Technology Episodes

What if the future isn’t something we predict, but something we design? In this episode of This Anthro Life, host Adam Gamwell is joined by Carissa Carter and Scott Doorley to dive into the hidden forces shaping our world—from speculative fiction to emerging technologies and the ripple effects of design. They explore mammoth de-extinction, AI, and the unintended consequences of innovation, challenging us to rethink how we approach progress. How do the stories we tell influence what’s possible? W...

In this episode of This Anthro Life, host Adam Gamwell talks with anthropologist and design educator Michael Leube about how design, ethics, and anthropology intersect to shape the future of human behavior and culture.

In this episode of This Anthro Life, host Adam Gamwell talks with anthropologist Claudia Strauss about how #AI, #technology, and the #postpandemic world are reshaping the nature of work in America. They explore crucial topics such as the impact of...

In this episode of This Anthro Life, we’ll dive into how anthropology is reshaping tech investment by examining human culture and its influence on innovation. You'll discover how the deep study of culture helps forecast market trends, understand AI...

Join us on This Anthro Life podcast for an engaging discussion on The Future of Reading: AI and Literature with Vihar Desu, an entrepreneur and engineer at Tempus and the creator of summaries.co.  Vihar shares his expertise in cancer genomics and AI,...

Join us for an enlightening discussion on the transformation of digital news consumption with Alex, the visionary founder of Other Web. I'm Adam, your host, and in this episode, we dive into the innovative strategies that Other Web is implementing to...

In this compelling episode of This Anthro Life, we engage with filmmaker David Donnelly, delving into the depths of his documentary "Cost of Convenience." Donnelly's exploration uncovers the intricate web of consequences spawned by technology, spotlighting the covert toll of social media and search engine usage. Through a narrative woven with two years of intensive interviews and research, Donnelly unveils the unseen impacts of our digital age. The conversation traverses the power dynamics inherent in data collection, emphasizing the imperative of transparency. We advocate for a cultural shift, calling for an evaluation of our relationship with technology and its pervasive influence on modern society. Explore the intricate repercussions of technology through David Donnelly's lens in "Cost of Convenience." Delve into two years of intensive research revealing unseen impacts.

In this episode of The Anthro Life, we delve into the intersection of technology and compassion in the field of end-of-life care. Faisal Abid, founder of Eirene Cremations, shares his journey from working in AI to revolutionizing the funeral industry by combining technology and empathy. We explore how Irene Cremations uses innovative tools like Funeral OS and Obituary Writer to streamline processes and empower families during the grieving process. Additionally, we discuss shifting cultural norms in end-of-life care and the potential future advancements in the industry.

How can businesses effectively integrate insights from social sciences like psychology and anthropology to gain a deeper understanding of human behavior, and how might this integration impact decision-making and innovation within the corporate world?...

In this episode, guest James Mawhinney exposes the existential threat of misinformation that can rip apart relationships, ruin businesses, and sway elections, all with a speed outpacing even climate change. We delve into his battle against lies that targeted his company and explore how his platform Media.com seeks to restore balance by bringing order and critical thinking back to the online information landscape.

This episode of This Anthro Life explored the intricate relationship between human autonomy and the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. The discussion highlighted the crucial need for diverse voices to champion human well-being, flourishing, and autonomy in the face of technological advancement. Brian Evergreen's work, dedicated to empowering leaders to prioritize people over profit and harness technology to elevate our humanity, emphasized the importance of ensuring that AI serves as a tool for human betterment rather than a force of subjugation.

In this episode of This Anthro Life, Tobias Dengel, a leading expert in digital transformation, explores the transformative power of voice technology. Dengel discusses how integrating voice tech into existing platforms offers a safer approach, emphasizing the familiarity and trust already established. The conversation extends to the increasing presence of voice assistants like Alexa and Siri in our daily lives. Dengel also highlights the role of voice technology in enhancing security measures in banking applications. Tune in for captivating insights into how voice technology is revolutionizing our interactions with devices and services, envisioning a future where our voices effortlessly transform the way we navigate our surroundings.

