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You can keep in touch with us on social media at housing works bkf and sign up to give our newsletter to you every week tell you about reading, concert and awesome events that we have whatting every night here at house works. Thats great thats all you have to know about housing works and ill introduce two wonderful authors get started with the launch of life in code. Ellen wrote her First Computer Program many 1978 with a 21year program and essay and boobs are landmark works describing social, emotional and personal effects of technology shes author of two novel by blood a New York Times notable book and the bug, a runner up forked award. Her memoir host the machine during the internght first rise became a colt classic new life in code a personal technology tells continuing story of thest call world as experienced while living in midst of more than two two decades base in the San Francisco our second conversationalist is manush host of note to sell and tech show about being human from wnyc studio and a new search answers to life and experiment and conversations with listeners and experts and won numerous wades for her work including four of the new York Press Club in 2014. From the new York Press Club in 2013 alliance for women in media named her outstand host she lives in Brooklyn New York and author of board and bril yngts and camera ready a new rand of applause. [applause] thanks melissa. Okay fan girl moment is happening right now. This was my fantasy ellen that we sat down in a cafe chatted about your become and you guys can listen in if you want to. Because the note so self team i have to thank my producer for bringing this, coming in and i have my version with with all of the postit notes and everything she came in shes like, oh, my god you guys were all women team i should add we have to read this book and we did, and we talked about it and marveled over it and couldnt wait to have you on the show which we did last week which was we got a lot of amazing feedback from its my pleasure talking to you be a great conversation. Now i want to ask things about things we didnt get to talk about this idea that your book is compilation of essay and ideas. How do you begin youre prolific how did you go about were you like what one, okay that prediction really did come true lets put that in there. How did you decide to do this . My editor said only your best work. So that only would mean easier to pick which one. Idea was to have a stop motion history and so i look the for things that i wrote earliest i thought well this is still pert innocent say anything and i did that moving forward looking at the different pieces discarding this one and that one until i felt we had a something that made sense over time. Where parts in the middle are a poor, discussion of Artificial Intelligence which takes about a quarter of the book. Most pieces are also written in a sequence overtime but they make their own story i hope and theres a section called three stories about what we owe the past. Now, lighting about about technology and the i thought it was important to visit and say well, look, look at things that happened in 19 0. This is how i learn to have my skepticism in 1972 were get feedback here is that a problem there . I think 63. So i thats how we came about and then i moved it up to the president coming to the end piece which is bomb to a farewell. I thought uhoh here we go again. And this time the boom is not going to crash. Its going to slowly deflate but it is now what i feared it would be, when i started in 1994, moving into the intimacy of our lives and there we have it. Technology is not leaving that deep inner place in our human being. So you actually i want to read you a quote you say is that you with knew that tech would intrude into the intimities of our lives but you could not know that so many people would be delighted at that changed state of the existence. What did you mean by that . Thats in a piece called while i was away and again ill give credit to it Shawn Mcdonald because there was whole in time sequence while i wrote the novel by blood he said is there an essay but thats a good question to ask a writer and there was, and i peshed the book. And these were things i had feared all of this time and what sort of things . That the internght would intrude ive been talking about privacy and intruding in our intimate live and our social lives and changing politics. But then i looked at it and said these are things i feared and people talk about fearing and being concerned about whn go about their life as if concern and fears did not exist. It seemed to me it seems to madness of our time that we on one hand now were being surveyed and bits of information about us down to what we like for dinner are being traded. Equifax on the other hand i like everybody. So strange if you look back and say theres, theres where it happened or is it more of line the frog and per pot that were all simmering and suddenly oh, my gosh. 1998 [laughter] no. Theres this. New here. No 1996 was the first boom growing. And despite its despites always being sad it took place in Silicon Valley a lot of it happened in San Francisco the kind of revolutionary, free wheeling, cipher punk energy was in San Francisco. So i walked this girl up by 1998 the web had really taken over economic life. There was a a movement called or a trend called intermediation so it was you and theres the web and all of those people who had helped you figure out what to do in between agent and brokers, librarian, journalist experts of every variety were not to be trusted out for thelses boundaries. And come to us on the web. It was at that moment that Mainstream Media is not to be trusted and this was a way to draw people directly to the web thats where you get your needs satisfied. Now, of course, the interface is you have on the web were scan but you were with trapped in one website with no way of knowing the bias behind whatever they were showing you so at that point okay theres a who whole r of the middleclass and expertise that has been just been removed or displaced or mistrusted. And this i think is the beginning of something different. When i saw it a background of brilliant sky blue with writing on it and airy white letters weird to have me eread to you . No, they havent read it yet. [laughter] it said this is the sign nowed world really does revolve around you. What does that mean for us now to me i read your book i was like oh, when i god she called instagrandmother a decade ago you saw this was coming this personalization but you also not only saw the wonders of it in the i can get gluten e free indian food delivered in 20 eu7bs which is but also there were there was underbelly or for every wonderful thing that happened another side to it. I did i didnt foresee negative theres one coming all around me and slowly dawning on me not obvious exactly and more obvious i thought the and wrote about it. So how can i say this . I just knew that this was going to happen. I didnt foresee anything, and what i when i read that back again and reading over the work i want im really sorry this happened. And i look and didnt see instagram i didnt see twitter. The fought machine of yiewrs but im really sorry that i did see it coming and there were thing in the book now that i wrote i hope im wrong about this. Like what . Worried about stock market. But in the way that the first one and up, up, up with i have to get this this game. And the the shoe shine boy of the depression even shoe shine boys are buying stock to make it late and may feel that very last grass and theyre one who suffer it post because therm putting in their 401 k not their extra billions. Well, im afraid theyre going to have Something Like that again. But litigate my fear here is that these companies dont want to go public anymore. Theyre staying private. So its it a even more way is an outsider game going on. I dont know what defect that will have on larger public xepght to keep very few companies who make no money whatsoever were about to oldy ball matter or Revenue Growth matters but not profits. Lost 645 million in the last convert and they were doing better. [laughter] so this is what i worry about. That there are people who have enough money to afford to lose it Financing Companies fueling their tremendous Growth Without any natural break in terms of are they making money . Will this be a bipt to the public usually a company what goes public has to stands on its own at some point. Interesting to me theyre playing longer game right with uber as your example well we know right now its about team gene how you get a car ride but really what drivers are doing are training machines to eventually talk us to a wrorld where we dont it need drivers uber essentially wants to open the way you get around. Is that a shift in how Silicon Valley always worked, are they looking ten, 20 years were they always looking that father . This relates to something in Artificial Intelligence that i would like to talk to you for many years the moon artificial intebltion was to create a humanoid robot in fear was we wont be able to tell who is a robot whos a human being and smarter than we are, thats utterly failed time and again it came up against the big problem that human beings have conscienceness and selfawareness or social creatures with emotion that bind up lives so robots turned out to be bachelors degree at that but know whats going on in Artificial Intelligence is a machine to machine interaction. Thats where all of the Machine Learning going and this is what the principle is seeing applied to self driving car take out i call them drierless cars to emphasize what is taken out no belonger whether it drives like a human being they dont want it to drive like human being this car to this car intrx and this to the internght intersection. So Uber Movement is not only a i think of the verge i was going to call it culmination of a trend she saidingly bloc some of the trend in which you remove all a of the areas you know, even the taxi drivers go first but ebber drives go next. And then what were left with is machine to machine interaction so the deep is intense, Artificial Intelligence says well forget human beings were not interested. Were interested in machine to machine intersection. Youre minding me i was in San Francisco taking a list because uber is deleted off my phone i hope everyone is deleted off the poafn. Are you sure yowpght to know this . It is off my phone any disi took a list and man moved to him and he told me what his rent was and him square feet he was getting and wife like the whole thing i thought well you know what in i dont know five, ten, 20 years you qowld not you will not be choosing San Francisco as the place place to get a job, in fact, where in the United States would you as an inti grant or someone where is the toe hold into American Dream as it were. Theres people coming here for it. Desperately coming here for it. Axe drivers are classic case of imrangt problem place to start and earn some money. I take taxis i confess i know who this person is and probably not drunk or stoned and if they had a dui in the last six month they wouldnt be drive and so on no car probably wont luz a wheel and i know what ill be pay ahead of the time so i wont be abducted. Bad experiences with that. Didnt your mother tell you dont get in a car with a stranger. Die depression, though, is it stranger i see on the app it is like, you know well bicking up for stars too. We have a great raining but if you dent give great ratings you will be demote as a passenger. Bad uber rate thats the other rnght you keact really rate fairly. And i take a list to the airport. And i will say the price difference has been extraordinary. Lyft is half the price and how can driving industry is one example we could go down the line, food, and clothes and you know hardware goods, you know just go on down and there it is all the time. Sorry i interrupt you had with my foot note about my driving tell me more. No, we have to go where we go. Can i ask an century question of you. Do you have tech stocks . I do. Because you said in the future so i would think like you have i dont make these choices myself because i learn i actually buy very well