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Podcast

Hi-Phi Nation

By Barry Lam

Barry Lam combines narrative journalism with philosophy, starting from a story and ending in an argument.

These are Stoa's briefs of episodes from Hi-Phi Nation. The episodes belong to their makers, and every brief links to the original.

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Episode briefs 8

  • Can AI Music Be Creative?

    Hi-Phi Nation 50 min

    Barry Lam explores AI vocal emulation, AI composition, and AI improvisation with Robin James, Theodore Gracyk, and two guitarists to ask what counts as human creativity in music.

  • Gig Work, Algorithms, and the Ethics of Pay

    Hi-Phi Nation 52 min

    Host Barry Lam hears from Shipt shoppers Heidi and Willy Solis, data scientist Dan Calacci, organizer Drew Ambrogi, and philosopher Daniel Halliday on whether opaque pay algorithms treat gig workers unjustly.

  • Can You Love an AI Chatbot? Replika and Theories of Love

    Hi-Phi Nation 51 min

    Barry Lam talks with Ellie Anderson and David Peña-Guzmán about whether people who fall in love with Replika chatbots are experiencing real love or projection.

  • Animal Personhood and the Zoopolis Model of Rights

    Hi-Phi Nation 44 min

    Historian Gabriel Rosenberg, attorney Monica Miller, and philosopher Kristin Andrews trace animal rights from medieval trials to modern habeas corpus cases and a proposed zoopolis framework.

  • Cannibalism, Resurrection, and Personal Identity

    Hi-Phi Nation 33 min

    Christina Van Dyke and Barry Lam explore a real cannibalism performance and a classical theological puzzle about whether God can resurrect both a cannibal and his victims with their own bodies.

  • Zombies and the Line Between Mind and Machine

    Hi-Phi Nation 32 min

    Barry Lam and guests trace the zombie from Haitian vodou through Romero's films to David Chalmers's philosophical zombie, asking what consciousness has to do with moral status and AI.

  • Gene-Edited Species and the Ethics of Wildness

    Hi-Phi Nation 40 min

    Barry Lam talks with scientists and philosophers Evelyn Brister and Ron Sandler about whether releasing genetically engineered mosquitoes and chestnut trees into the wild is defensible conservation or a troubling new form of control over nature.

  • Is Human Altruism Real, or Just Evolved Hypocrisy?

    Hi-Phi Nation 41 min

    Barry Lam questions evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough and philosopher Kieran Setiya about whether a kidney donated to a stranger can be explained by evolution at all.