Response-ability.Tech

In this episode we talk to Dr Rachel Carey who is Chief Scientist at Zinc. Backed by the London School of Economics, Zinc was created in 2017 to test different ways of tackling important societal issues.

Rachel is a behavioural scientist with a PhD in Psychology, and a passion for research translation and innovation.

During our conversation, Rachel explains what her role involves and we talk about Zinc's mission and purpose, their Venture Builder Programme, and what it really looks like when you ground new commercial ventures in evidence-based research and with a problem-led approach from the get-go.

Rachel also shares why she thinks start-ups are really interesting environments for social scientists and what's different about social science-based innovation.

Rachel shares some success stories from the Zinc Venture Builder programmes, Bellevie and Tonus as well as two social-scientist-led ventures, Ferly and Studio X.

Lastly, we talk about Zinc's work combatting the impacts of automation on the workforce, such as Tandem and Sook, and the importance of peer groups for social scientists working outside academia.

You can follow Rachel on Twitter and connect with her on LinkedIn. You can find out more about Zinc at www.zinc.vc and twitter.com/zincvc.

We loved talking to Rachel and we hope you enjoy the episode.

In this episode we catch up with Martha Dark. Martha is the co-founder of Foxglove, a new NGO that exists to make tech fair for everyone. Made up of lawyers, technology experts and communications specialists, Foxglove believe that governments and big tech companies are misusing digital technology, and that this is harming the rest of us. Their aim is to fix this situation.

We interviewed Martha in Episode 2 ahead of her talk at the 2020 conference. What better way to end the year than by celebrating the ways in which Foxglove has held tech accountable in 2020. 

During our conversation, Martha shares Foxglove’s successes:

• Calling for transparency around the U.K. Government’s secretive deals around the transfer the personal health information of millions of NHS users to private tech firms during the pandemic such as Amazon and Google, and controversial AI firms Faculty and Palantir.
• Calling out Google profiling children who are watching YouTube videos in order to deliver targeted ads to them.
• Calling out the U.K. Home Office’s “racist” visa streaming algorithm which reviewed applications against a “suspect nationalities” list.
• Fighting for fair treatment for Facebook’s social media content moderators, and for safe working conditions during the pandemic.
• Challenging the U.K. Government’s devastating use of algorithms to grade A-level exams.

Martha also shares with us what Foxglove will likely be working on in 2021. Lastly, Martha explains why Foxglove needs our help and how we can all support Foxglove’s work in holding tech accountable.

We loved talking to Martha and we hope you enjoy the episode. 

You can follow Foxglove on Twitter and find out more about them at foxglove.org.uk

Visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mentioned our conversation:

• Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media by Sarah T. Roberts.
• Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley From Building a New Global Underclass by Mary L. Gray and Siddharth Suri.
• Open letter to Facebook's leaders signed by over 200 Facebook content moderators from across the world
• Facebook moderators forced to work in Dublin office despite high-tier lockdown, 23 October 2020.
• Leo Varadkar to press Facebook on working conditions for its content moderators, 15 November 2020.

Jeffrey Greger is a UX Researcher at Varo Bank. His work focuses on the ethical and organisational challenges that design professionals face as they develop financial services for and with low- to moderate-income communities. He holds a Master’s degree in Applied Anthropology from San José State University.

During our conversation, Jeff explains how he came to anthropology from industrial design and what sparked his interest in financial inclusion.  

We discuss his Master’s thesis which explored the “the application of ethnographic research and commercially-derived design approaches in support of financial inclusion” and we touch on why “well-intentioned humanitarian projects often fail to achieve their goals, at times further retrenching social and economic inequalities".

We move on to talk about the working group Jeff and his colleagues created at Varo called PeopleFirst, which aims to avoid the industry logics (insularity, decontextualisation, and tech hubris), and how this community of practice is a way for staff to address ethics in a practical and substantive way.

We loved talking to Jeff and we hope you enjoy the episode. 

You can follow Jeff on Twitter and find out more about him at www.jeffreygreger.com.

Visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mentioned our conversation:

• Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing by Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell
• Jeff's paper, presented at EPIC 2020: There’s No Playbook for Praxis. Translating Scholarship into Action to Build a More Ethical Bank.
• FairMoney: https://fairnetwork.org
• Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott
• Metcalf, Moss and boyd. Owning Ethics: Corporate Logics, Silicon Valley, and the Institutionalization of Ethics

Dr Ben Green is our guest in this week’s episode. Ben Green spoke in the Smart Cities stream at the conference on 9 October 2020. Ben is the author of The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology In Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future and he is a Postdoctoral Fellow, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.

During our conversation, Ben shares what prompted his move from a physics major to his research on the social and political impacts of government algorithms. 

We move on to talk about his book, The Smart Enough City, which was published by MIT Press in 2019, and why it’s essential reading for both city officials and urban dwellers in the “battle for the future of cities”. The core message of the book is that “cities are not technology problems and technology cannot solve many of today’s most pressing urban challenges”.

We also talk about how and why data scientists must recognise themselves as political rather than neutral actors, in the context of a paper Ben wrote titled, "Data Science as Political Action: Grounding Data Science in a Politics of Justice". 

Lastly, we talk about his FAT*2020 paper, Algorithmic Realism, co-authored with Salomé Viljoen, which proposes a new mode of algorithmic thinking to “better equip computer scientists to reduce algorithmic harms and to reason well about doing good.”

We loved talking to Ben and we hope you enjoy the episode. 

Get your copy of The Smart Enough City from MIT or read an open access version. Connect with Ben on Twitter and find out more about his work and current thinking at https://www.benzevgreen.com.

Visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

In this special two-part episode, Zoe Weaver, a Psychology student at the University of the West of England and our 2020 Summer intern, unravels some of the privacy concerns raised by the Blackstone group’s recent acquisition of genealogy provider, Ancestry.com. 

Zoe’s guests are Phil Booth, co-ordinator of MedConfidential, and Dr Laura Sobola, Senior Consultant at Unai and one of the Health Tech stream leads at the 2020 conference. 

In this second and final episode, Zoe delves more deeply into the laws surrounding genetic data, and the promises and pitfalls of precision medicine. She moves on to discuss the ethical issues that stand in the way of Matt Hancock, who is the U.K.'s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and his plans for the NHS to sequence the DNA of every baby born in the UK. 

We hope you enjoy the show.

Music credit: James Thompson.

In this special two-part episode, Zoe Weaver, a Psychology student at the University of the West of England and our 2020 Summer intern, unravels some of the privacy concerns raised by the Blackstone group’s recent acquisition of genealogy provider, Ancestry.com. 

Zoe’s guests are Phil Booth, co-ordinator of MedConfidential, and Dr Laura Sobola, Senior Consultant at Unai and one of the Health Tech stream leads at the 2020 conference. 

In this first episode, Zoe focuses on the privacy concerns raised by genetic testing sites, and other ethical issues that they raise, such as the virtual erosion of family secrets. Together with her guests, she explores issues of informed consent in genetic research, and the the flaws of familial DNA matching. 

In the second episode, Zoe will delve more deeply in the laws surrounding genetic data, and the promises and pitfalls of precision medicine.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Music credit: James Thompson.

Our guest in this week’s episode is Alex Freeman, who is a Senior User Researcher at Spotify. We’re delighted that Spotify are our Gold Partner for the 2020 edition of the Anthropology + Technology Conference.

Originally from California, Alex is currently living in Stockholm, Sweden. Alex describes himself as a Professional People Watcher, and we chatted about how he got into user research, and explains how advocacy was important to him in his own career. 

Alex explains how companies like Spotify benefit from a diverse range of employees, what companies can do to ensure that people from underrepresented backgrounds are hired into research roles, and why he’s so excited to work at Spotify.

We move on to discuss the ways in which Spotify is contributing to the important conversations happening right now and Alex’s shares his passionate belief and thoughts around ‘humane tech’.

Lastly Alex shares why he’s excited to attend the Anthropology + Technology Conference.

We loved talking to Alex and we hope you enjoy the episode. 

To find out more about Spotify, you can visit https://www.spotify.com/us/.

To join us at the Anthropology + Technology Conference on 9th October, visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

My guest today is Aisha Thomas, who is an Assistant Principal at an inner city secondary school in Bristol, England, and an educational activist. 

Aisha originally trained as a lawyer but an encounter with a young prisoner drew her into teaching. In her new profession she was shocked to discover how few Black teachers there were in Bristol, and was approached by the BBC to present a documentary on the issue.

We talk about the conversation she wanted to ignite with her powerful, honest, and ultimately hopeful TEDx talk on why representation really matters, and the importance of feeling you belong, particularly for young people. We also touch on the U.K.’s A-level grading fiasco which is a text-book example of everything we talk about in the episode.

Lastly Aisha shares her thoughts on the must-read book, Race After Technology, by Ruha Benjamin, and gives us a sneak peak into her talk at the 2020 Anthropology + Technology Conference.

We loved talking to Aisha and we hope you enjoy the episode.

To find out more about Aisha, you can visit her website https://www.repmatters.co.uk/ and connect with her on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

To hear Aisha's talk at the Anthropology + Technology Conference on 9th October, visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

In this episode, my guest is Richard Potter, Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft Consulting Services, UK. We're delighted that Microsoft are our 2020 Gold Partner.

Richard is also Microsoft UK’s Ethics Lead for AI so he’s passionate about organisations making the most of this powerful technology but in a responsible way. 

We chatted about why Microsoft has such a strong position on responsible AI, and why it’s imperative for business leaders to adopt a responsible approach to using the technology in their organisations.

Richard discusses the recommendations he gives organisations, what he calls the 3i’s – intelligence, ingenuity, and inclusivity.   

We move on to discuss the future of responsible AI and how this powerful technology, if harnessed responsibly, can deliver immense value to both society and businesses.

Lastly Richard shares what he's looking forward to at the 2020 edition of the Anthropology + Technology Conference, and why he thinks the conference is so topical.

We loved talking to Richard and we hope you enjoy the episode. 

You can connect with Richard on LinkedIn or Twitter.

To join Richard on 9th October, visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

In this episode, we talk to Ivana Bartoletti, who is speaking on the panel at the conference on 9 October.

Ivana is a Privacy and Data Protection professional, a media commentator and a public speaker. She is Technical Director, Privacy at Deloitte and advises businesses and organisations on best practice and how to comply with privacy legislation at both a national and global level. She is also co-Founder of Women Leading in AI, and author of An Artificial Revolution – On Power, Politics and AI.

During our conversation, we talk about Ivana’s journey to her current role and discuss some of the key challenges of power and justice in the field of AI right now.

Ivana explains why AI is an increasingly political issue, and one that requires common language across all disciplines. 

Lastly, we talk about the problems of using AI in advertising and Ivana explains why it’s vital that we have more women contributing to decision-making in our organisations. 

We loved talking to Ivana and we hope you enjoy the episode.

To find out more about Ivana, you can visit www.ivanabartoletti.co.uk.

To catch her talk at the Anthropology + Technology Conference on 9th October, visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk, sign up for our newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.