AI
Artificial intelligence is not only a tool. It is the newest form of gatekeeping: a system trained on the data the past has chosen to preserve, returning answers in the voice of the voices that were already loudest, while sounding objective on the way out.
In The Cultural Context of Knowledge, episodes on AI examine NotebookLM-narrated content alongside a human voice telling the same argument, the danger of starting with AI at the abstract level before foundational understanding is built, the cultural context AI inherits from its training data, and what AI literacy that takes culture seriously would actually require. These episodes ask what changes when educators and learners stop treating AI output as neutral and begin examining whose voice the model is reproducing.
3 episodes on this topic, in order of publication.
018S2 · E7 · May 6, 2026
AI as the New Gatekeeper: Whose Knowledge the Model Was Built to SeeThe newest gatekeeper between learners and what they are trying to know is a model that fills silence with fluent invention. This episode names confabulation as a patterned harm — the model is most confident about exactly the knowledge traditions the written record under-represents — and asks what culturally responsive AI accountability, drawing on Ladson-Billings, Gay, Paris, and the CARE Principles, would actually require.
17:55May 6, 2026- 002
S1 · E2 · Jan 12, 2026
Learning Is a Struggle AI Must Not Skip (Non-NotebookLM Version)Dr. Easton-Brooks compares Episode 1's NotebookLM output with his own narration to examine a central truth: genuine learning is a productive struggle that moves us from uncertainty to understanding through a sequence of steps.
18:42Jan 12, 2026 - 001
S1 · E1 · Jan 7, 2026
Learning Is a Struggle AI Must Not Skip (NotebookLM Version)The inaugural episode, produced with NotebookLM to create a fully AI-narrated conversation exploring Dr. Easton-Brooks' view that learning is a productive struggle — a process of moving from confusion toward clarity.
15:08Jan 7, 2026