#AcademicRunPlaylist - 3/10/25

Author

Ben Waber
March 10, 2025

A selfie of me in front of the towering Corinthian columns of Philadelphia's 30th street station on a sunny day. I'm a bald, middle-aged, white man with a red beard flecked with white. I'm wearing glasses with a thick black rim and a dark blue coat over a dark grey t-shirt with an M in a red circle on it.

I had an enjoyable train ride down to Philly, and on the way I was able to listen to a bunch of talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a nice talk by Andrew Gordon about updating his seminal work on Japanese history at the University of Tokyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzbGstxASR4

Next was an excellent session on China's approach to industrial policy with Ilaria Mazzocco, Myrto Kalouptsidi, and Joanna Lewis at the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance (JCPPF) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1TAbvTvb3M

Next was a fantastic talk by Mark Zhao on systems for scalable machine learning pipelines at CU Boulder. While I'm not sure ever more massive ML systems are the way to go, Zhao's work on dramatically reducing inefficient data storage and ingestion processes is important regardless. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR6rdjBwyp4

Next was a thought-provoking session on the new era of industrial policy with Nathan Lane, Oliver Kim, and Christina Patterson at JCPPF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caJyhOCF0oE

Next was an intriguing talk by Anna Chadwick on a legal theory of prices at the UCL Faculty of Laws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd5M-Ed4DoY

Next was a great talk by Joseph Stiglitz on building a new approach to industrial policy at JCPPF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xL6iF47YU

Last was "Human Rights, Robot Wrongs" by Susie Alegre (👋). This book uniquely views AI through the lens of international human rights law, working through mostly consumer use cases of different AI technologies and detailing the human rights harms that come from them. This perspective is essential for anyone who is in the tech sphere or uses these technologies. The section of the book that resonated most to me was on care robots though - when a developer says that they developed a robotic dog because nursing homes can't clean up dog poop, Susie's response is perfect: "Why not just make a robot to clean up dog poop?" https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/human-rights-robot-wrongs/