with but i cant sell. And my friend who does help me do this who manages all of this for me she said, youre just afraid to take your cards off the table. You really dont ask, dont tell know when to get out. No i might miss something. Line you really bad u should stop doing this on your phone so we go up and down which tech stock to buy. Turns the apple is best performing stock is in the last ten year whether you like apple or not so what is the future . What is going to happen to people needing jobs . Bookstores dont pay all that well now do they . No. Retail people in retail are losing their jobs. Small shops are closing and Big Box Stores are suffering even walmart because people go there and use it as kind of a show room. And then they order from amazon onis line where does this . Op i dont know. This is the future yoct to force. I leave it to someone who is looking at things now and their lifetime 20 years from now and to tell me where they think it is going. You might be around for a while. Were many something awe usome going on. Im getting out the rocking chair. [laughter] so in the near tomorrow future who do you think we should be watching most closely facebook i wrote down the list of things that happened to them in last few weeks. Special counsel robert and theyre investigating russian sporpsed ads theres a hope fake news issue going on. Privacy regulations in europe, and discovered ad buyers to target users with interest like how to burn jews so from the a great month for facebook. Although you have been talking about a lot of those issues for a long time and our show certainly other o the past couple of years has delved into it but it seems were at a moment where the bloom is off the rose, so to speak. Is it just facebook that a little growing pain or were at a bigger moment where we are looking at the society that has been brought by i guess the book five saying no, not oak. Not good enough. Facebook is not going away. This is the most horrible thing to realize uber is not going away. The europeans are doing a preagdz job of smacking arranged which i cant say im sorry about. Apple is not going away. Google is not going away not in the near future but even there is a tech crash these companies have real value and big five are staying. Facebook is the devil. [cheering and applause] tweet that. What else can i say . The whole fake news thing started. With them when right wing said you have these human curator of what is trending news and theyre leaning liberal. Now facebook went oh, no we cant have that. So they fire the humans. And they replace them with algorithm so they look at what was trend and they look the at all of the thing that were people who wereing about and people wanted to have the childhood abduction ring in the podcast of a pizza rhea in nts and this is trending news so removing human, created fake news we have to remember this is where this started. This to push back, i mean, i again just was in San Francisco last week. And i dont think theyre like hahaha at all. Most are them are god at what they did and go to their job and get dry cleaning and go home while theyre at the job and mark i think genuinely seems kind of really does think that he has our best interest at heart. Yes our San Francisco generals calling Mark ZuckerbergSan Francisco general hospital. I dont think anybody involved in this says im going to be, you know, a tbreed did i ogre thats what they do for a living so they are upfront about it. All very well with whatever your startup will do but how will it make me money thats what they ask and what they do. I dont think individuals there are at fault but something arises out of that u group of people and software that is created an entity of itself that they kind of run like a machine. And in the dark. It does thats a very perfect. I dont like facebook for another reason. And this is something ive begun to mourn as soon as it came on, the first okay way back when the first brush of the internet greats thing was people made their own mud pages and we were locked into user interfaces of apple microsoft, windows, and it was such a great relief all of this creativity nothing looked the same okay people had 20 fonts on their screen. So it was fonts living in a christmas sweater land. [laughter] thats right. Ill remember that. [laughter] but then now not everyone is going of it a website, though, whats easier to make one tolls are really simple. But now we have facebook and this is this very tight format in which you express yourself. Not only that but they change format on you. When youre going to express yourself and talk tore people and say what youre interested in look oops now were doing it another way and this is to across the we can with an expert users of the Banking Software oh, try bay tay now youre an i idiot but it works better. It is better but that nice used to have now you have to pay quick books to get it. So i want to switch back two women on the stage talking about tax pretty unusual. Thank you for saving this into a few minutes into the conversation wow. Talked about something is else bachelors degrees women and checks. Ill meet translation expert next week and wonder if explosion will happen like is it is possible but another one write quoit an extraordinary piece in New York Times over the weekend i dont know if you saw it. It was an extraordinary it was about this sense misogyny that always had been there but boy did it have rots but now it has become tide to a movement more to codify movement with a name where people are needed and tied very much to extreme right politics. In in ways and wonder if i dont know where to start. [laughter] no. Whenever theres been an effort to bring women in or o minority of any sort any kind of you know, let me give you a handoff let me welcome you. Let me go out of my way a little bit to help people who have been excluded there was a fear backlash in tech it is amazing how quickly it turns pornographic. My book the bud came out and on flash drive its a geek site you know flash drive some people here may not sop lovely guy said to see review she job my life this guy with a bug and kopght fix