The Technically Human Podcast

Welcome to another interview in the "22 Lessons in Ethics and Technology" series! In this episode, I speak with Dr. Pavel Cenkl, about the need for intellectual diversity and multidimensional approaches to technological solutions to the major problems of our time. Professor Cenkl discusses how the major problems we face require that we bring together people trained in a wide variety of approaches....

Welcome to our 3rd episode of the "22 Lessons on Ethical Technology" series! We will be releasing new episodes in the series every first and second Friday of the month through the duration of the series. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. N. Kate Hayles, one of the founding theorists of posthumanism, a key term to understanding the changing and dynamic relationship between humans and machines in...

In this episode of "Technically Human," I give my mic over to two guest hosts, David Geitner and Roman Rosser, to interview Dr. Robert Pearl about the intersection between tech, medicine, and our health. Dr. Pearl answers questions about the way that technologies are radically reshaping health care; the hosts ask questions about bias in medicine; and the group discusses the ways in which our curre...

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Michael Huth to talk about the ethics of data collection, privacy, and the new age of “privacism.” We talk about his new platform, Xayn , we discuss what it looks like to build a company based on ethical principles like privacy and user autonomy, and Michael explains why we should care about our privacy online. Professor Michael Huth is Co-Founder and Chief Res...

Welcome to our 2nd episode of the "22 Lessons on Ethical Technology" series! In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Mark Coeckelbergh, one of the world's leading experts on ethics and technology, in particular robotics and artificial intelligence. We talk about the way that technologies are changing our understanding of ethics and philosophical thinking, how technologies have added to and altered ph...

Welcome to our very first episode of the "22 Lessons on Ethical Technology" series!   In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Herman Tavani to introduce some of the foundational principles of ethical technology, particularly in computing and digital contexts. We focus on how the current need for an ethics of technology developed, and the debates and key moments that gave rise to the current debates a...

In this episode of “Technically Human,” I interview Gary Bengier, the author of the award-winning science fiction novel, Unfettered Journey. We talk about the relationship between his prior work as a technologist, and his current career as a writer of science fiction; we talk about the relationship between technology, philosophy, and science fiction; and we talk about the possibility of making mor...

Welcome back to a new season of “Technically Human!” To kick off the year, I wanted to start out with a topic that has been coming up for me increasingly as I talk to people in Silicon Valley: free will.   OK, so I know it might seem a bit odd for a show about ethics and technology to feature what might seem like a purely philosophical concept. But spending time talking to folks in the tech scene,...

Hey Technically Human listeners! We’re very excited to introduce a special series of episodes that we’ll run throughout the year—“22 Lessons on Ethical Technology for the 21st Century.” The series features 22 of the most important thinkers at the intersection of tech, ethics, and human values, from around the world. In the series, I speak with Kate Hayles about how we became posthuman. I sit down...

**RE-RELEASE** Ok, ok ok. So I know I said that we weren’t releasing episodes until September. But this week, we learned that one of our previous guests, Steven Olikara, former Millennial Action Project CEO and current candidate for US Senate, just got one step closer to winning his bid to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for the 2022 election. Steven is campaigning in Wisconsin for a critica...

For our last episode of the season, I sit down with Rebekah Tweed to talk about the topic that has animated my research for the past year: The future of what I have been calling the new profession of ethical technology. As listeners may know, for the past year I have led a team of researchers for the National Science Foundation to explore this new profession, to assess what it means, and to proact...

In this episode, I talk to Dr. John Cooley, the Founder and Chief of Products of Nanoramic Laboratories , a company reinventing the transportation industry with new battery technologies to replace fossil fuel consumption in our car economy. We talk about the relationship between ethical innovation and financial success, the state of the auto industry's transition to battery power, the controversia...

This week, I’ll turn the mic over to two guest hosts, for a conversation about mental health and technology with Dr. Elizabeth Barrett, licensed family-marriage counselor, author, and Cal Poly professor. Cal Poly “Technically Human” students Katelyn Travis and Katrina Loye interview Dr. Barrett to discuss the modern implications of digital technologies for family and romantic dynamics. The episode...

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the technology of “Clean Meat,” with Paul Shapiro. We talk about the ethics of eating non-human animals, the technological history that led to factory farming and the technology that is allowing human animals to eat meat, in what we might call the "Clean Meat" revolution--a term that nods to the clean energy revolution that has transformed the energy secto...

This week's episode is the second episode of a 2 part series of Technically Human. Over the next two episodes, I speak with six women/nonbinary/trans individuals about their experiences transitioning into the tech industry after leaving established careers. They share their stories about what led them to decide to leave their established careers and retrain as technologists through the Grace Hoppe...

This week's episode is the first of a 2 part series of Technically Human. Over the next two episodes, I speak with six women/nonbinary/trans individuals about their experiences transitioning into the tech industry after leaving established careers. They share their stories about what led them to decide to leave their established careers and retrain as technologists through the Grace Hopper Coding...

In this episode of “Technically Human” I talk to Dov Maisel, the cofounder of United Hatzalah , an organization that leverages technologies to provide disaster relief around the world when crisis strikes—in Haiti, Florida, Nepal, Israel, and right now, in the devastating war in Ukraine. We talk about United Hatzalah’s ethic of providing free emergency care to all people, regardless of race, religi...

In this episode, I interview Prateek Joshi, Founder and CEO of Plutoshift. We talk about the importance of local and cultural knowledge in a global tech economy, the ethical obligations of technological producers in the West to technological development in developing countries, and how AI transforming the landscape of the developing world. Prateek Joshi is the Founder and CEO of Plutoshift , a com...

In this episode, Dr. Pallavi Banerjee joins me to talk about her new book, The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families and the Failures of Dependent-Visa Program. We talk about the role of immigrants in American tech culture, the challenges that immigrants coming to the U.S. to work face in the immigration process, and the need to think about what "tech" is, beyond our just technol...

We are back, with another season of “Technically Human.” For our first episode of the season, we're bringing you a conversation with Dr. Steven Kelts . We talk about corporate ethics, we debate the role of values in tech culture, and Steven plays "optimistic cop" to my "cynical cop," to argue that he's hopeful for, and excited about, the future of ethics in tech culture. Steven Kelts is a politica...

Today’s episode is the final episode of our season. The episode features a very special conversation, one that I have wanted to have since I started the show two years ago. In the episode, I sit down with Manjula Padmanabhan. We talk about her play,  Harvest , and the connection between market demand in the West and body supply in the global South, and we discuss the relationship between organ don...

In this episode, I chat with Christopher Willis, the Chief Marketing Officer of Acrolinx. We discuss how our digital and globally connected world is posing new challenges for—and new ways of thinking about or solving—how we talk to one another across cultures, across language barriers, across national boundaries, and we talk about just how human language is, in an age where AI can do a lot of the...

In this episode of “Technically Human,” I sit down with Dr. Eric Daimler. We talk about one of the biggest technology problems facing us today—data deluge—and how new computational models and theories can help solve it and, Dr. Daimler weighs in on the gaps, differences, and possibilities for collaboration between policy, industry, and academia. And we talk about what a vision of “AI for Good” mig...

In this episode, I sit down with science fiction writer, essayist, innovator, and cultural icon PJ Manney. We talk about the relationship between literature and empathy, the feedback loops between science fiction imagining and technological production, and how art is, and always has been, a technology.  PJ Manney is the author of the bestselling and Philip K. Dick Award-nominated science fiction t...

For the final episode of our 3 part series on democracy and technology, I am bringing you a conversation with Professor Chimène Keitner on cyber interference in democratic elections, and international law. We talk about the challenges and shortcomings of international legal structures in recognizing and responding to cyber interference in democratic processes, we discuss the way that democracies a...