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Algorithms of Oppression

Robert Fantina New York Journal of Books
Search engines aren't the innocent, objective tools they pretend to be. Instead, as author Safiya Umoja Noble argues: “They include decision-making protocols that favor corporate elites and the powerful, and they are implicated in global economic and social inequality.”

Using Technology as a Movement-Building Tool

Rebekah Barber Facing South
"Technology can be used to self-determine as long as we can control it. If it continues to belong to the privileged and powerful, we will always be struggling with it."

Stephen Hawking Speaks

Stephen Hawking Reddit
portrait photo of Stephen Hawking Two years ago, Reddit held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with Stephen Hawking (January 8, 1942-March 14, 2018). In this session the renowned physicist talked about the promise and risk of AI, technological unemployment, and more.

How Tech Giants Feed Off Capitalism's Failures

Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and other successful tech giants are disrupting our everyday lives ... but is all that disruption a good thing? Are they fixing holes in our economy, or just digging a bigger one that's six feet deep?

Silicon Valley Wants Access to Your Brain

Andrea Capocci il Manifesto
Soon, speaking and typing may be old-fashioned forms of communication. The new wave of Silicon Valley products will use your brain as the interface. Will bioethicists be able to control the new technology?

Why Men Don’t Believe the Data on Gender Bias in Science

Alison Coil Wired
While sexual harassment is certainly an issue, we need to look deeper at gender bias. Women who do make it to the upper ranks have often been told that they were only given that job or that award because they are women, implying that the field is admitting less-deserving women simply to increase their numbers. In fact, these studies show that many of the women in science must be more capable than the men, to even have advanced in the field. And who wants to admit that?

books

Write on: The History and Uncertainly of Writing

Scott McLemee Insider Higher Ed
Contrary to a too-commonly held assumption, book author Anne Trubeck argues that while writing by hand will likely become less practiced, it will not disappear, but evolve, as she insists its variegated world history amply shows. Just one possible precedent: the metamorphosis of letterpress printing into an artisanal form.

Girls Who Code Aims to Disrupt

In middle school, 74% of girls express interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), but when choosing a college major, just 0.4% of high school girls select computer science. GirlsWhoCode is out to change that.

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