PODCAST · technology
The Technically Human Podcast
by Deb Donig
Technically Human is a podcast about ethics and technology where I ask what it means to be human in the age of tech. Each week, I interview industry leaders, thinkers, writers, and technologists and I ask them about how they understand the relationship between humans and the technologies we create. We discuss how we can build a better vision for technology, one that represents the best of our human values.
Episodes
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The Humanitarian Case for AI -- With the IRC's Jeannie Annan
Last week, the International Rescue Committee published an article titled “I’m a Humanitarian Leader Who’s All In on AI. Here’s Why,” written by its Senior Vice President and Chief Research and Innovation Officer, Jeannie Annan. Annan argues that humanitarian organizations have a moral obligation...
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Math Problems -- What Is a Mathematician For in the Age of AI? With Noah Giansiracusa
What happens to mathematics when doing mathematics is no longer an exclusively human activity? For years, we've watched artificial intelligence get progressively better at math: solving equations, passing exams, succeeding at mathematical competitions, and generating proofs. But recent…
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Who Controls the Open Web? — with Shane Evans, CEO of Zyte
What does it mean for the web to be open—and open to whom? For most of the web’s history, we’ve operated on a fairly simple assumption: if you put something on a public website, people could find it, search engines could index it, and information could move relatively freely across the internet....
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Technology in an Emergency — with Watch Duty's Dave Merritt
My guest today is Dave Merritt, cofounder and Chief Technology Officer of Watch Duty. Founded in 2021, Watch Duty is a nonprofit emergency-information platform that provides real-time, verified intelligence about wildfires and floods across all 50 states. Its network of active and retired...
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Social Media’s Big Tobacco Moment — with Yaël Eisenstat
In the wake of this week’s landmark $18 billion settlement with Meta, we’re bringing you an episode with Yaël Eisenstat, one of the leading thinkers on the issues at the heart of that case — and the many other recent legal challenges that may be fundamentally changing how we think about the power...
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How to build a protopian future -- With Monika Bielskyte
My conversation today is with Monika Bielskyte, a futurist, foresight strategist, speculative designer and founder of Protopia Futures. She developed the Protopia World Stack, a science-informed, life-centric foresight methodology. Protopia is an Inclusive future vision based on evolved values,...
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Design Thinking in the Age of AI with Jess Holbrook
On this episode I’m joined by Jess Holbrook, Head of UX Research for Microsoft AI. We talk about what UX research can—and cannot—tell us about what people need; why user-centered design may be too individualistic for technologies whose effects extend across families, workplaces, communities, and...
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Who Owns the Open Web? Data Infrastructure, AI, and the Politics of Access
Today I’m speaking with Dana Mazia, General Manager of the Bright Initiative by Bright Data, which provides nonprofits, academic institutions, and public bodies with pro bono access to public web data and expertise. Dana is a lawyer, social entrepreneur, and World Economic Forum Global Shaper…
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Meat, Technology, and the Future of Food: Bruce Friedrich and the Next Agriculural Revolution
Today I am interviewing Bruce Friedrich, the author of the newly published book "Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity's Favorite Food―and Our Future." Bruce Friedrich is the president and founder of the Good Food Institute, one of the leading think tanks working to...
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Do Filmmakers Dream of Electric Cinema? AI, Authorship, and the Future of Film with Aleem Hossain
My guest for this episode is Professor Aleem Hossain, a writer and director working across science fiction, fantasy, experimental cinema, and television. His feature film After We Leave won Best Feature Film at the Sci-Fi-London film festival and Best Director at the Berlin Sci-Fi festival, and…
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Ruthless About Safety
Globally, 8 billion people will experience trauma in their lifetime. Ninety-three percent of those in crisis will not receive adequate care. The barriers are familiar: cost, stigma, language, geography, workforce shortages. What is less familiar is someone actually building technology to address...
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Fact checking fake news -- with Avi Tuschman
My guest today is Avi Tuschman, founder and CEO of Crickit.ai, an AI tool that live fact-checks social media videos. It’s a visionary technology that analyzes and verifies claims made on videos shared on social media platforms in real time. Crickit.ai aims to help people make smarter, healthier...
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Building the Guardrails for AI — with Miranda Bogen
After a year away writing my book, I'm back with more of the conversations that got me through it — starting with Miranda Bogen, founding Director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's AI Governance Lab and CDT's Chief Technologist. Miranda has spent her career at the intersection of AI,...
