Darien and Toby are joined by Dr. David Young, professor at Georgia Tech specializing in digital media communications to discuss the rise of end user license agreements by tech companies. They discuss the purpose and nature of these agreements, and whether, like a famous story goes, we’re selling our soul for modern conveniences.…

Darien and Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates dig into the underlying concept of the apocalypse and what it means to most people today. Joined by Marlee Jane Ward, host of the podcast Catastropod, which examines narratives of the apocalypse, they look at how stories of the apocalypse have evolved over time, whether we’re in the midst of one already, and wheth…

Can we better predict suicide risk using social media data, and then take action to prevent more suicides? Social media platforms are starting to do just that, and like many things around social media, the issue is more complex, and potentially problematic, than it might first appear. Dr. Tobias-Wison Bates and Darien are joined by Dr. John P. Acke…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien are joined by Tucker Lieberman, author of the new book, Painting Dragons: What Storytellers Need to Know About Writing Eunuch Villains to talk about how technology is defining the gender of AI assistants. Lieberman looks at the dangers of taking a cliched approach to gender, and how technologists may be doing more…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien discuss the implications of new AI news anchors from China that are now bringing the speed of robots to broadcast news. Tobias examines the news in the light of William Morris’ utopian text, “News From Nowhere”, while Darien just wonders whether an AI host can predict election outcomes better than real hosts.…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien discuss the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the resilience of anti-Semitic narratives throughout history. Darien interviews Ellen Maddow, award-winning playwright who wrote “Panic! Euphoria! Blackout.” which traces the history of Jewish persecution and boom-and-bust economic cycles.…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien are joined by Dr. Kate Holterhoff, founder and curator of Visual Haggard, a digital archive of the illustrations of the works of popular Victorian author Rider Haggard. As a curator of an archive full of controversial themes and imagery, Dr. Holterhoff talks about the dynamic of preserving and moderating content o…

Back for Season 3, Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien discuss the impact of video assisted refereeing (VAR) at this summer's World Cup, and whether an all-seeing eye changes the playing field, and the nature of sport in general.By Betsy Bates

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien are joined by Nick Olcott and Andrew Adelsberger, director and one of the lead cast members, from The Emperor of Atlantis, an opera that was written inside a Nazi prison camp, and is now opening in Washington, D.C. They explore the idea, introduced in the opera, that the rise of mechanized killing machines has cha…

Everyone knows that porn is a big part of the Internet. But does pornography (and the human sex drive in general) drive much of human innovation? Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates looks at how pornographic material helped lead a resurgence in an earlier technology (hint: it was epic), and Darien just wonders whether we'll ever be able to have a healthy under…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien examine the brave new world of crypto kitties, and why humans are obsessed with unique things, even when there's very little functional value to that uniqueness. Toby looks at whether the answer can be found with Philip K. Dick and Darien just wants to know if cryptokitties need a litterbox.…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien are joined by Jefferson Bates, a product manager at a major producer of IoT (Internet of Things) software for factories, to discuss whether the changing nature of factory production is likely to lead to massive global change, or just a series of small improvements. Jefferson discusses what's happening in the conne…

Feeling like they were so close to solving the issue, Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien take one more stab at discussing paternalistic language in technology in this mini-episode. Toby brings a new, somewhat cringeworthy, poem to the table, and Darien discusses whether a new approach to problem solving through technology can be introduced at the p…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien invite guests Dr. Halcyon Lawrence and Dr. Liz Hutter on the pod to talk about the prevalence of paternalistic language among technologists (a.k.a. techsplaining). They discuss the potential issues that can occur when technologists approach the world as a problem that only their technological innovation can solve.…

