Michigan Minds

Laura Aull, professor of English and linguistics and recent director of the English Department Writing Program at the University of Michigan, joins the Michigan Minds podcast to discuss "AI English," how generative tools disrupt the natural diversity of human speech and why automated hiring and housing systems inherit these linguistic biases. She also explores a largely unexamined downside to our rapid adoption of large language models: the massive, real-world carbon footprint generated by our daily digital conversations.Do you think people will care whether a human or a robot wrote the news or books we read?So far, humans care very much. And today I think we should care. And here are three reasons why I think we should. One is the environmental cost of the computer processing used with AI. Estimates suggest that if you pose a simple query to AI to ChatGPT, let's say versus to a search engine like Google, you're using 50 times the electricity for the simple query. I'm a serious scuba diver, and I know that the ocean should not get any warmer, and so I don't think we should normalize that kind of environmental impact.A second reason is bias. It's clear that AI English tools are biased against language too close to itself or too far away, so it penalizes some English users, including nonnative writers of English, who are more often flagged for plagiarism or more often flagged by AI detection tools even when they haven't used it. And those who use non-standardized dialect AI English don't know varieties from Jamaican English to Indian English.That leads to the third and final reason, which is that human and AI English are different. Human English has more variation and readability than AI English, meaning that human English has more varied kinds of dialect and genres and it is less grammatically dense and it's more humble. AI English is more formal, more impersonal, and more sure of itself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scott L. Greer, a professor of health management and policy and of global public health in the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a political science professor, shares decades of studies documenting the shaping of political engagement and poor health and negative health care experiences.Greer joins the Michigan Minds podcast and discusses the ways politics and public health are colliding to affect vaccines, preparedness to fight the spread of contagious disease, humanitarian outreach and HIV/AIDS programs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Climate expert Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, does not sugarcoat things.The words "scary," "depressing" and "devastating" come up when he talks about the impacts of climate change, including record warmth and drought conditions. But he also doesn't ignore how communities across the country and around the world are finding ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption.Overpeck joined the Michigan Minds podcast to discuss recent trends in climate news—both good and bad—and what people can do to stay resilient.Do you have advice for people who are feeling climate anxiety and ways to cope with that?We get that question a lot from students, but I think also fellow faculty. These are tough times in terms of what's going on in Washington, what's going on in our global climate. There are a lot of other things going on that we worry about, so I think what's important is to figure out ways to be resilient. And one of the ways is to really reach out to your family, friends and community to get the support you need. Another is to find things you can do. And there's so many things you can do.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Michigan Minds Podcast, where we explore the wealth of knowledge from faculty experts at the University of Michigan. I'm Jared Wadley, a lead public relations representative for Michigan News. Today I'm speaking to Oliver Haimson about the changing social media landscape. He's an assistant professor in the School of Information and the Digital Studies Institute. Oliver's research focuses on social media content moderation and marginalized populations, as well as the changing identities on social media during life transitions. Thanks for being here, Oliver.Oliver Haimson:Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Jared.Jared Wadley:Before we get into the topic, tell the audience a little bit about how you became interested in studying social media.Oliver Haimson:Yeah. I mean, I think I started where most people start, which is I was really interested in social media myself. It was I guess the early 2010s when I started doing research in this area, and as a social media user, I was just fascinated by the ways that people were using it to mostly talk about more sensitive content, how people were thinking about disclosure and how they were presenting their identities on social media. So it really came from this personal perspective. But I think in a lot of cases, social media researchers as they start to learn more about the space end up using social media less themselves. So I would say that nowadays I'm not the biggest social media user, but I am still really fascinated by it from a research perspective. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Michigan Minds, Pamela Herd, social policy professor at the University of Michigan, discusses issues of healthcare access and affordability in light of the slaying of an industry CEO, efforts of a university lab in boosting access and breaking down walls to social safety net programs, and finding common ground within a polarized electorate.Here's an excerpt of the conversation:The killing of a healthcare CEO on a Manhattan sidewalk has become, in the words of Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch, "a stunning moment of clarity about the state of American society." I'd like to ask you what Will asked his readers: Why did it take an assassination to raise an issue that was ignored in a presidential campaign?So let me preface this by saying that vigilante justice, which is one way to think about what happened, is never OK. The killing, the murder, assassination of the United Healthcare executive was not OK.That said, people's reactions to it and the kind of depth of the anger that we heard from people in response is I think a pretty strong signal that something is fundamentally broken in how we deliver healthcare in the United States. And that's what it really tapped into: People are incredibly frustrated in the U.S. healthcare system. We spend enormous amounts of money paying for healthcare, both individually out of pocket as well as aggregately in terms of the federal and state budgets. And people just feel like they're not getting their money's worth.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scott Rick is an associate professor of marketing at the Ross School of Business. His research speaks to how consumers perceive and experience inflation, how they choose what gifts to buy, and how they experience in-store and online shopping environments. He is particularly interested in understanding the behavior of extreme “tightwads” and “spendthrifts.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tony Reames, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Environment and Sustainability, just returned to campus from two years at the U.S. Department of Energy working on energy justice.The Tishman professor of environmental justice and director of the SEAS Detroit Sustainability Clinic joined us on the Michigan Minds Podcast to share his thoughts on how energy justice could manifest in the United States. His research focuses on disparities in residential energy generation, consumption, and affordability—centering on the production and persistence of inequality by race, class, and place.You just returned home from more than two years at the U.S. Department of Energy working on energy justice. What is energy justice and how is it manifesting in the United States?Energy justice is this concept that really looks at how do communities participate in both the health environment and social impacts of our energy system, recognizing that the energy system has had certain burdens on communities. And so environmental justice is really saying that all communities, regardless of race and income and geography, should be afforded a clean environment. And that the goal of addressing injustices gets us toward making sure that that's true. Climate justice also recognizes that communities of color, low-income communities are feeling the climate crisis first and worst, and that any action to address climate change should include those communities and their burdens.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Michigan Minds podcast, Timothy Cernak, associate professor of medicinal chemistry in the College of Pharmacy and associate professor of chemistry in the the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, makes the case for growing the field of conservation medicine and calls on pharmacists and medicinal chemists to "be on the front line of species conservation." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.