The Technically Human Podcast

Earlier this year, Consumer Reports, in collaboration with the Kapor Center, debuted " Bad Input ," three short films that set out to explore and to create public awareness about how biases in algorithms/data sets result in unfair practices for communities of color, often without their knowledge. In this episode of the show, I talk to Lily Gangas, Chief Technology Community Officer at the Kapor Ce...

In today’s episode, I sit down with Vinhcent Le, Senior Legal Counsel of Tech Equity at the Greenlining Institute , an organization that works towards a future where communities of color can build wealth, live in healthy places filled with economic opportunity, and are ready to meet the challenges posed by climate change. We talk about the possibilities and limitations of regulation to address ine...

In this episode of the show, I continue my deep dive into data, human values, and governance with an interview featuring Lauren Maffeo. We talk about the future of data governance, the possibilities of, and the catastrophe that Lauren thinks our society may need to experience in order to turn the corner on an data governance and ethics. Lauren Maffeo is an award-winning designer and analyst who cu...

We’re back, after a long and restful break, with a brand new season of Technically Human! In our first episode of the season, I am joined by a guest cohost, Dr. Morgan Ames, for a conversation with Janet Haven, Executive Director of Data and Society. We talk about the movement to root data and AI practices in human values, the future of automation, and the pressing needs—and challenges—of data gov...

Welcome to the final episode of the "Technically Human" season! We’re ending the season with an episode of the 22 lessons on ethics and technology series, with a conversation featuring Dr. John Williams about the global imagination of tech. Dr. John Williams is a professor of English Literature at Yale University. His work is focused on international histories of technological/media innovation and...

These past few weeks, as violence and instability have escalated in Sudan, I’ve had one particular conversation on my mind, an episode of the show that I recorded a few years back with Mohamed Abubakr. In April of this year, clashes broke out in cities, with the fighting concentrated around the capital city of Khartoum and the Darfur region. As of 27 May, at least 1,800 people had been killed and...

Today’s episode focuses on the growing field of compliance and regulation. Compliance is a field that is growing in importance at both national and international level. In the EU where emerging ethical principles governing tech have led governments to pass new laws, and harms caused by the tech industry have provoked increasingly sharp public reactions, companies have realized that they now must a...

Any long-time listeners of the show know that I’m passionate about accessibility and disability technology. Technologies that support the idea that we can have an equitable world, and that creating a more accessible world makes things better not just for the group specifically considered in that technology, but for all of us, is a key idea to me. That’s why I wanted to sit down with Suman Kanugant...

Welcome to another episode of the "22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology" series! In this episode, I sit down with Jason Edward Lewis to talk about how Indigenous peoples are imagining the futures while drawing upon their heritage. How can we broaden the discussions regarding technology and society to include Indigenous perspectives? How can we design and create AI that centers Indigenous concerns a...

Welcome back for another episode in the "22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology Series! In this episode of the series, I speak to Dr. Eric Katz, and we take on the common utopian mythology of technology as inherently progressive, focusing specifically on the frequent slide from utopianism into terror. We talk about the uses of technology during the Holocaust and the specific ways in which scientists,...

Today I’m sitting down with Talha Baig to talk about a new to me organization, the Integrity Institute. On the show, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about what I see as a new workforce emerging in the tech sector, of people working in jobs in the tech sector to try and understand, assess, and mitigate some of the harms caused by technologies. That’s why I was excited to learn about the Integrity...

Between 2020 and 2022, I spent a lot of time reading about ventilators. So did a lot of the country. News coverage of the pandemic talked about everything from the serious shortage in ventilators around the country to new technologies available that might help save lives by helping victims of the virus breathe. From the pandemic that started in March of 2020, to the wildfires in California in Augu...

Welcome back to another episode in the “22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology for the 21st Century” series. In this episode of the series, we take a deep dive into the history of how technology intersects with human rights. My thinking on ethics and technology has human rights at its foundations, so I was particularly excited to sit down with Dr. Jay Aronson, one of the leading thinkers on science,...

Welcome back to a brand new season of “Technically Human!” Today’s episode features another conversation in the "22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology" series. I teach science fiction as a way of thinking about ethics and technology, because I fundamentally believe that before we can build anything, we first have to imagine it. Science fiction is at the core of so many of our technological innovatio...

Welcome back to another episode of the 22 lessons on ethics and technology series, in a conversation with Dr. Judith Kalb about the growth of online education and technologies of virtual meeting. How have our human interactions changed with the introduction, and normalization, of online meetings? How have virtual technologies transformed our relationships to one another, and to the information we...

Welcome back, for another episode of the “22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology” series. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Lauren Klein about the complicated relationship between data, race, and gender, and what she calls “data feminism.” What is the relationship between data visualizations, representation, and construction of categories—and difference? How have visualizations constructed race and g...

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Nick Chatrath about the crucial role that leadership plays in the future of AI development. We talk about organizational culture, the very human leaders driving technological production, and why human independent thinking matters more than ever, in the age of artificial intelligence. Dr.  Nick Chatrath  is an expert in leadership and organizational transformation...

Today’s episode features a conversation with Medha Parlikar, about the ethics of the blockchain and cryptocurrency. We talk about the vision of what cryptocurrency could be, what dangers it might pose to our values, and what the future of cryptocurrency might look like in a web-3 world. Medha Parlikar is co-founder and chief technology officer of CasperLabs. She has more than 30 years of tech expe...

In this week’s edition of the “22 lessons on ethics and technology series,” I speak with Dr. Nassim Parvin. We talk about the ethical and political dimensions of design and technology, especially as related to values of democratic participation and social justice. How have digital technologies impacted, and how do they continue to impact, the future of social and collective interactions, particula...

We’re back for another installment of the “22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology” special series. In this week’s episode of the series, I am joined by Dr. Mar Hicks. This episode tells the story of labor and gender discrimination in the tech industry. Dr. Hicks explains the historical background of gendered technological production that has influenced the development of computing. In her historical...

In this week's episode, I am joined by Dr. Christopher Nguyen. We talk about the emerging concept of "human first AI," and the changing terrain of both AI ethics, and AI development. We imagine what a human-first approach to AI might look like, and what gets in the way of developing an ethical approach to AI in the tech industry. Christopher Nguyen’s career spans four decades, and he has become an...

This week, I turn my mic over to a guest host, for an interview with Dr. Jared Roach about the growing field of systems biology, an interdisciplinary field of study taking over the biological sciences, focused on complex interactions within biological systems. How can we update the study of biology for the 21st century? How can computational and mathematical analysis help us understand biological...

In this week's “22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology" special series, I sit down with Dr. Evelynn Hammonds to talk about how race and gender have shaped the histories of science, medicine, and technological development. We explore the divisions between investigations of gender within scientific and technological inquiry, and race within these same fields. How can an intersectional approach challeng...

This week, we continue our “22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology series” with a conversation with Dr. John Basl about how our relationship with tech is changing what he calls an “ethic of life, an ethical perspective on which all living things deserve some level of moral concern. Professor Basl is an associate professor of philosophy in the department of philosophy & religion at Northeastern Univer...

In this episode of "Technically Human," I host Chris Leong and Maria Santacaterina for a conversation about the growing pervasiveness of sociotechnical systems. You may not know the term "sociotechnical system," but if you've booked a flight online, tried to reach an agent on the DMV's hotline, or  tried to contact your congressperson, you almost certainly have interacted with one of them. How hav...