This episode of This Anthro Life delves into the transformative impact of conversational AI, hyper automation, and composable software systems with UX pioneer Robb Wilson. It explores how these technologies are reshaping human interactions with machines, going beyond familiar voice assistants like Siri or Alexa. The conversation emphasizes the potential benefits of embracing conversation and simplifying software interfaces, offering insights on how automation can revolutionize work, enhance customer service, and stimulate creativity in the digital age.

In a world where technology is advancing at an exponential pace, we can already see that artificial intelligence (AI) will have a profound impact on our lives. But AI is far from perfect. Too often, we end up grappling with a variety of problems when we bring AI into the real world, from increasing mental health issues in young girls and boys to anxiety for workers whose jobs are changing.

Contemporary AI systems are typically created by many different people, each working on separate parts or “modules.” This can make it difficult to determine who is responsible for considering the ethical implications of an AI system as a whole — a problem compounded by the fact that many AI engineers already don’t consider it their job to ensure the AI systems they work on are ethical.

When we think of robots, we tend to think of things like R2-D2, the Terminator skeleton, or a piece of machinery that automates the construction of goods in an assembly line. But that’s not all there is to robots — something anthropologist and roboticist entrepreneur Lora Koycheva understands perfectly well.

The vast majority of published scientific literature and new research is hidden behind paywalls. Worse, what few accessible papers available online are oftentimes written in jargon, i.e., specialist language that can alienate non-expert readers. natural language processing-based startups are working to change the conversation around access to scientific knowledge in impactful ways. One such startup is Consensus, an AI-powered search engine designed to provide users a view into what the research says with the click of a button.

In today’s episode Adam and Astrid Countee are joined by multispecies anthropologist John Hartigan jr. John is an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In his latest work, Shaving the Beasts: Wild Horses and Ritual in Spain, John studies the social lives of wild horses in Spain and Catalonia and the Spanish ritual dating back to the 1500s of “Rapa das Bestas”- in which villagers heard wild horses together into public ceremonial rings and shave their manes and tails. Why is...

Mary Gray is an anthropologist whose work explores how technology informs work, a sense of identity, and human rights. Gray applies these concepts as the Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and as the Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Additionally she remains in a faculty position at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. Gray has also authored books such as In Your Face: Stories from the Lives of Queer Yo...

Language warning. We use the word sh*t a lot in this episode, since it is, in fact all about poop. To wrap up this crappy, some may even say shitty year, host Adam Gamwell and intern Elizabeth Smyth discuss the origin of the word shit, how the way we defecate is culturally constructed, what our poop reveals about us, and so much more in this New Year’s Eve mini-episode of This Anthro Life. Farewell 2020, it’s been real. In this episode we dig into: What poop tells us about culture and our biolo...

Do you have a sense of how much time you spend each day on social media and smartphone? Whether you can live with them or you can't live with them, we know for most of us, these are ingrained parts of our everyday lives. In this episode, we will uncover the life in the age of social media and smartphones, featuring Dr. Daniel Miller and Georgiana Murariu from the University College of London. Stay tuned as you learn about the ‘Why We Post’ project, ‘Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing, ...

Artificial Intelligence. Natural Language Processing. Machine Learning. Big Data. If you've studied Anthropology at all, you'll likely notice these terms don't often get use, unless you happen to be studying one of these areas, like doing an ethnography on artificial intelligence. Yet if these tools are used everyday across millions of applications and software lines of code to make our world run, how might they help us understand ourselves better? Big data often gets used to understand patterns...

It's no surprise that many of us find ourselves increasingly on mobile devices or the internet. We shop online with ease, connect with friends and family on social media, check the news, and play games. And especially during the era of COVID millions, more people are figuring out if they can work remotely. In this episode, Adam sits down with Dr. Julie Ancis, one of the world's leading cyberpsychologists to talk about how digital technology in life online is impacting the ways we think and in...

Produced in collaboration with Experience by Design. We are witnessing a moment in our lifetimes that we will hopefully never see again. The world is gripped in a pandemic of a scale unseen for a century. Beyond the human toll, we are seeing how healthcare systems people once had trust in crumble before their eyes. In this episode, Adam and Gary talk with Shelley White and Meenakshi Verma-Agrawal of the Simmons University Masters of Public Health program on what we learn from this moment, and ho...