Guy Fieri Is Back, Hot Labor Summer Continues, and the Ethics of AI Education

This is CityCast Seattle. I'm Jane Ceehoo, and here's what Seattle's talking about. Hello, CityCast listeners. Today, we're diving into the University of Washington's new AI minor, the seemingly never-ending saga that is hot union summer, and why Guy Fieri recently rolled into Seattle to film diners, drive-ins, and dives. If you're wondering why the voice coming through your speaker sounds a little less like Jane C. Who and a little more like a seductive public radio host with a velvety tenor. Don't worry. Jane is enjoying a well-earned vacation, and I'm regular Citicast contributor, Marcus Harrison Green, and I'm so thrilled to be filling in for her. In June, the University of Washington announced it was proposing an interdisciplinary AI minor with an anthropologist and a computer scientist in charge of the minor saying that AI wasn't just for coders. Joining us to discuss is UW professor and archaeologist Ben Marwick. Now, for someone who's only heard that UW is proposing an AI minor, what's your 30-second elevator pitch on why this matters? The pitch is AI is rapidly transforming nearly every field of human endeavor and becoming embedded in the tools and workflows and decisions that shape our daily lives. And we want our students to become responsible global citizens, informed experts in their field, and they need... To do that, they need more than a passing familiarity with artificial intelligence technologies. So they need to understand how it works, what it can and cannot do, and how to reason carefully about its ethical and social implications, including when and why not to use AI. Yeah, one of the things that you argue, I believe in the article in Geekwire about this, is that AI education is not just for coders. So who would this minor actually be for? Right. So it's intentionally interdisciplinary and we welcome students from any major who want to develop substantive literacy in artificial intelligence, not merely as users of the tools, but as critical and empowered thinkers. And so we are seeing throughout the campus cutting edge scholarship and AI from a wide range of disciplines. And we want students in those disciplines to be able to have a chance to. to pick up some expertise. Yeah, well, you talk about critical thinkers. I mean, I wish everybody could take this minor. That said, 10 years from now, what jobs are you thinking won't require at least some level of AI literacy?

Oh, that's such an interesting question. Just dust off my crystal ball and take a quick look. You're an archaeologist, so I know that you can predict the past with great accuracy, maybe not the future. I'm more used to looking back. So, yeah, it's very interesting question. It would be hard to imagine jobs that don't. not just jobs, but just doing things in people's everyday life, like budget and accounting and making purchasing, making consequential decisions in people's private lives, also an area where AI is touching increasingly. And we want our students to be well prepared to know when it's the right way or a good time to use it in making these kind of consequential decisions. When it's a good time to use it, when it's appropriate. and when it isn't. And I think time will tell which jobs end up in places that are very appropriate use it and which are less so. But we can imagine, for example, you know, history major going into work on archival or historical content. We can see a role for AI there. And we want them to understand how AI systems embed assumptions about what counts as evidence in historical archival research. Another example, a nursing student. You know, knowing how to critically evaluate a clinical decision support tool, not just whether or not to follow the recommendation, but how that tool came to be, what it was trained on, what populations might be underrepresented. And, you know, a social work student should be able to examine like an algorithmic risk scoring tool, for example, that might be used in child welfare or criminal justice. These tools already exist and already being used, and we want our students to... be able to make a reasoned, evidence-based argument about whether and how it should be used, what kind of oversight is needed, and who might be the cost when it fail. So we can see potential for AI in a variety of different career paths, and we want our students to be ready to handle it, you know, with expertise and with grace and humanity. Yeah, so basically the TLDR answer to that question is like, basically everybody needs to be AI literacy. It could be, yeah. I do want to ask because, you know, our city is home to some tech, you know, behemists, whether it's Microsoft, Amazon. Open AI has its largest engineering office outside of San Francisco. So in your estimation, does that create responsibility for UW to lead on AI education? Yes, I suppose it does. It certainly stimulates a lot of thinking among the faculty who are sort of, you know, maybe their neighbors work for these companies or their spouse or something like that about how to, what's the, how to integrate this into the student experience and teaching and learning and so on. But to be clear, the minor is not really intended to prepare students to go into working for those companies directly. Like this is a minor that... is meant to support the students' major studies in other fields, not computer science. So the computer science engineering school have their programs to prepare students to go into work for Google and open AI. But this minor is more about students who want to go into their major domain, like nursing or social work and these kind of things, and be able to be fluent and literate.

in working with AI in those major domains. So this is really for people who are not looking at a career in computer science and software engineering. You know, they've got a career path elsewhere, but they recognize there's a need to have some understanding of AI around that as well. Got it. Well, I'll say that one thing that stood out is that students of this minor, should this end up actually happening, will be required to study AI's ethics, limitations, and societal impacts. I know that there has been, you know, some criticism. Some folks are worried that ethics will just become, you know, sort of checkbox. So I'm just curious, how did that feedback end up helping to shape, you know, the... program proposal. Yeah, thank you so much for mentioning that these topics are very prominent in the discussions that we've had with faculty. Our group that is designing this minor have had about, we have about 18 different centers and units and departments across campus represented. So we have a really wide representation. of people across campus. And this is a theme that comes up from just about everyone. And so we have made this a kind of top priority, one of the key pillars of the program. You know, the first and fundamental pillar is teaching students to think deeply about AI's implications, limitations, impacts. And we have already seen faculty develop new classes. independent of the minor, without even knowing the minor was kind of in the pipeline, faculty already developing these classes for students exactly on these issues to help students become rigorous critical thinkers informed by a diversity of discipline. So this is very much on the mind of faculty, on the mind of students. And so we have kind of incorporated that enthusiasm and the intensity of interest on that topic into the minor as well. So I think it's very much going to be a substantial part of the student experience, not merely a checkbox. I know several faculty taking this very seriously in the classes they're developing to tackle this exact issue of like ethical and societal implications. I'm really proud of the way the UW community are kind of foregrounding this issue, I think helps to prepare our students to be, you know, effective, global citizens and kind of contribute to the flourishing of everyone. Yeah. I know you talk about it contributing to the flourishing of everyone. What I've noticed is that so often AI is framed as inevitable, but, you know, typically by folks who have a financial interest in it being inevitable. So I do want to ask, you know, your proposal has said that students should also learn when not to use AI. So can you please say a little bit more about that distinction? Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you. That's a great one. So one of our sort of, key ideas in designing the miner is that we do not treat it, do not treat artificial intelligence as an unqualified good or an inevitable force that we should adopt without question. And we look to our colleagues in the humanities in particular at UW who are quite involved in this process. You know, they teach us to dwell in uncertainty, interrogate assumptions and hold space open for speculation and critical.

critical sort of review. And so these kind of habits of mind are exactly what the miner is going to demand of its students. So understanding AI means not only understanding the sort of technical mechanics, but also understanding its potential benefits and harms, social and environmental costs, capacity to reproduce and amplify bias, effects on labor and creative practices. This is a particularly complex and interesting. area that some UW faculty are world leaders on, actually, and the ethical records of those who build and deploy it. And there's a lot of fascinating new ground being opened in good and bad ways on these topics. And students that are completing these mine are not only equipped to work with the tools, but also critique them and contextualize them historically, politically, and make these principled. arguments about when and where they should not be used. Professor, I do want to wrap up by asking you, and this maybe sounds like the setup for a bad dad joke, but, you know, where it can be computer scientists and anthropologists walk into a room to design a course on AI, but that certainly isn't a pairing that many people would expect. And so was that intentional? And I just do wonder how as, you know, the discipline, your discipline as in, archaeologists, how that also ended up helping to design this program. Yeah, so I sort of represent the social sciences more broadly in this task of designing the miner and getting feedback and communicating about that. As someone who's personally, like, deeply interested in technological change, not just now in the last five years, but over the last million years, you know, most of my professional work is on. stone tools of the last 100,000 years. And in some ways, the development of AI is just another technological change for humans to manage and adapt to and sort of explore. That's my kind of intellectual interest in AI. It's like, how is this changing our lives, making some things easier, something's harder? How is it changing our relationship with each other and with the environment? These are just classic archaeological, anthropological questions. And, you know, to some extent, Like many of my colleagues, you know, we want to be part of that change and try to shape it in ways that contribute to everyone flourishing from it. And so I think that's what motivates the faculty getting involved in the development of an AI minor. We all want to contribute to students having a meaningful educational experience and skills that are relevant and up to date and can help them find satisfaction in their professional development. Well, I know there are several people who are rooting for your success. Professor, thank you so much for your time today. It was a pleasure speaking with you. Thanks for the opportunity to join you.

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We are entering the dog days of summer, and that's got us thinking about live music and here in Seattle, labor issues. Joining me to discuss is CityCast contributor Chase Hutchinson and creative producer Sam J. Leeds. Chase, how are you doing today? Doing great. Glad to be here. Awesome. Sam, yourself? Hanging in there, you know, trying to avoid the smoke and staying cool. Well, Chase, it feels like the momentum of hot labor summer, if you will. is continuing with the strangers Hunter Polly reporting that the security staff at NUMOs had joined a growing list of recently organized workplaces in Seattle. Is this still the same labor wave that began a few years ago or are we entering a new chapter, in your opinion? I think it's a new chapter. I think they're all connected, but I think this specific wave that we're seeing in addition to being during its own hot labor summer is also expanding upon some of what came before because there have been labor actions surrounding the local arts community and Nemos in particular. But I believe this is like specifically the security staff. So I guess I would say it's its own new wave, but is connected to what came before as well. Everything's kind of building off of. what came before it. And Sam, I'll say, at least I've noticed, that it seems like Seattle's labor movement has been especially visible in restaurants, museums, music venues, and coffee shops. Why do you think we're seeing so much organizing in the city's cultural institutions right now? Yeah, it's a good question. It's funny, I was actually talking about because I'm a massive nerd, I was talking about this labor moment. No, Sam, no. Shocking to no one. Yeah, I was talking about this moment that we're in with my partner last night because I saw the news about the Nemo staff and just thinking about who in the city feels like they have the least amount of power in terms of the labor market and how people are going about reclaiming that power. I think that as our city's art scene is struggling and trying to figure out how to survive this particular moment. there's a real movement of people saying, okay, this is an opportunity to try building something new or something different. And maybe seeing like are the things that we grumble about, you know, in our group texts, in our staff room moments, in our Instagram DMs, like are those things we can actually change if we join together to do that? So I think we're really seeing that start to shake out in the city. Yeah, I was actually speaking to a friend who used to live in San Francisco. And obviously, you know, that's a coastal city that Seattle is often compared to. And he was saying that, you know, once so many creatives and artists were displaced from the city just due to the inability to afford to live there, that oftentimes you saw the fact that the more quote unquote capital P or even small P progressive politics started to.

sort of leak out of the city, including in union organizing. And so I do wonder, I'll put this to both of you, do you think in some ways creatives might be the last line of defense and best defense, if you will, when it comes to, you know, organizing around affordability and being able to stay in this city? I think that every... sort of union or organizing is drawing from like a long history that is not specific to creatives, but I will say that like, yeah, creative economy folks are oftentimes the ones that are connecting with people and making or championing art that is meant to bring us together. So yeah, I could definitely see that being part of it. But I also want to say like any job that you work, even if it's. completely kind of disconnected from the arts. There's a labor history there too. Like that, I would say every single kind of job in many ways over the last few months has seen that things have been getting dire and are like, hey, like Sam was saying, let's start begin talking to each other. And once those conversations begin happening, you see it start to open up new pathways. And now is extending to the creative economy too and probably will extend out further. I can't imagine this would be the last sort of action we see of this kind or last sort of union we see of this kind. I would only imagine after every single one happens, people in their workplace are like, hey, why don't we do that? Right. Yeah. I think to build on what Chase is saying, you know, there's obviously a long labor history in this country, but in terms of where we're at. We're at some of the lowest points of union participation this country has seen. And so I think every time that there's this resurgence happening, there's a sense of like, oh, is the labor movement being reinvigorated? And we have a long way to go, I think, before that happens. But I think seeing people start to build their own independent unions is interesting because it diverges from the real kind of entrenched power that I think a lot of like the older unions have. in terms of who runs those, who is making decisions within them. And I'll be curious to see how like sort of old labor power versus the new unions interact with each other and what kind of culture that creates. Friction does create motion, so maybe it'll be in the right direction. I sure hope so. That's it. What I thought was really interesting of one of the, you know, potentially unionizing security workers was. that they said safe venues start with safe staffing. Now, that seemed to, to me at least, that seemed a different framing than the traditional conversation about wages. So in your opinion, are we seeing more workers organizing around safety, staffing levels and working conditions, not just pay? Well, I was going to say pointing to the stranger story, which I would recommend folks go read, it sounds like there had been progress made on some of those pay questions and obviously always more work to be done. But they specifically said to the stranger that management wouldn't let the security team properly staff shows leading to the hospitalization of multiple employees. Many questions about that. They specifically reference a violent incident.

