Technology Episodes

Nov. 3, 2022

How Tech can Democratize Scientific Knowledge with Eric Olson

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 …

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Oct. 26, 2022

How Humans Learned to See the Future with Byron Reese

What makes the human mind unique? How do we know there’s a future, and how do we recall the past? In this episode of This Anthro Life, Byron Reese, serial entrepreneur, technologist, and author of “Stories, Dice, and Rocks That …

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March 10, 2022

Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Revolution with Mick Morucci

If you’re alive in 2022 you’ve probably also heard of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency or the blockchain. Whether you’re an active trader, just dabble, or think you’d never touch the stuff, cryptocurrency raises a fascinating challenge to the question of...

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April 8, 2021

The Ghost in the Machine is Not Who You Think: Human Labor and the Pa…

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 As...

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Nov. 11, 2020

Life in the Age of Social Media and Smartphones with Daniel Miller an…

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 …

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March 13, 2020

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of …

Gigaom CEO, publisher and author of "The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity" stops by virtually to chat with Adam and guest host Astrid Countee to help us make sense of just what Artific...

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Dec. 16, 2019

Robots, Science Fiction, and the Anthropological Imagination: a Guest…

Special guest podcast! - Adam Gamwell guests on Trending in Education with Mike Palmer. For this week’s extra, Mike is joined by Design Anthropologist and Podcaster, Dr Adam Gamwell, to explore how robots, science fiction, ...

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Aug. 14, 2019

Where Qualitative Meets Quantitative Data w/ Delve co-founders LaiYee…

In this episode Adam Gamwell talks with Alex Limpaecher and LaiYee Ho, co-Founders of Delve. While Delve is a qualitative research suite, to help code transcripts, find insight, and pull actionable insights from data, the con...

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Feb. 28, 2019

The Social Life of Robots, pt 2: Sex and Temperament in Three Cyborg …

Part 2 of The Social Life of Robots, with Emma Backe. In this episode hosts Adam Gamwell, Ryan Collins and Emma Backe tackle sex and gender norms underlying digital voice assistants like Siri, Cortana and Alexa, the history a...

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Feb. 6, 2019

The Social Life of Robots, pt 1: Spoiler Alert

In the pop culture imagination, perceptions of robots and AI occupy a space of mystery and intrigue that gravitates between harbingers of impending societal collapse and bringers of mythical salvation. However, where does con...

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July 10, 2018

Tech Ethnography, Data and Social Justice w/ Dr. Tricia Wang

Dr. Tricia Wang sees her work consulting as sitting at the crossroads of data and social justice. As a global tech ethnographer, Dr. Wang is obsessed with how technology and humans shape each other. In her own words, she want...

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Oct. 6, 2014

iPhone, Therefore I am.

With the yearly release of new mobile phones, companies like Apple and Samsung have to sell the idea that we need a new device. With the release of wearable peripherals like Google Glass and Apple Watch, information communica...

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June 4, 2014

Up in the Cloud: Computing in the 21st Century (so far)

Episode 28 Season 3 “Up in the Cloud: Computing in the 21st Century (so far)” online now! The idea of a cloud evokes an immaterial floating world of information. Adam and Aneil turn the anthropological lens towards this idea ...

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