#AcademicRunPlaylist - 7/2/25

I had a busy day shuttling around Tokyo, but I did get to take a few breaks and listen to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an intriguing talk by Elena Glassman on using human cognition theories to design helpful AI-augmented interfaces at the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyK2pwukNwg

Next was a thought-provoking discussion with Xiao-Jing Wang on the past, present, and future of neuroscience on the Brain Inspired podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO8Mvqj1TnI

Next was a fantastic talk by Kathleen Creel on algorithmic monoculture, how it can manifest, and mitigation approaches at LIDS. I absolutely love the lottery approach discussed here. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h36XKNZlYiE

Last was "Off the Spectrum" by Gina Rippon. Rippon delivers again with a moving and rigorous investigation of the science of autism, its history, and how the field has completely written out women. Rippon combines personal stories, historical sources, and scientific papers to interrogate how autism manifests differently in women and why they were originally ignored by the progenitors of the diagnosis, all the way down to female scientists who initially identified autism. Rippon doesn't shy away from the complexity of categorizing a plethora of phenomena under a single umbrella, and she directly considers the utility and harm of perpetuating that diagnosis. This book is also a master class in deeply considering how science, metrics, and data operate and how one needs to think systemically about these factors to do good science. Highly recommend https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/gina-rippon/off-the-spectrum/9781541605039/