that sent a security manager to the hospital, and that after that, they started getting organized. So yeah, if you are coming to work, you shouldn't have to worry about your safety, and it sounds like that was in many ways. the big kind of rallying cry for the security folks in this case. I was just outside of Numos last night having a bite to eat. And it's a packed area and like you have to organize it and keep things kind of moving smoothly. And the last thing you would want to see is for anyone's staff or attendees be in a non-safe position. And so I think that that sounds like in addition to the pay and being able to live in this city, you also want to be able to show up to work and have it be a safe place to do so as well. Certainly. Yeah, I think Seattle is in terms of protections for workers, you know, we have a really high minimum wage. There is sort of a floor for pay. But I don't know if the same can be said for protections on the job in terms of just sort of like as standardized across all industries. This is sort of what you get in terms of like safety or the number of people that need to be working on the floor or, you know, whatever that looks like. And so I think. You know, if you go all the way back to like the jungle, right, which is my reference point for a lot of organizing and health and safety work, like it wasn't just that people weren't getting paid enough. It was also that like the conditions in which they were working were like leading to a lot of bodily harm. Yeah. It makes sense that people are concerned about that. Yeah. If you had an up in St. Clair. book reference on your bingo card today. Thank you, Sam. I should have bet on Polly Market. Anyhow. Oh my God, Marcus, please don't. Yeah, I was going to say, that's the opposite of what I think the book was about. We live in contradiction. We live in contradiction. We do. That is true. Anyhow. Moving on real quickly, because it would not be summer without some live music. And as the Gorge Amphitheater here in Washington is already one of the most iconic music venues in America, the founders have planned to add a 1,200-seat indoor theater and a 2,000-seat outdoor venue as part of a broader cultural district near the Gorge, with an expected opening by 2029. So you all, my first question is, why does the gorge need to get bigger? And what problem are these new venues solving? I would have to see the specific like books and breakdown, but it feels like it's possible that there's a greater demand or that they're specifically trying to provide.

a new type of space. Like when I think of the gorge, I don't think indoor theater. And I know some folks are like, I'm not really about that going out and camping or like being crowded in type of vibe. I was back in college, but I feel like now I don't do it as much. So this could fulfill kind of a different kind of lane in a way. And I think that that's kind of an interesting thing. And it almost is like a complimentary but sort of different part of the overall venue space. Not to get too dark with it, but... Oh no, please. Please. Even when I was going to the Gorge in college, there were issues with smoke and fires. And I do wonder if having an indoor venue is one way of sort of dealing with the potential need to close down campgrounds or move people indoors, like having a place they can actually direct events so that people can still see shows and not be in like smoky air. I wonder if that's part of the calculus. And then this idea of having like a district that's sort of like the concert going space around the gorge seems to me like it also provides opportunities for more hotels or lodgings to pop up and kind of creating like a tourism area around the gorge because I remember, you know, the last few years I went when Sasquatch was still a thing. It was already feeling like, oh, my God, camping for four days is a lot. And yet the options in terms of where to stay, short of knowing somebody who had a house out there, were kind of far and few between. So I can see this kind of creating a whole industry around the area. Yeah, well, let me ask you both this. Like, you know, I think we've all had experiences of driving out to the gorge. But would you actually make the drive for a 1,200-seat show? Or is the gorge only magical when there are 20,000 people are sitting on the lawn? I imagine for some people that might be the case. And it would depend on who was showing up. Like if it was an artist I really wanted to see, potentially, you get a bunch of friends together, turn it into a little road trip because it's not terribly far. I feel like one of the things in Washington I've discovered is like not a lot of people have cars. So any sort of trip feels further than sometimes things. But that's just an opportunity to carpool. together find find a way to to go out there together so i would say possibly we'll have to wait and see this is going to be i'm i'm always glad of like an optimistic we'll be here by 2029 and arts will still be there so i'm i'm like in theory supportive of an investment in sort of another venue space as long as it would be an accessible kind of affordable thing too Are they going to expand the Dave Matthews weekend into like a whole week? Is that the direction we're going in? Dave Matthews Month. Yeah. I'd say one can hope, but no. Well, all right. Well, thank you for bringing a little optimism chase. And we can leave that there for the time being. But y'all, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about which restaurants the one and only Guy Fieri visited in Seattle last week.

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Guy Fieri was reportedly in Seattle last week filming new episodes of diners, drive-ins, and dives with stops at Lupe's C2 Tacos in Ballard and local Tide in Fremont. Let me all ask you this. I mean, I know you all are huge, huge guy fans. You know, as am I, I think that I've established that. So, well, but this is not the first time that he has been here to film his show. So. Does this signify that Seattle has officially become a food city? Are we still writing on coffee, salmon, and reputational vibes that we earned maybe 20 years ago? I was going to say I never thought of Seattle as a bad food city. I always thought it was a good food city. Always like opportunities for more and you hope that like there can be new chefs and like people doing new stuff in different types of restaurants. Like always room to grow. But I would say with respect to Mr. Fierry and his flaming aesthetic. We don't need him as like a validation of it. Like if anything, him showing up here is him chasing what we kind of already had. If anything, I've been more of an Anthony Bourdain head and his sort of shows here, I think, capture the city and the complicated kind of nature of it, but also the excitement of it better. Yeah. I have not seen many diners drive-ins and dives, except I feel like when I've been in a diner, they'll put it on the air. Maybe it's just a loop. of their own show of it. I don't know. Yeah. I do want to clear it for listeners that that was not a double entendre that Chase used earlier in describing God. Anyway, Sam, if you had to explain Seattle's food culture to someone who's never been here, how exactly would you describe it? Wow, throwing a hard question my way. Okay, I think I would say it like this. Seattle, as we've established, is a city of neighborhoods. And I think every neighborhood has a slightly different food culture. And I think that can make it hard to navigate the city to like figure out where to go to find food. Because depending on the neighborhood, you might be able to just drop in somewhere random and have an amazing meal. Or you might really need to know where the spot is to go. You know, I have been on the show multiple times defending Seattle's food scene. I think we have amazing food here. You're an apologist for the Seattle food scenes. I am. I love eating in Seattle. And I think we have like some really, really amazing, you know, spots that have been around forever and some very cool new spots that have just recently popped up. And I will say, to Guy Fieri's credit, he has been here eight times. So eight different seasons over the shows. 55 season run. I was going to say it's something wild. But yeah, he's visited, you know, some classics like Vula's Offshore Cafe, Mike's Chili Parlor, Bizarro, Italian Cafe, Pam's Trinidadian and Caribbean Kitchen, which is a favorite of mine. And then also Woodshop barbecue and Sisters and Brothers, Peroshky, Poroshky. He's made his way around the city.

I would be curious, what are the spots that he would need to go for the two of you to take him seriously or to think that, like, you know, he's earned his credit. Oh, man. I think, you know, maybe the beachcomer in Skyway and to Lima specialties in Skyway, you know, I just, anytime I can shout out that. The unincorporated area that has a Seattle address, but isn't technically in Seattle, I do. And then I think that would showcase, oh, you really are. There's title integrity here when it comes to diners and dives. You know, the two out of the three things in the diners, drive-ins and dives title. So, yeah. I don't know if I would want to say any, because then you get nervous, it blows up. Don't gate keep, Chase. Well, that's a thing. The one I would have said is I would have loved to have seen venturing outside of the major cities. I spent time in Tacoma before moving to Seattle. And there was this diner I really used to like called Old Milwaukee. where there was like no seating available, so you only got to go there occasionally. But it was just a couple that worked it. It's now since closed, but maybe Guy Fieri could have given a bump to that. I don't know. I'm curious about what the diners, drive-ins and dives effect is. I would love to see reporting on that of like, did these businesses in Seattle see a bump from it? Does it help? Or is it just sort of like, oh, we've already reached a point where once you're on the radar of diners, drive-ins and dives, you've already made it, so to speak. Yeah, you do supposedly receive the guy bump. So. I don't want to, I don't like that sentence. I'm just repeating things. I'm just repeating things. As you said, Sam, I mean, Seattle is a city of neighborhoods. You know, this particular time, it seems. reportedly at least, that he landed in Ballard and Fremont. Like, where else would you want him to go? What Seattle neighborhood? In Seattle proper neighborhood, would you suggest that he go to the next go around for the ninth time that he's in Seattle? I mean, I would say he should go to Hillman City. Hmm. I feel like Hillman City is just full of amazing spots that maybe, you know, your average person who doesn't live in South Seattle isn't maybe spending a lot of time out there. Right. Also, Columbia City. Georgetown maybe. Yeah. Those are my list. Yeah. Georgetown is definitely the one place you can do like a pub crawl of 20 bars in one city block. I don't know if that's anywhere else in the city. So y'all, this is making me hungry. But unfortunately, we are going to have to leave it there. So Chase Hutchinson, thank you so very much for joining us today on CityCast. Thanks so much as always. Glad to have it be while you were hosting.

Oh, and Sam leads. Yes, you are actually paid to be here on a regular basis, but it doesn't make it any less pleasurable. In fact, maybe more so. Yeah. That's all for today here at CityCast Seattle. I'm your host, Marcus Harrison Green. Listeners, we want to hear from you. So send us your news tips, questions, hot goss, are your thoughts about anything from today's episode by sending an email to Seattle at citycast.fm. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail on the Citicass hotline at 206-8803931. Until tomorrow, see you, Seattle.