ΑΙhub.org
 

The Good Robot podcast: Lithium extraction in the Atacama with Sebastián Lehuedé


by
13 January 2025



share this:
Space scene with words Good Robot Podcast

Hosted by Eleanor Drage and Kerry McInerney, The Good Robot is a podcast which explores the many complex intersections between gender, feminism and technology.

Lithium extraction in the Atacama with Sebastián Lehuedé

In this episode, we talk to Sebastián Lehuedé, a Lecturer in Ethics, AI, and Society at King’s College London. We talk about data activism in Chile, how water-intensive lithium extraction affects people living in the Atacama desert, the importance of reflexive research ethics, and an accidental Sunday afternoon shot of tequila.

Listen to the episode here:

Sebastián’s research focuses on the governance of digital technologies from a global social justice perspective. His current project, AI’s Nature, explores the connection between Artificial Intelligence and environmental justice. In this work, he has engaged with urban, peasant and Indigenous communities in Chile and Colombia mobilising against a data centre project, resisting lithium extraction and participating in AI-centred conservationist initiatives. His previous project, Scientific Data Colonialism, examined the governance of astronomy data in Chile. Sebastián’s approach combines ethnographic methods, political ecology and decolonial thought. He has also contributed to conceptual development on data friction, digital sovereignty and reflexivity in critical data studies.

You can find the episode reading list and transcript here.

About The Good Robot Podcast

Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry McInerney are Research Associates at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, where they work on the Mercator-Stiflung funded project on Desirable Digitalisation. Previously, they were Christina Gaw Postdoctoral Researchers in Gender and Technology at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies. During the COVID-19 pandemic they decided to co-found The Good Robot Podcast to explore the many complex intersections between gender, feminism and technology.




The Good Robot Podcast

            AUAI is supported by:



Subscribe to AIhub newsletter on substack



Related posts :

#AAAI2026 invited talk: Yolanda Gil on improving workflows with AI

  28 Apr 2026
Former AAAI president on using AI to help communities of scientists better streamline their research.

Maryna Viazovska’s proofs of sphere packing formalized with AI

  27 Apr 2026
Formalization achieved through a collaboration between mathematicians and artificial intelligence tools.

Interview with Deepika Vemuri: interpretability and concept-based learning

  24 Apr 2026
Find out more about Deepika's research bridging the gap between data-driven models and symbolic learning.

As a ‘book scientist’ I work with microscopes, imaging technologies and AI to preserve ancient texts

  23 Apr 2026
Using an array of technologies to recover, understand and preserve many valuable ancient texts.

Sony AI table tennis robot outplays elite human players

  22 Apr 2026
New robot and AI system has beaten professional and elite table tennis players.

Causal models for decision systems: an interview with Matteo Ceriscioli

  21 Apr 2026
How can we integrate causal knowledge into agents or decision systems to make them more reliable?

A model for defect identification in materials

  20 Apr 2026
A new model measures defects that can be leveraged to improve materials’ mechanical strength, heat transfer, and energy-conversion efficiency.

‘Probably’ doesn’t mean the same thing to your AI as it does to you

  17 Apr 2026
Are you sure you and the AI chatbot you’re using are on the same page about probabilities?



AUAI is supported by:







Subscribe to AIhub newsletter on substack




 















©2026.02 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence