Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

Playing for Team Human today is designer, technology historian, and author of the new book Architectural Intelligence, Professor Molly Wright Steenson. Molly and Douglas share a wide-ranging conversation that begins by looking at the “weirdness” of AI. How do design metaphors such as “awesome mouth feel” and “uncanny valley” provoke deeper questions of human imagination, play, and meaning. Molly’s background in architecture and history offers listeners a unique grounding of digital in the physical. Check out Molly’s new book Architectural Intelligence and her longstanding website girlwonder.com. Molly also discusses her oft-cited essay, What is Burning Man, working with Howard Rheingold (TH 76) at Electric Minds, building the Netscape search page, and launching the influential feminist webzine Maxi.Opening the show, Douglas comments on educating robots versus educating humans. Is there something more, something ambiguous and sacred even to be retrieved from a well-rounded liberal arts education?You can sustain this show via Patreon. And please leave us a review on iTunes.This show features intro and outro music thanks to Fugazi and Dischord Records. Mid-way you heard Throbbing Gristle’s United. See Ep. 67 with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.Thanks to teammate and listener Bobby Campbell for his amazing Team Human trading cards. Follow Team Human on Twitter where we will be posting more trading cards, going back to the earliest episodes.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

“Everyone wants to be a cowboy, but no one wants to ride the range.” A dream of unraveling the mystery of the birth of universe led astrophysicist and author Brian Keating to "saddle up" and head to a frozen ocean of snow at the bottom of the world. Keating joins Rushkoff to talk about science, religion, questions that lead to more questions, and the "background noise” of the cosmos that may just be the key to understanding how this all began.Rushkoff begins today's show commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Are we suffering the effects of HAL computer-like programming on Facebook? "I know everything hasn't been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it's going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do." HAL 9000 or Mark Zuckerberg?Learn more about our guest, Brian Keating:Professor Brian Keating is an astrophysicist with UC San Diego’s Department of Physics. He and his team develop instrumentation to study the early universe at radio, microwave and infrared wavelengths. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds two U.S.Patents. He received an NSF CAREER award in 2006 and a 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House from President Bush for a telescope he invented and deployed at the U.S. South Pole Research Station called “BICEP". Professor Keating became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016. He co-leads the Simons Observatory Cosmic Microwave Background experiments in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and is the author of Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor, selected as one ofAmazon.com’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Month.This show features music thanks to Fugazi and Dischord Records as well as a sample of Throbbing Gristle by TH 68 guest Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.You can sustain this show via Patreon. And please leave us a review on iTunes.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct, as he uncovers how cultures have historically imprinted meaning onto the cosmos. He discusses the unique thought processes of indigenous and traditional societies versus modern tech-centric thinking. Lent critiques democracy's current state and the education system's shift from critical thinking to job training. Explore how human instincts influenced agriculture and the need for compassionate decision-making. The conversation ultimately champions a holistic understanding of our interconnectedness with nature and each other.

What can artists, musicians, magical thinkers and "weirdos" bring to machine learning and neural networks? What do we need to make the right kind of AI? Exploring these questions and more is Kenric McDowell, leader of Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence program. In this conversation with Douglas, Kenric explains how his unique role at Google enables him to bring the artistic spirit into the very heart of technology development. Moving beyond the hype of AI, Kenric shares strategies for leading technology with human imagination rather than the other way around.Douglas opens today’s show addressing the myth of social media; the notion that you matter. Facebook doesn’t care about you, and it’s time to leave it behind. Every minute spent off Facebook is a minute you can spend with the others! Go find them.Our intro and outro music is thanks to Dischord Records and Fugazi. A special thanks to Kenric for sharing his own original music featured at the mid-roll. Visit http://thebiggestphone.com to hear more. Kenric also provided us with the audio clip from a forthcoming documentary on the Word Car project. Read about it here!Stay tuned for Team Human live events in New York and beyond. Become a subscriber at Patreon for special access and the latest news.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Playing for Team Human today is Suzanne Slomin, founder of Green Rabbit a small solar powered bakery located in the Mad River Valley of Vermont specializing in naturally leavened breads. Suzanne will share with us what it’s like being a “Real Person Doing Real Things” – an actual baker, farmer, employer and global citizen trying to operate as sustainably and humanly as possible across all the dimensions of her work. In this episode, we meet Suzanne having just “fed” her sourdough starter, a living culture of yeast and bacteria that is the essential element for her delicious and healthful breads. Instantly, the conversation is grounded to the hands-on daily work that makes Green Rabbit so special. Is it possible for the small farmer and local baker to maintain integrity and stewardship of the community in an increasingly extractive economy? Find out how Suzanne does it...Plus, in stark contrast to "Real People Doing Real Things," Rushkoff opens the show with a monologue on the idealism of bitcoin. Are cryptocurrencies soon to be just another instrument of the financial services industry?This show features music thanks to Fugazi and Dischord Records as well as a sample of Throbbing Gristle by TH 68 guest Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.You can sustain this show via Patreon. And please leave us a review on iTunes.Thanks to teammate and listener Bobby Campbell for his amazing Team Human trading cards.Images of Green Rabbit come courtesy of Suzanne Slomin.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today on Team Human we conclude our series of live shows recorded at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts in the historic Mission district of San Francisco. Picking up where we left off last week and joining Douglas on stage are teammates Erik Davis and Josette Melchor. Erik Davis is the author of Techgnosis, Nomad Codes and host of The Expanding Mind podcast. Erik and Douglas start with the big question, “What the fuck is going on here?” What begins with a few laughs quickly digs into a mind-expanding conversation about those gray areas between religion, technology, and psychedelics. Erik and Douglas look for coherence and connection in these fractious times. Making this message concrete is Gray Area’s founder Josette Melchor. Josette resurrects our show segment “Real People Doing Real Things.” She offers both practical and profound lessons on building a safe space for community, creativity, and artistic exploration.As we conclude this series, we’d like to thank our teammates at Gray Area; Josette Melchor, Seabrook Gubbins, Alric Burns, our guests for both nights Annalee Newitz, Howard Rheingold, Lauren McCarthy, Erik Davis, and (again!) Josette Melchor. Thank you to the San Francisco community who came out to support and participate in the show. And sincere gratitude to our Patreon members who’s sustaining subscriptions made travel and recording possible.Sign up at Patreon. There you’ll find the complete, uncut San Francisco Live shows, plus other rewards and ways to Find the Others.During this live performance we featured Intro music from Fugazi, plus excerpts from Throbbing Gristle (Listen to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge with Douglas on Episode 67). Mid-show you heard music by Mike Watt.This week's playing cards (thanks to Bobby Campell)Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Playing for Team Human today is interactive artist Lauren McCarthy. Lauren’s thought provoking work brings a unique and creative perspective on social interaction and the intersection of humans and technology.In this episode, Lauren’s app Crowdpilot becomes the first “advertisement” to be featured on Team Human. Crowdpilot is an app in which real time conversation advice is crowdsourced from online third-party monitors. In another crowdsourcing experiment titled Social Turkers, McCarthy hired Amazon Mechanical Turks to participate with her on her own OkCupid dates. The Turks, connected via stream, give Lauren dating advice while she meets strangers in real life.Lauren also discusses Follower, a service that puts humans into the role of real-time surveillance. Users sign up to be followed for a day, answering two questions: Why do you want to be followed? Why should someone follow you?And finally, in her most recent project Lauren: A Human Smart Home Intelligence, Lauren attempts to become the human version of Amazon Alexa. What happens when our robot smart home devices are replaced with a real human?In this conversation with Douglas, the third in our series of live Team Human events at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Lauren helps us reconsider our relationship to social technologies, convenience, privacy, intimacy, and autonomy. Next week we’ll conclude our live series of shows from Gray Area with the part two of this show, featuring Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis, Nomad Codes and host of The Expanding Mind podcast. Gray Area founder Josette Melchor will also join the team to share her inspiring story on building a home for digital arts and supporting the local community.Patrons of Team Human got into these events free. Sustain Team Human by subscribing via patreon.com/teamhuman.If you are enjoying this live series, please consider giving us a review on iTunes.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week we continue with part two of our special live recording of Team Human at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts in San Fransisco. Joining Douglas on stage is cyberculture pioneer, educator, artist, author, visionary, and shoe painter, Howard Rheingold. “Mind amplifiers,” “psychedelic signifiers,” and “the instrumental vs. the sacred” are just the tip of the iceberg in a conversation that explores how we got to this moment in technology and society... and ultimately where we hope to go. Following Rushkoff and Rheingold’s conversation, Sci-Fi author and technology journalist Annalee Newitz (hear Newitz's conversation in part 1) rejoins the team for a roundtable discussion and audience Q & A. If you are just discovering Team Human, check out last week’s Episode 75, featuring the first hour of this of this live show with guest Annalee Newitz. Patreon supporters have access to the complete uncut interview at patreon.com/teamhuman. Music heard on today’s show; “Walkabout” by Throbbing Gristle (hear Genesis Breyer P-Orridge on Episode 67) Also heard on the show, music by Team Human Ep. 68 guest Stacco Troncoso plus intro and outro music from Fugazi.If you enjoyed these live shows, Please share a review of Team Human on iTunes. Your recommendation helps Team Human to “find the others.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's Team Human comes to you recorded live at the historic Grand Theater in San Francisco's Mission District, home to Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. We'll be sharing four installments of this live event, kicking it off with a conversation with Annalee Newitz, author of the mind blowing sci-fi novel Autonomous, as well as prior work Scatter Adapt and Remember: How Humans will Survive a Mass Extinction, founder of I09, and journalist for outlets such as Ars Technica among many others.Annalee joins Douglas on stage to talk about artificial intelligence, autonomy, tech ethics, robot sex, saving the planet and more. It's a lively discussion, energized by the presence of a wonderful and welcoming audience.Rushkoff kicks off this live series with an excerpt from his Team Human Manifesto, an excellent primer on the motivation driving this podcast and the connections being forged through its members.Next week we'll pick up with part two of this live show, featuring cyberculture pioneer, educator, and artist Howard Rheingold.During this live performance we featured Intro music from Fugazi, plus excerpts from Throbbing Gristle (Listen to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge with Douglas on Episode 67)You can sustain Team Human by subscribing via Patreon. Patreon members received free access to these San Francisco Events. Visit patreon.com/teamhuman to join.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Playing for Team Human today is interdisciplinary thinker and technology philosopher Damien Williams. In this episode, Williams and Rushkoff look at the embedded biases of technology and the values programed into our mediated lives. How has a conception of technology as “objective” blurred our vision to the biases normalized within these systems? What ethical interrogation might we apply to such technology? And finally, how might alternative modes of thinking, such as magick, the occult, and the spiritual help us to bracket off these systems for pause and critical reflection? This conversation serves as a call to vigilance against runaway systems and the prejudices they amplify.Learn more about Damien’s work at http://www.afutureworththinkingabout.com/Rushkoff begins today’s show with a story from home. A well-meaning school administrator begins using social media to promote his school, posting pictures of students and classroom activities. As parents become upset, the question arises: Why is it so easy to lose sight of the design and purpose behind these platforms?"This show features our usual intro and outro music thanks to Fugazi and Discord Records. Mid show you heard Throbbing Gristle (Listen to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Douglas on Episode 67)A very special thanks to our new patrons who support the show via Patreon. Go to patreon.com/teamhuman to subscribe and receive patron exclusives. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy