ΑΙhub.org
 

The Good Robot Podcast: featuring Mar Hicks on the unexpected history of computing


by
31 August 2023



share this:
Space scene with words Good Robot Podcast

Hosted by Eleanor Drage and Kerry Mackereth, The Good Robot is a podcast which explores the many complex intersections between gender, feminism and technology. In this episode, Mar Hicks talks about the unexpected history of computing.

Mar Hicks on the unexpected history of computing

In this episode, we talk to Mar Hicks, an Associate Professor of Data Science at the University of Virginia and author of Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost its Edge in Computing. Hicks talks to us about the lessons that the tech industry can learn from histories of computing, for example: how sexism is an integral feature of technological systems and not just a bug that can be extracted from them; how techno-utopianism can stop us from building better technologies; when looking to the past is useful and when it’s not helpful; the dangers of the ‘move fast and break things’ approach where you just build technology just to see what happens; and whether regulatory sandboxes are sufficient in making sure that tech isn’t deployed unsafely on an unsuspecting public.

Listen to the episode here:

Mar Hicks is a historian of technology, gender, and labor, specializing in the history of computing. Hicks’s book, Programmed Inequality (MIT Press, 2017) investigates how Britain lost its early lead in computing by discarding the majority of their computer workers and experts–simply because they were women. Their current project looks at transgender citizens’ interactions with the computerized systems of the British welfare state in the 20th century, and how these computerized systems determined whose bodies and identities were allowed to exist. Hicks’s work studies how collective understandings of progress are defined by competing discourses of social value and economic productivity, and how technologies often hide regressive ideals while espousing “revolutionary” or “disruptive” goals. Hicks is also co-editing a volume on computing history called Your Computer Is On Fire (MIT Press, 2020). They run the Digital History Lab at Illinois Tech and maintain a site about their research and teaching.

For the reading list and transcript for this episode, visit The Good Robot website.

About The Good Robot Podcast

Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry Mackereth are Research Associates at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, where they work on the Mercator-Stiflung funded project on Desirable Digitalisation. Previously, they were Christina Gaw Postdoctoral Researchers in Gender and Technology at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies. During the COVID-19 pandemic they decided to co-found The Good Robot Podcast to explore the many complex intersections between gender, feminism and technology.




The Good Robot Podcast




            AIhub is supported by:


Related posts :



Exploring counterfactuals in continuous-action reinforcement learning

  20 Jun 2025
Shuyang Dong writes about her work that will be presented at IJCAI 2025.

What is vibe coding? A computer scientist explains what it means to have AI write computer code − and what risks that can entail

  19 Jun 2025
Until recently, most computer code was written, at least originally, by human beings. But with the advent of GenAI, that has begun to change.

Gearing up for RoboCupJunior: Interview with Ana Patrícia Magalhães

  18 Jun 2025
We hear from the organiser of RoboCupJunior 2025 and find out how the preparations are going for the event.

Interview with Mahammed Kamruzzaman: Understanding and mitigating biases in large language models

  17 Jun 2025
Find out how Mahammed is investigating multiple facets of biases in LLMs.

Google’s SynthID is the latest tool for catching AI-made content. What is AI ‘watermarking’ and does it work?

  16 Jun 2025
Last month, Google announced SynthID Detector, a new tool to detect AI-generated content.

The Good Robot podcast: Symbiosis from bacteria to AI with N. Katherine Hayles

  13 Jun 2025
In this episode, Eleanor and Kerry talk to N. Katherine Hayles about her new book, and discuss how the biological concept of symbiosis can inform the relationships we have with AI.

Preparing for kick-off at RoboCup2025: an interview with General Chair Marco Simões

  12 Jun 2025
We caught up with Marco to find out what exciting events are in store at this year's RoboCup.

Graphic novel explains the environmental impact of AI

  11 Jun 2025
EPFL’s Center for Learning Sciences has released Utop’IA, an educational graphic novel that explores the environmental impact of artificial intelligence.



 

AIhub is supported by:






©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence