In this episode of "Technically Human," I host Chris Leong and Maria Santacaterina for a conversation about the growing pervasiveness of sociotechnical systems. You may not know the term "sociotechnical system," but if you've booked a flight online, tried to reach an agent on the DMV's hotline, or tried to contact your congressperson, you almost certainly have interacted with one of them. How have sociotechnical systems changed the way we access services, the way we spend our time, and the way we interact with one another? What are the benefits--and the consequences--of living in a world increasingly organized and processed through these systems?

Welcome to another interview in the "22 Lessons in Ethics and Technology" series! In this episode, I speak with Dr. Pavel Cenkl, about the need for intellectual diversity and multidimensional approaches to technological solutions to the major problems of our time. Professor Cenkl discusses how the major problems we face require that we bring together people trained in a wide variety of approaches. Focusing on environmental issues--climate change, ecological destruction, and the possible proliferation of future pandemics--we consider how ethical approaches to technology depend on thinking across boundaries of ideas and including voices across a variety of institutions, cultures, and experiences.

In this episode of "Technically Human," I give my mic over to two guest hosts, David Geitner and Roman Rosser, to interview Dr. Robert Pearl about the intersection between tech, medicine, and our health. Dr. Pearl answers questions about the way that technologies are radically reshaping health care; the hosts ask questions about bias in medicine; and the group discusses the ways in which our current system fails to treat us, well, WELL.

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Michael Huth to talk about the ethics of data collection, privacy, and the new age of “privacism.” We talk about his new platform, Xayn, we discuss what it looks like to build a company based on ethical principles like privacy and user autonomy, and Michael explains why we should care about our privacy online.

In this episode of “Technically Human,” I interview Gary Bengier, the author of the award-winning science fiction novel, Unfettered Journey. We talk about the relationship between his prior work as a technologist, and his current career as a writer of science fiction; we talk about the relationship between technology, philosophy, and science fiction; and we talk about the possibility of making moral choices in a world governed by deterministic technologies.

In an age of algorithmic predictions, with tech companies and digital technologies that can anticipate and pinpoint our every move, can we still have free will as we know it? What happens to free will when our genetic technologies can plan what we’ll look like, how physically able we will be, and even who we’re likely to become? How free really are our actions when where we decide to eat is influenced by review sites that promote paid sponsors; where how we spend our money is dictated by data giants who tell us what we should like; and where even who we love is determined by algorithms on dating apps? How do we understand freedom of thought, and action, in an age where our biotechnologies not only record, but also predict and proscribe, how thoughts move around in our mind, and how they become actions? To understand these questions, I turned to David Lawrence, the author of “Are We Biochemical Robots.” Here’s our conversation.