and life fell apart, and there were couple of other interchanges by the 6th one it was oh, i know elle about saw is her naked body and yeah i didnt like how it looked and so on. So they drove me off and it was a place i felt comfortable where i belongeds a Software Engineer and that is what happened. I felt driven out the door and like what do you know youre tough. No, lot, cue them off who needs them but i did need them this is the conversation i wanted so i can tie into faster instance, a python conference in which they were making an effort to welcome in women and girls and they have this wild where people could put out yellow post it motes to make comments. And within 48 hours no only a three day conversation in about a day it turned pornographic it starts with why do we have to help them bitches make it on their own. So what youre reading about now is follow on to james memo these guy are say ising where its a witch hunt. Now lets face it. This is turning on its head the vik who victimize themselves witches were tortured, murdered right these poor guys are being put upon by a few poem who make sense in their 2,000,000 a year seller for the guy. Poor guy. I have this idea you know that women cant make it so if i go through this ill gi you one example that is punny. Which will relate directly back to your book, and one of the things he says is women cant be good soft square engineers because they want a brans if in life and cant sleep under their desk at night and get work done. So i thought get a lot worse. Those who have not yet taken on the responsibility of the adult life. They could even bring their dogs to work. With a minute. Go ahead. Because banging your head into the screen to sit at your desk all night to be preoccupied with one problem will not get you anywhere. You have to back away end introduce emptiness over borden into your life. Not only to this is what i dont get. Why that concentration of the feeling of the junior men as i refer to them, why . In order to do get rid of these difficult things and we need to find a better balance. All day wanted to know is how to avoid burnout. Re us. Super awkward. [laughter] but also of the we had a moment i told them they were not alone. And they seemed completely benign. What i dont understand why does industry have this particular issue with the live in . They are going into medicine come up hopefully politics but in journalism there is more women. Why not here . Why . Thinking in broad generalities to express it as often as i can, i am selftaught but ive learned a great deal. If i did not have these supportive men i never would have had a career as such as it was. I came to love that brilliant geeky is almost childishness to help me get in touch with my own key copper co geek. Now some are following the same route as medicine coming into the profession. And then try to get into things like surgery but what is happening with many are relegated to the front end and back and and the middle in between. And that since messages over the internet that handles the bulk of the work with that down and dirty algorithms. Even women who have experience on servers offer the front and development. So women are shuffled into the front end. So i feel we are repeating a pattern shown in june though weaker career path. Because that is how it is always has been . Now you took me back 1986 when the head of the Math Department it highschool said do not bother to try to do calculus because obviously i was not very good. There is no way you can say that now. But is that the root . The id it is biological . In general. At 11 years old look what happens to girls. They are normal human beings bin puberty and what is happening to my body . Yes you are told i tried coding and i found it hard. Anything you really want to know is hard just because it is hard does not mean you cannot be good at it. But are you intrigued . You can get that first little success did to get the sense that i want to another . It could be the good heart and that has to be a message put out over and over. I never hear the akron them stem begin i would be okay. [laughter] i have to say your description of coding was a good moment for me and this is why people stay up all night in their underwear. So bring that literary eloquence of those digital parts are built. A 72 hasnt had a ton of experience or given more opportunities to try. But then you also talk about to that masses of online course. That online open course. It could be a great to bring your curiosity. Off you go. Taught by the same people who teach Computer Science everywhere without preconception they have the bias and expectations. So no matter rigo the ethernet is not air purifier it is a concentration. And then to presume with montedison monty python and youre not able to take this course. So theoretically a might have been good and is a beginners language because live in the introductory video i dont just want to teach coating coating but the way people can see really is for everybody so why get there and before it starts to live video he and though they know he is teaching calling in their Digital Office hours. In the course of this talk about those things on the web page so she says i just found out if you see three little lines that is called a hamburger. He said you didnt know that . That she is teaching this. He said if there is a cutout of a man is called the man burger. They go back in first back and forth. In this is being streamed live around the world do not tell them it is the latest thing because it is not and youll lose your credibility. I actually had to soften it in the book because of the lawyers. But its verbal dominance and it was a heart stopping to watch this and then she said i and a Computer Scientist. So now she is just reaching for anything to regain her composure. So harper said the peace and they objected to how they were portrayed and there it is. There is a video. And that i took it out of context. Of course i did. They sent the linkedin the class was and running so it was actually shocking. So this is what you will find. Not the coded messages but the bias is in there and interwoven