Technology plays a vital role in our society day-to-day, but what exactly is our role when it comes to managing our tech? How do our internal biases impact the products we create? Can technological advances actually be “neutral” as a product of human imagination? These are all questions to consider as we take a look at how human and computational infrastructures overlap.

On this episode of UnTextbooked, producer Caroline Somers interviews Professor Thomas S. Mullaney to discuss the impact of technology– good and bad–on modern society and our role in responsibly using it. If every advance is linked to a social issue from our past, what might history teach us about our technological future?

BOOK: Your Computer is on Fire

GUEST: Thomas S. Mullaney

PRODUCER: Caroline Somers

MUSIC: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton

PRODUCTION: Pod People - Hannah Pedersen, Danielle Roth, Shaneez Tyndall, and Michael Aquino.

SHOW NOTES: Link to Thomas S. Mullaney’s work