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PODCAST

Machines Like Us

The Globe and Mail

Machines Like Us is a technology show about people. We are living in an age of breakthroughs propelled by advances in artificial intelligence. Technologies that were once the realm of science fiction will become our reality: robot best friends, bespoke gene editing, brain implants that make us smarter. Every other Tuesday Taylor Owen sits down with the people shaping this rapidly approaching future. He’ll speak with entrepreneurs building world-changing technologies, lawmakers trying to ensure

technology

All Episodes

00:46:12

A History Lesson That Shatters the Mythology of...

Machines Like Us ·

2022/03/10

In this episode of Big Tech, host Taylor Owen speaks with Margaret O’Mara, a historian of modern America and author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. Silicon Valley and the massive wealth it has generated have long symbolized the wonders of free market capitalism, viewed as proof of how innovation can thrive when it is not burdened by government oversight. Silicon Valley is infused with this libertarian ethos, centred on the idea that it was guys in their garages, setting out

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00:53:40

Johann Hari Knows You Won’t Be Able to Finish This...

Machines Like Us ·

2022/03/03

Do you feel as if you can’t get through a single task without distractions? Perhaps you are watching a movie and stop it to check social media or respond to a message. You aren’t alone; studies show that collectively our attention spans have been shrinking for decades. Many factors contribute to our fractured focus, including the processed foods we eat, which cause energy highs and lows, but the greatest culprit of all is technology. In this episode of Big Tech, host Taylor Owen speaks with Johann

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00:45:47

Early Women Innovators Offer Tech a Way Forward

Machines Like Us ·

2022/02/24

In the history of computers and the internet, a few names likely come to mind: Alan Turing, Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Undoubtedly, these men’s contributions to computer sciences have shaped much of our modern life. In the case of Jobs and Gates, their financial success shifted the landscape of software development and the metrics of success in Silicon Valley. Some sectors of the industry, such as programming, hypertext and databases, had been dominated by women in the early days,

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00:42:32

Nicholas Carr Is Silicon Valley’s Most Prescient Tech...

Machines Like Us ·

2022/02/17

Nicholas Carr is a prolific blogger, author and critic of technology since the early days of the social web. Carr began his blog Rough Type in 2005, at a time when some of today’s biggest companies where still start-ups operating out of college dorms. In 2010, he wrote the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction finalist The Shallows, in which he discussed how technology was changing the human brain. At the time, many were skeptical about Carr’s argument, but in just over a decade many of his predictions have

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00:48:33

Your Facts Aren’t My Facts — Joe Rogan and Our...

Machines Like Us ·

2022/02/10

People are divided: you are either pro-vaccination or against it, and there seems to be no middle ground. Whether around the dinner table or on social media, people are entrenched in their positions. A deep-seated mistrust in science, despite its contributions to the flourishing of human life, is being fuelled by online misinformation. For the first time in history, humanity is in the midst of a pandemic with communication tools of almost unlimited reach and potential benefit, yet social media and

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00:42:19

The Entrenched Colonialism of Tech

Machines Like Us ·

2022/02/03

Time and time again, we see the billionaire tech founder or CEO take the stage to present the latest innovation meant to make people’s lives better, revolutionize industries and glorify the power of technology to save the world. While these promises are dressed up in fancy new clothes, in reality, the tech sector is no different than other expansionist enterprises from the past. Their core foundation of growth and expansion is deeply rooted in the European and American colonialization and Manifest

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00:29:53

How Europe Is Trying to Rein in Big Tech

Machines Like Us ·

2022/01/27

Governments around the world are looking at their legal frameworks and how they apply to the digital technologies and platforms that have brought widespread disruptive change to their economies, societies and politics. Most governments are aware that their regulations are inadequate to address the challenges of an industry that crosses borders and pervades all aspects of daily life. Three regulatory approaches are emerging: the restrictive regime of the Chinese state; the lax, free-market approach

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00:57:19

The Brain Is Not a Computer

Machines Like Us ·

2022/01/20

Many unlocked mysteries remain about the workings of the human brain. Neuroscientists are making discoveries that are helping us to better understand the brain and correct preconceived notions about how it works. With the dawn of the information age, the brain’s processing was often compared to that of a computer. But the problem with this analogy is that it suggested the human brain was hard-wired, able to work in one particular way only, much as if it were a computer chip, and which, if damaged,

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00:44:33

What Does Real Democracy Look Like?