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High Tech Society: IEEE's vision for ethical technological advancement
In this episode of the show, I speak with Tom Coughlin, the standing President and CEO of IEEE, the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. We discuss the IEEE's vision of technological innovatinon, what it really means to...
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Debugging Division: The Architecture of Bridge-Building Social Media
Today we are bringing you a conversation featuring one technologist who is rethinking and reshaping social media—to build platforms that spark empathy and joy, not division and hate. Vardon Hamdiu is the co-founder and head of Sparkable, a young nonprofit organization that builds a social media...
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The Algorithm as Witness: Reimagining Holocaust Memory in the Digital Age
In this episode of "Technically Human," I bring you a conversation with one of the great thinkers working at the intersection of ethics and technology, Professor Todd Presner, for an episode about his new book, Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory. In the conversation,...
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Game On, Hate Off: Navigating the Virtual Frontier
In this week's episode of the show, I speak with Daniel Kelley about the culture of online gaming, and the unique set of challenges in the gaming space, related to hate, harassment, and extremism. We talk about the possibilities, and limitations, of regulating that space, and what the landscape…
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Art, Tech, Self: Untangling the Human Algorithm
Hi Technically Human listeners! Welcome back to another episode of the show. Today I'm sitting down with Alva Noë. We talk about his new book, The Entanglement, and the relationship between technology, philosophy, and art. In The Entanglement, Professor Noë explores the inseparability of life…
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The QWERTY Keyboard and the Chinese Computer
In this episode of the show, I speak with Dr. Thomas Mullaney about his new book, The Chinese Computer. In the book, Dr. Mullaney outlines the history and evolution of Chinese language computing technology, and explores how the technology of the QWERTY keyboard changed this history of computing.…
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Agree to Disagree: Are we living in an age of techno-pessimism?
Hi Technically Human Listeners! After a long summer break we are back with a brand season and brand new episodes of the show! To kick off the season, we are bringing you an episode that I’m calling “agree to disagree,” with two guests, Robert D. Atkinson and David Moschella, who join me to argue...
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The Ethics and Technology of Teams in the Age of AI
Today I’m speaking with Projjal Ghatak, CEO & Co-Founder At Onloop, about the ethics of teamwork, collaboration, and providing constructive feedback. Projjal founded OnLoop in 2020 to create a category called Collaborative Team Development (CTD) to fundamentally reinvent how hybrid teams are...
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Ethics Works: A day in the life of an ethics worker in tech
In this episode of the show, I speak with Sarah Fairweather about what it is like to be an ethics worker. We talk about how ethical work can sync up with business practices, how to develop a culture of ethics in industry, and Sarah talks me through what it is like to practice ethics as a day job....
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Feel the Burn: A new novel explores the financial crisis in tech
In this episode of the show, I sit down with author Mike Trigg about his new novel, Burner. Mike Trigg is an author, a novelist, a tech executive, a tech founder, and an investor in dozens of technology start-up companies for over twenty-five years. His first novel, Bit Flip, was released in…
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Dr. Strangelanguage: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Generative AI in Medicine
In this episode of the show, I sit down with Dr. Robert Pearl to talk about his new book, ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Patients & Doctors Can Take Back Control of American Medicine, a book he co-authored with...ChatGPT! We talk about the deep fractures and problems in American health care that...
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Taking the Temperature of AI: Measuring AI's Environmental Impact
In this episode of the show, I talk to Dr. Tamara Kneese about Data and Society's initiative to develop standards and ways to measure the environmental impact of AI. I talk to Dr. Kneese about her work at the Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab (AIMLab), we talk about the links and frictions between...
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Brain Storm: The new technologies that are changing how we think about brain function
In today's episode, I sit down with Dr. Peter Bonutti to talk about the ways in which technologies are revolutionizing our understanding of the brain, and how they may be used to treat crippling brain disorders such as stroke and seizures. Dr. Peter Bonutti, M.D. is a surgeon, inventor, author,...
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The Singularity of Hope: The case for AI optimism
Today I am interviewing Dr. Sam Sammane about his forthcoming book, "The Singularity of Hope”, which aims to guide readers through the challenges and opportunities of the AI era, advocating for a harmonious fusion of human intelligence and machine capabilities. Dr. Sammane envisions a world where...
