Podcast: The IDEMS Podcast

David and Lily discuss the possible effects that advances in AI might have on the world of work. It seems that AI has the potential to affect almost all work, but should we be worried? What skills do we value as a society, and can AI ever replicate human creativity?

While many organisations seem to focus on a small area of expertise, IDEMS is involved in a wide range of projects and activities, in a wide variety of roles. In this episode, David talks to Santiago about the thinking behind, and advantages of, embracing diversity in how IDEMS can have impact and add value.

SMART goals and principles are common monitoring and evaluation tools, but what’s the difference between them? Lucie and David compare the two approaches and their respective acronyms, considering when being SMART is useful, and when a GUIDE might be more helpful.

Lily and David discuss consciousness in relation to AI. Whilst there is a lot of popular debate in this area, can we really have a meaningful discussion without a clear definition of consciousness? They consider advancements in AI, ethical dilemmas surrounding sentient machines, and the potential future of human-AI relationships.

In this nuanced discussion, David and Santiago discuss wealth as a privilege, examining their own privileges in various contexts. Should we view aspiration differently in low resource environments compared to high resource ones? Is it always wrong to use the privilege of wealth to gain advantages for oneself and one’s family?

David and Lucie explore the role of academic publications for researchers and inequalities in the international research publication systems. Are there alternative models and possibilities for institutions which don’t have the resources to compete on the international academic playing field?

David and Lucie discuss the role of evidence in research and in our wider society. What is good evidence? How should evidence be used? The last decade has seen the erosion of public trust in facts – so what can and should we be doing differently?

David Stern and Dr Lily Clements dig deeper into the Dutch Childcare AI scandal, its causes and consequences. They analyse how this could have been avoided or mitigated and highlight the need for more work on the responsible use of AI, and particularly the importance of the human element in integrating AI to help in…

IDEMS supports researchers at a number of research institutions in low resource environments, and in this episode David and Lucie discuss some challenges that these researchers are up against. In challenging contexts such as these, unique opportunities can arise.

In this second part of the discussion of nepotism, Santiago questions David further on whether the win-win scenarios presented in the first part do not mean a loss for someone else and consider this in a local and global context. They delve deeper into other types of opportunities, how they arise, and consider how organisations…