Machines Like Us ·

2022/01/13

Democracy is in decline globally. It’s one year since the Capitol Hill insurrection, and many worry that the United States’ democratic system is continuing to crumble. Freedom House, an America think tank, says that nearly three-quarters of the world’s population lives in a country that experienced democratic deterioration last year. The rise of illiberalism is one reason for this, but another may be that democratic governments simply haven’t been performing all that well in recent years. In this

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00:44:17

From the Beginnings of Fake News to the Capitol Riots

Machines Like Us ·

2022/01/06

On the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol, Big Tech host Taylor Owen sits down with Craig Silverman to discuss how the rise of false facts led us to that moment. Silverman is a journalist for ProPublica and previously worked at Buzzfeed News, and is the editor of the Verification Handbook series. Before Donald Trump popularized “fake news” as a blanket term to attack mainstream news outlets, Silverman had been using it to mean something different and very

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00:44:55

Best of: Nicole Perlroth on the Cyber Weapons Arms Race

Machines Like Us ·

2021/12/30

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Nicole Perlroth, New York Times cybersecurity journalist and author of This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race.Nicole and Taylor discuss how that the way in which nation-states go about acquiring cyber weapons through underground online markets creates an incentive structure that enables the entire cyberwarfare complex to thrive while discouraging these exploits from being patched. “So they don’t want to tell anyone

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00:39:40

Best of: Bishop Steven Croft on Keeping Humanity at...

Machines Like Us ·

2021/12/23

In the early days of the internet, information technology could be viewed as morally neutral. It was simply a means of passing data from one point to another. But, as communications technology has advanced by using algorithms, tracking and identifiers to shape the flow of information, we are being presented with moral and ethical questions about how the internet is being used and even reshaping what it means to be human.In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with the Right Reverend Dr

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00:42:17

Catherine McKenna on Cutting through Online Hate to...

Machines Like Us ·

2021/12/16

Social media has become an essential tool for sharing information and reaching audiences. In the political realm, it provides access to constituents in a way that going door to door can’t. It also provides a platform for direct access to citizens without paying for advertising or relying on news articles. We’ve seen how Donald Trump used social media to his advantage, but what happens when social media turns on the politician? In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Catherine McKenna,

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00:33:57

Carissa Véliz on Why We Need to Take Back Control of...

Machines Like Us ·

2021/12/09

Humans need privacy — the United Nations long ago declared it an inalienable and universal human right. Yet technology is making privacy increasingly difficult to preserve, as we spend fewer and fewer moments of time disconnected from our computers, smartphones and wearable tech. Edward Snowden’s revelations about the scope of surveillance by the National Security Agency and journalists’ investigations into Cambridge Analytica showed us how the tech products and platforms we use daily make

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00:42:57

How Peter Thiel’s Contrarianism Shaped Silicon Valley...

Machines Like Us ·

2021/12/02

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is an enigmatic, controversial and hugely influential power broker in both Silicon Valley and the political arena. He is often seen as a libertarian, who at one point was exploring the idea of building floating stateless cities in international waters. But at the same time Thiel is very much an insider. He is actively involved in American politics, through funding political candidates, and in tech, through co-founding PayPal and Palantir, as well as supporting other

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00:41:17

C. Brandon Ogbunu on Afrofuturism as a Tech Framework

Machines Like Us ·

2021/11/25

Science fiction has long been a medium for bringing light to societal issues, including religion, culture and race. It helps us imagine futures of hope and prosperity or warns of dystopian nightmares. And our experience of race plays a central role in our understanding of science fiction. “There’s this amazing quote from Junot Díaz, the Pulitizer Prize-winning writer, where he basically says that if it wasn’t for race, X-Men doesn’t make sense. If it wasn’t for the history of breeding human beings

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00:00:40

Season 4 Begins Thursday, November 25

Machines Like Us ·

2021/11/12

Since concluding the last season this past August, a lot has happened in the big tech governance and regulation space. Whistle-blower Frances Haugen and the Facebook Papers shone light on social media’s harmful impacts on our society and reignited the debate over how we regulate platforms. There have been employee-led labour movements at Amazon, Uber and Netflix. And Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for a Metaverse and a new company name, Meta. Join host Taylor Owen in conversation with leading

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00:29:53

Taylor Owen on Six Insights from Season Three

Machines Like Us ·

2021/08/19

This season of Big Tech has featured conversations with experts across many fields —law makers, academics, journalists, authors, activists and a bishop — who are working to address technologies’ impact on our lives. In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen looks back on those conversations and highlights six themes that have emerged across the season. Taylor begins with the topic of how the debate about tech and society is maturing, reflecting that we have moved past the superficial “tech issues”

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00:41:39

Jameel Jaffer on Free Speech in the Digital Era

Machines Like Us ·

2021/08/05

Liberal democracies around the world have protections for free speech, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or, more famously, the US First Amendment. Many of the free speech activities that are protected by law, such as the right to organize and protest, have moved onto social media platforms. But, as we have seen, the power of social media to amplify content can have disastrous impacts. Nations looking to reform and enact online protection regulations to address issues of terrorism,

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00:43:07

Geoffrey Cain on China’s Dystopian Surveillance State

Machines Like Us ·

2021/07/22

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Geoffrey Cain, author of The Perfect Police State, about the technology enabled in China’s Xinjiang region to oppress its Uighur population. Through a network of surveillance systems, social credit scores, algorithm-driven pre-crime computer software and a society where people are now fearful of their neighbours, China has built a chillingly real Orwellian police state. In their conversation, Taylor and Geoffrey discuss how these technologies are

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