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Hi-Phi Nation

Slate Podcasts

Hi-Phi Nation is philosophy in story-form, integrating narrative journalism with big ideas. We look at stories from everyday life, law, science, popular culture, and strange corners of human experiences that raise thought-provoking questions about things like justice, knowledge, the self, morality, and existence. We then seek answers with the help of academics and philosophers. The show is produced and hosted by Barry Lam of UC Riverside.

Beschikbare afleveringen

  • Rise of the Music Machines

    On this show we explore three different AI and machine-generated music technologies; vocal emulators that allow you to deep fake a singer or rapper’s voice, AI-generated compositions and text-to-music generators like Google Music LM and...
  • Effective Altruism and its Critics

    Curtis is setting aside a large chunk of money to donate to charity, and it is up to us to persuade him where he should donate it. Luckily, philosophers, economists, and the nonprofit world have been thinking a lot about this issue in...
  • The Problem with Gig Work

    Willy and Heidi were both gig workers for Shipt, the fast-delivery app for groceries or same-day shopping. In 2020, they both realised: the pay algorithm had changed. Now, they couldn’t tell what a job would pay, or whether it would...
  • Love in the Time of Replika

    We explore the lives of people who are in love with their AI chatbots. Replika is a chatbot designed to adapt to the emotional needs of its users. It is a good enough surrogate for human interaction that many people have decided that it...
  • Living in a Zoopolis

    A zoopolis is a future society that philosophers envision where wild, domesticated, and denizen animals have full political and legal rights. What would that look like? In this episode, we look at how animals were put on trial in...
  • The Digital Future of Grief

    When Justin’s mom was diagnosed with cancer, he knew he wanted to keep talking to her after she died. So together they made an AI version of her, training it on her speech patterns and memories. Now he is scaling his findings so that...
  • Season 6 Trailer

    Coming April 11, 2023, Season 6 of Hi-Phi Nation will look at the future; of work, of love and sex, life and death, our relationship with animals, creativity in music, and philanthropy. Stories include people trying to create digital...
  • Cannibals

    In our final episode on monsters, we investigate why people who eat people are the funkiest people in the afterlife. We talk to a man who has actually eaten parts of other people, many times, about why he thinks consuming human flesh...
  • Zombies

    The second in a three-part series on monsters in philosophy. We trace the cultural history of zombies from voodoo folklore, George Romero films, and the zombies used in philosophical thought experiments. Folklore, film and philosophy...
  • Vampires

    The first in a three-part series on monsters in philosophy. We trace the cultural history of vampires from Eastern European folklore to Twilight, and even look at the practices of real vampires, people who seek out and consume blood or...
  • Memorials

    When tragedy strikes an individual, a nation, or an entire people, artists and architects are tasked with designing a public display that memorializes the event and its victims. But how do you do that? In this episode, art historian and...
  • Life, Edited

    The first two gene-edited species meant to be introduced into the wild are currently in their final stages of approval, with trials already underway for the Oxitec mosquito, and the ESF American Chestnut. In this episode, we examine...