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Technically Sweet

Chocolate is beloved by...well, most humans, it would seem. But this sweet treat that, for many of us, brings instant happiness, has a nasty secret: …

Training Computers to See

Over the past few decades, computer vision has held the promise of making the world a better place, from aiding the blind to helping doctors better analyze medical imagery. But as it turns …

The Worst Cyber Attack (For now)

In June 2017, something weird — and very alarming — started happening at a company in Copenhagen. It seemed that hackers had shut down the company’s network, and were demanding a ransom. …

How We Found Ourselves

Get out your smartphone, and you can almost instantaneously know where you are — and find out how to get where you want to go. Which, when you think back on the history of human navigation …

About Us, But Not For Us (Repost)

Originally broadcast in April 2019. As we approach the end of 2019, the Financial Times recognizes Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" as one of the best business books …

Prediction (BYTE)

When humans predict something, it’s basically an educated guess, based on our experiences. When a machine makes a prediction, it uses data and math. And we are increasingly relying on …

The Digital Divide

Imagine a life without the Internet. No email, no Instagram, no texting, no Google maps, no Netflix...what would you do? A “normal” life would be …

Hacking (BYTE)

In the world of computer science, being a hacker means you know what’s up, and you have street cred. Outside of technology circles, though, hacking …

Machine Learning (BYTE)

It’s 2019, and machine learning is everywhere. It might not be Skynet, but it can still sound a little scary. If the robot apocalypse isn’t around the corner, what is? We talk to Kantwon …

Memory (BYTE)

What exactly is memory? And why is it so important to how our devices work today? Friend of the show and Georgia Tech computing lecturer Kantwon Rogers breaks it down into bits and bytes — …

The Answer Machine

Google has become our yellow pages, our atlas, our library, our medical consultant, our shopping guide. Which means it is, basically, a giant, …

Algorithms (BYTE)

Simply put, we (humans) can’t possibly process all of the data in the world, which is why computers are so useful — and why algorithms have become so …

Your Data Are Showing

What could someone learn about you from your location? What about your Facebook likes? What about just...your face? You’re probably thinking — not …

Power from the People (Post Trump, Pre-2020)

Originally broadcast in March 2019, this episode has a new introduction, with an update on the Trump administration’s push to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. 

At the birth …

Power Lines, Post SCOTUS

Originally broadcast in May 2019, this episode has a new introduction, with an update on the implications of the recent Supreme Court decision on partisan gerrymandering.

The United States …

Conspiracy Tyranny

If the rise of despots around the world seems bewildering, especially given our unprecedented access to information in 2019 — therein might lie the very problem. A new kind of propaganda …

Kinetic Effects

We know that Russia has been honing its tools of disinformation since the Cold War, but how did Soviet Era sabotage make the jump into the digital …

Dezinformatsiya

Russians posing as Americans. Wild conspiracy theories about political figures. Outright fabrications. All part of Russian efforts to interfere in …

Climate and Behavior: Warmer Means Worse

Climate change is already reshaping the natural world, but how does it affect human behavior? Economist Marshall Burke is part of a growing field of scientists uncovering interactions …

Power Lines

The United States is a pretty divided country; which may just feel like an inevitable product of our times. But it turns out there’s one partisan …

Titan vs. Titan: A.I. & the Race for Global Supremacy

There’s an epic struggle under way: a challenge to lead the world in A.I. — artificial intelligence. But this space race for the 21st century doesn’t seem to be getting enough attention …

Weaponized

When we think of killer robots, images of the Terminator, Robocop, and other dystopian movies often spring to mind. These movies usually don’t end well (for the humans, at least). So it …

About Us, But Not for Us

Shoshana Zuboff doesn’t mince words when it comes to the data economy. According to Zuboff, author of the recent book *The Age of Surveillance …

Power from the People, Part II: A New Kind of Machine

At the start of the 20th century, the United States Census Bureau was in a bit of a pickle. The electric tabulating machines that had saved the …

Power from the People

At the birth of the United States, the new nation faced a problem. How do you make a crazy new idea — power coming not from a king, but from the people — a reality? There was no handbook; …

Meet Raw Data

On Raw Data, we take a look at the new source of power in the 21st century: data. Whoever controls data has power. But is this making things better? …

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Start listening to The Answer Machine
27:08
Start listening to The Answer Machine
27:08