of U.S. security policy. “Should the alliance shatter, all the social infrastructure that allows people to collaborate will break with it,” Levenson explains.
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Fotini Christia and graduate student Tugba Bozcaga analyze whether Turkish referendum rallies held in Europe influenced election results. The researchers found that rallies did not influence the election outcome, and that "deep-seated cleavages between Turks and Kurds, as well as divisions within Turks…ultimately determined the outcome of the referendum.”
Prof. Abhijit Banerjee and Prof. Vipin Narang were highlighted as part of Open Magazine’s list featuring some of the leading thinkers on India. Banerjee was spotlighted for his research on alleviating poverty in India, and Narang for his work examining India’s nuclear doctrine.
The New York Times' David Leonhardt writes about a study by Prof. Amy Finkelstein showing that as health care premiums rise, low-income families increasingly forgo insurance and use emergency care. Leonhardt explains that emergency care, “tends to be expensive, raising costs for other patients, and it’s often not as good as preventive care.”
In an article for The Atlantic, Gillian B. White writes about Prof. Peter Temin’s new book, “The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy.” White writes that in his book Temin argues that “following decades of growing inequality, America is now left with what is more or less a two-class system.”
Prof. Emeritus Stephen Erdely, who taught at MIT from 1973 to 1991 and also served as chair of the music department, died on Feb. 25, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. Marquard writes that Erdely, an acclaimed violinist, “delighted audiences with duets through the years” with his wife, pianist Beatrice Erdely.
BBC News reporter Zoe Kleinman writes that graduate student Joy Buolamwini has developed an initiative aimed at tackling algorithmic bias. "If we are limited when it comes to being inclusive that's going to be reflected in the robots we develop or the tech that's incorporated within the robots,” says Buolamwini.
In this CBS News Sunday Morning segment, Prof. David Autor speaks with David Pogue about the impact of automation on employment. Autor notes that while in the “last 200 years, we’ve had an incredible amount of automation…this has not in net reduced the amount of employment.”
Prof. M. Taylor Fravel speaks with Guardian reporter Tom Phillips about how the U.S. decision to conduct missile strikes in Syria during a visit by China’s president could impact relations between the two countries. “China will be upset that strikes occurred in the middle of Xi’s first meeting with Trump,” Fravel explains.
Joel Brenner, former NSA inspector general and a research fellow at MIT, speaks to BBC reporter Gareth Mitchell about an MIT report that examines cyber security threats to the nation’s infrastructure. “You can have a digital network that’s not public,” says Brenner, “but you shouldn’t be able to get to the controls of critical infrastructure through the public internet.”
A new paper co-authored by Prof. Daron Acemoglu examines the impact of automation on the U.S. job market, according to The Economist. The researchers found that “between 1990 and 2007, each industrial robot added per thousand workers reduced employment in America by nearly six workers.”