Darien and Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates celebrate the retirement of Dr. Robin Bates (a.k.a. Dad) by bringing him onto the podcast. Along with being a professor and scholar, Robin Bates is also the author of a popular (if somewhat niche) literature blog Better Living Through Beowulf, which he has been running for the past 9 years. He shares how the Inter…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates raises the question about how tech businesses manage big change, particularly when they've gone from a Silicon Valley favorite to public enemy number one (ahem, Facebook). Darien discusses the concept of business pivots and why they have such value for later stage startups and even mature companies that are striving to conti…

Why does every major story of startup success seem to involve some major setback, even a failure. Darien and Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates discuss the prevalence of failure narratives in tech startups and why it's easy to find historical examples, but always hard to see one as it happens. Toby raises the prospect that our view of failure may be perpetuat…

Is art solely a human pursuit? Darien and Toby seek to answer this question by inviting former potter and current lead technologist Peter Kaiser to join the discussion. Peter shares his own experiences producing art and technology, and talks about the close link between these two fields. Toby asks whether a robot can produce art with a soul, and Da…

As salacious details begin to emerge in the scandal of Cambridge Analytica, the predictive analytics company that has brought new scrutiny to the collection and use of "psychographic" profiling, Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien attempt to predict what this means for the future of big data prophets (and profits). Toby finds a connection to "Oedipu…

Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien kick off their Two Guys and a Garage series, which explores the role that origin stories play in the world of technology and business. First stop: genesis stories. Darien breaks down the origin story formula into its core components, and Toby looks at how Charles Dickens used origin stories long before the rise of…

Is the secret to racial equality just better technology? And can the technology of cinema be the path to a new, more powerful, more harmonious representation of black cultural identity. Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates and Darien invite resident film scholar Dr. Candice Wilson to weigh in on the representation of black technology in the box office hit Black…

To explore the new and rapidly changing world of virtual reality, Darien and Toby invite Stefan Muirhead to join the conversation. As founding principal and head of strategy at Ignition72, a digital firm that develops custom virtual reality experiences, Stefan gives his perspective on where virtual reality is coming from, where it's going, and the …

Darien and Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates discuss whether the rise of artificial intelligence could use a little regulation. Darien suggests that regulating AI might just be another experiment in futility, while Toby raises the possibility that trusting companies to set appropriate "prime directives" might be giving them a bit more leeway than they've ear…

Toby and Darien discuss the most epic of poems, Paradise Lost, and what it tells us about how we're likely to assign responsibility for the acts of thinking machines in the future. Darien raises the prospect that we're already dealing with thinking machines, and we haven't held anyone responsible so far. Meanwhile, Toby proposes that the robot apoc…

Can predicting the future help us escape it? Didn't work out so well for Oedipus. Darien and Toby address the human desire to know the future and why that doesn't always work out well for us. Toby raises the possibility that our predictions are all in vain, and Darien predicts that he's wrong.By Betsy Bates

In this episode Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates shares his growing love for customer service chatbots, and why he thinks Oscar Wilde would feel the same way. Darien questions why we're trying to make robots do the only thing they're really bad at.By Betsy Bates

Toby and Darien discuss how the rise of Bitcoin may actually presage future currencies. Toby suggests that Bitcoin may have all the value (or lack thereof) of the ring from The Lord of the Rings. Darien questions whether the hype may be all for nothing, when reality interrupts fantasy.By Betsy Bates

Are we not satisfied? Darien and Toby talk about why our news feed wants to please us, and whether that is making us more miserable? Toby dismisses Orwell's 1984 as an overused, and inaccurate metaphor for big data targeting, but suggests an alternative Orwellian narrative. Darien argues that the danger of social media bubbles may be overblown, and…

In the wake of the Equifax hacking scandal, and the subsequent congressional hearings, Darien and Toby discuss why these companies are collecting so much of our information, and whether we should we thank them for it? Toby looks at how Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native would be different with a credit scoring system, and Darien imagines a future …

In this episode (our first, so be warned the sound is not great), Darien and Tobias discuss how airline dynamic ticket pricing works, whether it's an automated form of price gouging, and why we're less happy with airline travel now, despite the fact that more people are traveling for less.By Betsy Bates