I've had a great first few days with Abdullah Almaatouq teaching our AI and the Future of Workplace Analytics course here at MIT, and the terrible traffic on the way into campus has given me plenty of time to listen to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an amazing talk by Leeat Yariv on how communication and correlation shape outcomes in voting, auctions, job searches, and more at Cambridge Economics. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SQDH2DLhdw

Next was a fantastic talk by Mark Lemley on the implications of generative AI for copyright law, how the first cases in this area have played out, and possible paths forward for industry and the law at Stanford Law School. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRaq-3BZfNg

Last was “How Technology Influences Language” by James Pfrehm. With the increasing use of LLMs, it's even more important to understand how language and technology interact, and this series of lectures does a good job covering this intersection. The historical approach here is appreciated, with Pfrehm working through language technology history - from the development of writing to typewriters to social media - to illustrate how these new technologies altered the language they were initially employed to represent and transmit. I would've liked a bit more quantitative connection of spoken language and these changes, and some of the citations are cringe inducing. It might be a bit too introductory if you're already familiar with some of the research in this area, but it's still a good collection and integration of disparate research threads. Highly recommend https://www.audible.com/pd/B09D8L4KN8