The Anti-Dystopians

The Anti-Dystopians is back from its summer hiatus! In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dan McQuillan, a Lecturer in Creative & Social Computing in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths University of London, about his new book “Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence.” They discuss how the dangers of automated bureaucracy and algorithmic cruelty, what Max Weber...

On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Steph Diepeveen, a senior research associate at Cambridge University, research fellow in digitalization at ODI and the author of the book “Searching for a New Kenya: Politics and Social Media on the Streets of Mombasa.” They discuss the way social media use operates in Kenya, the difference between physical and digital public...

Alina Utrata talks to James Muldoon, a senior lecturer at Exeter University and the author of “Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim Our Digital Future from Big Tech.” They discuss how GDH Cole’s guild socialism can be applied to tech corporations, what platforms mean for the future of capitalism, whether we should implement local and democratic control of associations and some real ideas for how to...

On this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Paris Marx, host of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, about their upcoming book “Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. ” They discuss the history of the automobile industry, how Tesla is not a “green company,” why Silicon Valley is lying to you about the self-driving car and their vision for the future of public tra...

Alina Utrata chats with Nanna Saeten, a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge about her research on time, temporality and technology. They discuss how technologies of time have been used as tools of nation-building, why high-frequency trading and blockchain depend on human understandings of time as well as algorithms, whether technology is really “speed...

On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Jennifer Cobbe, a senior research associate in the computer science department at Cambridge University. They discuss everything that’s wrong with surveillance capitalism, what the Tesco club card has to do with the surveillance state, the incoherent approach of the EU to regulating tech, how Brexit affected the UK’s ability of to contro...

Alina Utrata sits down with John Naughton, a technology columnist at the Observer, senior research fellow in CRASSH and co-founder of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge, and Josh Simmons, a postdoc in technology and democracy at Harvard University. They discuss Elon Musk’s recent bid for Twitter, what it shows about the power of digital platforms and wealthy men, and how...

David Runciman is a professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the host of the critically acclaimed podcast Talking Politics. In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, he speaks to Alina Utrata about why corporations are robots, how singularity might have already come about, why we should think seriously about the political philosophy of Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs, and what technologie...

Alina Utrata speaks with Lauren Bridges, a PhD candidate at the the  Annenberg School for Communication  at the University of Pennsylvania who studies big data infrastructures and surveillance regimes. They talk all about Amazon Ring: Why does Amazon want footage of your front door anyways? How is this surveillance shared with law enforcement agencies across the country? Where does...

Alina Utrata talks to Dr Siân Brooke, a Leverhulme Fellow in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics and an associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and the Alan Turing Institute. They discuss gender, memes and hackathons: What exactly is a meme? Do geeks have toxic masculinity? How does gender and femininity get marginalized in tech spaces? And how do fedoras lead down t...

In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr Trishant Simlai, a conservation researcher studying the politics and geographies of wildlife conservation in India, who just received his PhD in the Department of Geography at Cambridge. They discuss wildlife surveillance in the Corbett Tiger Reserve, as well as conservation’s colonial origins, how camera traps can be used to uphold the patriarchy, and whe...

In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Rowena Squires, an ancient historian, asks Alina Utrata everything you ever wanted to know about Amazon. How did Amazon go from online bookstore to commercial empire? Is Amazon Alexa really recording everything you say? How was AWS cloud computing invented? And why is the Library of Alexandria such a good origin story for the Amazon Alexa? You can follow Row...

On this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Stefanie Felsberger, a PhD in Gender Studies at Cambridge University, and Muskan Shafat, an MS in Data and Society at the London School of Economics, about gender and technology. They discuss the myth of neutral tech, how technology is embedded in systems of oppression, why using a dishwasher isn’t considered “technological innovation” and whether some...

Alina Utrata talks to Dr Maha Atal , a lecturer at the University of Glasgow who studies the political economy of corporate power and was previously an award-winning journalist reporting on the tech industry. They discuss how the history of company-rule and colonization relates to the tech industry, how tech companies exert power in the Global South, why Silicon Valley’s “Janus faces” allows it to...

Alina Utrata talks to Dr Corinne Cath-Speth, a recent graduate from the doctoral program at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on Internet infrastructure politics, engineering cultures, and technology policy and governance. They discuss the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): What is it? What are internet protocols? And how can infrastructu...

This week Josh Lappen, an environmental historian studying at Oxford University, returns to discuss the climate crisis and tech companies ahead of COP26. Are tech companies’ promises of technological innovation really going to save Earth? Do we need AI for the environment? What does the German government have to do with the adoption of solar panels? And who really are the biggest impediments to st...

This week, Alina Utrata is joined by Mallika Balakrishnan to talk about the protests over the adoption of bitcoin in El Salvador. What exactly is bitcoin (and what's the difference between Bitcoin and other digital currencies)? Why has President Nayib Bukele implemented it as legal tender in El Salvador? And, most importantly, how will this impact the people in El Salvador? All your questions on t...

We’re back from our summer holiday! To kick off season 2 of the Anti-Dystopians, we’re zeroing in on some of the global aspects of technology—this time in Southeast Asia. Alina Utrata talks to Kyra Jasper and Andreyka Natalegawa about the digital landscape of the region, from Facebook’s relationship with the junta in Myanmar, from fake news laws in Indonesia to Huwaei’s plans for 5g to ASEAN Smart...

In this special episode, an audio recording of Alina Utrata's recent article in the Boston Review "Lost in Space" about the tech billionaires attempting to colonize space. https://bostonreview.net/science-nature/alina-utrata-lost-space Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod Link:  https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land License:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Hosted...

To kick off the new season of the podcast, Alina Utrata and Shikha Srinivas discuss space colonization and the tech billionaires in outer space. Why are Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk obsessed with getting to the moon and Mars? How are climate change and the quest to become an interplanetary species related? Who will unaccountable private corporations in space ultimately harm? Should we be afraid of cas...

This week, the Anti-Dystopians hosts Louisa Shen, a PhD candidate at Cambridge University who has written about the history of the screen. Louisa explains how the screen began as military technology in WWII, how the Cold War overlapped with the mass production of screens (and spying), and how interactive screens now make it seem as if we can see our computers—or maybe that our computers can see us...

Kyra Jasper, Josh Simons and Alina Utrata discuss the global dimensions of tech regulation. In this episode, they examine three case studies: Google and Facebook’s reaction to Australia’s new media law, and whether these tech corporations really “faced down a nation-state”. Facebook’s role in Myanmar, where the platform is the de facto internet, and whether the new military junta can shut down Fac...

Alina Utrata talks with Josh Lappen, a fellow Californian and environmental historian researching at Oxford University, who studies some of the most important technology there is: critical infrastructure. They discuss why hundreds of Elon Musks can’t (and won’t) solve climate change, the government funding and politics behind many technology entrepreneurs’ businesses, why low-tech solutions and in...

For this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Josh Simons, a PhD candidate in Government at Harvard University and a Labour candidate for local office in the UK. They discuss Josh’s research — what is machine learning and why is it (always) political? As critical information infrastructure, should Google and Facebook be regulated as democratic utilities? And do we need a whole new understanding o...

On this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr. Matt Mahmoudi, who just completed his PhD in Development Studies at Cambridge University as a Jo Cox scholar of Refugee and Migration Studies. They talked about Matt’s research about how technology is affecting migrant and refugee communities in New York City and Berlin, how seemingly innocuous technology, like free WiFi kiosks, can become de...