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The Count: The politics of data science
Welcome back to a brand-new season of Technically Human! We’re thrilled to be back with new episodes of the show. We are kicking off the new season, and the new year, with an episode featuring one of my favorite thinkers, Dr. Deborah Stone, to talk about what it means to count—that is to say…
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Getting Public About Privacy: Understanding data privacy in the digital age
In this episode of the show, I talk with Jared Maslin about what it means to have privacy on the internet. We talk about the difference between privacy and secrecy, the benefits and limitations of GDPR and the possibility of privacy regulation coming to the US, and we explore the biggest…
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The Case for Cryptocurrency: The future of digital assets post Sam Bankman-Fried
In this week’s episode of the show I sit down with Dr. Tonya Evans to talk about the state of crypto in the wake of last week’s landmark criminal fraud conviction of the former CEO of FTX and the former prophet of crypto, Sam Bankman-Fried. Dr. Evans and I discuss what new crypto economy might...
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The New Rules: challenging Big Tech’s reign over legal reform
In today’s episode, I talk about how to create new legal rules to guide tech toward reflecting human values with Brian Beckcom, one of the leading lawyers of his generation. Brian Beckcom is a Texas Super Lawyer, a designation that recognizes him as one of the top legal experts and practitioners…
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Soul Machines: Can AI have a body?
In this episode of the show, I sit down with Dr. Mark Sagar to talk about his vision of an embodied form of AI. Dr. Sagar is the co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Soul Machines, a company investigating how to use natural language processing with hyper-realistic visuals to create…
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Saving Israeli and Palestinian Lives: Technology For Life: Disaster relief and life-saving tech *From the Archives*
Hi Technically Human listeners. This is a show about ethics and tech, but it’s also a show about what it means to be human. There is no area of being human in this moment that technologies does not touch. I know that many members of this listening community have been deeply affected by the loss…
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The Romance of AI: Discussing Love and Artificial Intelligence with Amy Kurzweil
In today’s conversation, I sit down with Amy Kurzweil, the author of the new graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story. Artificial: A Love Story tells the story of three generations of artists whose search for meaning and connection transcends the limits of life. The story begins with the LLM...
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Funny Business: ”Silicon Valley” writer and co-producer Dan Lyons explains what‘s funny about tech culture *From the Archives*
Hi Technically Human listeners! I’m on vacation this week, and our team has pulled one of our favorite interviews, and definitely hands down our funniest from our archives to share with you—an episode with Dan Lyons on hat makes Silicon Valley funny--and how that humor gets at some of the deeply...
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The American Dream Goes Digital: The myths and technologies that bind us with Dr. Julie Albright *From the Archives*
In this episode of Technically Human, I sit down with Dr. Julie Albright to talk about her new book: Left to Their Own Devices: How Digital Natives Are Reshaping the American Dream. We talk about the way that digital culture is changing the American Dream for the next generation, we discuss how…
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Bad Input: Raising public awareness about AI bias
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.…
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Instituting Greenlining: how policy can promote digital inclusion
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...
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Designing Data Governance
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...
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Behind the Data: data, human values, and society
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...
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East Meets West: The place of Asia in the technological imagination
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…
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*From the Archives*: Tech, democracy, human rights, and the urgent crisis in Sudan
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...
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Compliance and Governance in the Age of Tech
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...
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Returning the Power of AI to the People
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...
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Indigeneity in the Digital Age
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...
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Technology and Genocide: What the Holocaust can tell us about perils of technological utopianism
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…
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Instituting Integrity: The rise of the integrity worker collective
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...
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How We Breathe: how technology is changing approaches to ventilation
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...
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Technically Human Rights: How technologies are changing the state of human rights
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…
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The Global Technological Imaginary: Sci-Fi, Tech, and the Ethics of Representation
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…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Technically Human is a podcast about ethics and technology where I ask what it means to be human in the age of tech. Each week, I interview industry leaders, thinkers, writers, and technologists and I ask them about how they understand the relationship between humans and the technologies we create. We discuss how we can build a better vision for technology, one that represents the best of our human values.
HOSTED BY
Deb Donig
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Technically Human Podcast have?
The Technically Human Podcast currently has 139 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Technically Human Podcast about?
Technically Human is a podcast about ethics and technology where I ask what it means to be human in the age of tech. Each week, I interview industry leaders, thinkers, writers, and technologists and I ask them about how they understand the relationship between humans and the technologies we create....
How often does The Technically Human Podcast release new episodes?
The Technically Human Podcast publishes regularly with 139 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Technically Human Podcast?
You can listen to The Technically Human Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Technically Human Podcast?
The Technically Human Podcast is created and hosted by Deb Donig.
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