Policy Prompt

Is refrigeration really that revolutionary? In this episode of Policy Prompt, the hosts are joined by Nicola Twilley, author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, 2024) and co-host of the award-winning Gastropod podcast. They explore the “modern marvel” of enjoying fresh foods from around the globe year-round, and the science that makes it all possible.Mentioned:Nicola Twilley, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, 2024)“Gastropod. Food with a side of science and history”Further Reading: Nicola Twilley’s official websiteNicola Twilley, “How to Get Rich From Peeping Inside People’s Fridges” (Wired, July 1, 2024)Nicola Twilley, “How the Fridge Changed Flavor” (The New Yorker, June 8, 2024)Show notes: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located in Norway, is home to gene banks that are preserving more than one million seeds from around the world.A remedy for rampant food waste? Nicola Twilley and co-host Cynthia Graber explore “surprise bags” in an episode of Gastropod.Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].

Before Google and Meta dominated the digital landscape, the news agencies and technologies of the early twentieth century captured unprecedented influence. Join hosts Vass Bednar and Paul Samson in conversation with Heidi Tworek, a leading expert in international history and public policy from the University of British Columbia, as she explains the historic prevalence, power and manipulation of media and wireless technology. Her latest book, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900–1945, is available from Harvard University Press.Mentioned:Heidi J.S. Tworek, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900–1945 (Harvard University Press, 2019)Matthew Goldstein, “What to Know About Trump Media Now That the Election Is Over” (The New York Times, November 13, 2024)Caitlyn Becker, “These are the major newspapers that have and haven’t endorsed Trump and Harris” (The Hill, October 26, 2024)Further Reading: Heidi Tworek’s official websiteRobert Diab, “Google’s AI Podcasts Signal a New Era in Media” (CIGI, November 14, 2024)Devin Coldewey, “Generative disinfo is real — you’re just not the target, warns deepfake tracking nonprofit” (TechCrunch, November 12, 2024)Clips: PeriscopeFilm: “LAYING OF WESTERN UNION TRANS-ATLANTIC CABLE 1928 TELEGRAPH”KTLA 5: “U.S. House passes TikTok ban”PeriscopeFilm: “‘HOW TO READ A NEWSPAPER’ 1950s EDUCATIONAL FILM”BlueLotusFilms: “1950’s Vintage Pharmaceutical Commercials”BBC News: “US journalist Evan Gershkovich jailed in Russia”Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].  

Despite the complexity of formatting tens of thousands of characters for digital use, the race for ingenuity resulted in the revolutionary computing of non-Latin script and unprecedented typing speeds — feats that continue to shape the devices we use today. Join Policy Prompt hosts for a deep dive into the history of digital technology in China with Thomas S. Mullaney, American sinologist, professor at Stanford University and author of The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age (MIT Press, 2024).Mentioned:Thomas S. Mullaney, The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age (MIT Press, 2024)Tom Mullaney, “America has a rich history of innovation by Asian immigrants” (Quartz, May 29, 2021)Thomas S. Mullaney, The Chinese Typewriter: A History (MIT Press, 2018)SILICON (Stanford Initiative on Language Inclusion and Conservation in Old and New Media)Further Reading: Your Computer Is on Fire, edited by Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, Mar Hicks and Kavita Philip (MIT Press, 2021)Tom Mullaney, “Behind the painstaking process of creating Chinese computer fonts” (MIT Technology Review, May 31, 2021)Thomas S. Mullaney, “QWERTY in China: Chinese Computing and the Radical Alphabet” (Technology and Culture 59 (4): S34–S65) Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].

In this episode, Policy Prompt hosts chat with CIGI Senior Fellow and international human rights lawyer Susie Alegre, to unpack her latest book, Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI (Atlantic Books, 2024). Listen to find out if Susie has ever been fooled by artificial intelligence, what the challenges and the tensions of rights for machines are, and why there is a palpable lack of urgency around the adoption of fully autonomous weapons.Mentioned:Susie Alegre, Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI (Atlantic Books, 2024)“Machine learning cracked the protein-folding problem and won the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry” (The Conversation, October 9, 2024)“How good is the latest version of ChatGPT?” (BBC News, May 16, 2024)“The agony of Sophia, the world’s first robot citizen condemned to a lifeless career in marketing” (Wired, June 1, 2018)Susie Alegre, Freedom to Think: Protecting a Fundamental Human Right in the Digital Age (Atlantic Books, 2023) Explore further: “Human rights lawyer Susie Alegre: ‘If AI is so complex it can’t be explained, there are areas where it shouldn’t be used’” (The Guardian, May 11, 2024)Susan Ariel Aaronson, Susie Alegre, Duncan Cass-Beggs and Jeni Tennison, “Can We Have Our AI Cake and Eat It Too?” (CIGI, November 30, 2023)Susie Alegre, “Technological Threats to Our Freedom of Thought” (CIGI, September 14, 2022) Clips:CBC News: “Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data: Companies under investigation”TalkTV: “AI Girlfriend ‘Told Intruder To Assassinate The Queen In Windsor Castle’”Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: “Using AI to discover new antibiotics”The Jakarta Post: “Meet Sophia: The first robot declared a citizen by Saudi Arabia”Bloomberg Technology: “Microsoft, AWS Speakers Exit Event Over Fake Female Profiles”BBC News: “Scarlett Johansson 'shocked' by AI chatbot imitation” Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policyprompt Listen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].