into the teaching pro people form groups. You can show them to groups of people you dont have to have the Internet Connection you can have your computer set up people cameron about it and talk about it together. And they can filter out all that stuff. So i think if people are excluded if you are curious just see if you find it fun. You dont have to do all the assignments so make it very easy to get started i think if they take a look with the proviso of social biases. I could keep going but lets take your questions or comments. Who has a question . [inaudible] [inaudible] the fight for neutrality for those agents for minorities or women to have a greater voice . Does anybody know not know what that neutrality is . The idea was providers charge the same feet for connectivity but then various web sites say i will pay more to go one of faster channel. If you go on to the fast line you pay more than the whole line. But it means those smaller websites on the of a local track facebook rand google running on the express. So those young startups and because they are less well funded to adversely affect women and minorities of the small businesses. It has gone away in the current administration. But we had to turn back. Has been delayed. In that petition but maya understanding is if we dont continue to have that neutrality and consolidate power of those you already have it that doesnt seem very fair. [inaudible] the difference be trying it between any type of driver but what does about software . Says that becomes more automated . But there are better and better tools for this. With a click here and here a very dumb down profession. So that automation creeps even deeper of the thoughts of human intelligence. I have no solution i can only worry with you. [laughter] that you can tell the nextgeneration but more like scratches and digital blocks. In the short term in the interdisciplinary approach from that perspective and using that technology to design not necessarily just this or that the bad dumbing down of programming. But my point in asking people to expose themselves to be coding we are surrounded by algorithms 1 2 to go on but this since we cannot do anything about it. But if there is just enough to know may be these things can be changed. We have a wonderful and happy story about this. Those that proposed a bill all of those algorithms are with bias like where police are assigned her garbage pickups schedules in this is the open your eyes the people who can examine the code you dont want to work for ruth google this is what i hope there is no wider society. I went to a tech company recently. Because they have better tacos on thursdays. [laughter] for all of those willing to work in the bronx. [inaudible] there is a double in the four horsemen. [laughter] we feel that google is very complex and there are parts that have jigsaws and doing community and then other parts river is so fractured it worries me. So that they say stay cool. If you are friends of them. And larry offers her a job. That is because we are selftaught. So to say basically the processing and their faces said do you want a job . Do i won a job at google . This was the late nineties and i became terrified. I was like a lizard i was afraid i would fail. I look back as a moment that i regret. But this was different not that i could figure it out but i lost faith in my ability to figure out. Now when they started in the event that. Innuendos officers got up there talking about monetizing eyeballs. People coming to the site now hardly make money . Then the story goes on from there. So trying to have humans occasionally interact and if you search for a jew the first one is the adjudicator jew hater if you search for jewish people is the interesting result. But and i said i am kind of worried that the rich character and he thought about it and said i am concerned about that but i dont know any other way to do that. He meant through algorithm. They did not make choices. In said i cannot go and evaluate the quality. I really know by how many people think it is good. And he was concerned. The then they had to make money so they did. That is not in the book. [laughter] i have a lot more stories its funny how amazon because we all have prime. We have given them a pass. Another question. [inaudible] the pros and cons . Yes that does scare me. [laughter] with that much selfconfidence and money to do pretty much what he wants. And he is terrified of Artificial Intelligence. There is no way to build a computing machine. Your car is a little robot or a big robot. Robotic solar Artificial Intelligence is woven into what you have. Maybe not the toaster. But the problem for me is Machine Learning because the algorithm that writes the algorithm that writes the algorithm that is changing in response to those influences. We can get to the point they dont know what it is doing any more. So this is the part that goes into science fiction. I dont generally worry about that. But there are other Computer Scientist who wonder, what is the responsibility . So correct me if i am wrong there is the amazing thing happening in the field call a cancer cell grows to have vast amounts of information not just one hospital looking at three cases per year but now you can take all of that information to have incredible discoveries. If thats needs to have a pesticide sprayed on that. To have this outstanding use Case Scenario but to get to the point that we see how fast these move for what it is doing anymore we start to use that is in situations that are ethically questionable like a political standoff. Right now twitter is the place to declare war but that is the scenario. Going on the last 6570 years. To be instruments of war as though they remain to some extent so the first modern computer was designed to calculate the artillery shells. And women are figuring it out by hand. They worked smarter they were called computers they have the right answers. So there was not considered smart for row we have to remember they were conceived not to as a beneficial all objects but going back to the catapults i also think porn had a lot to do with the internet. [laughter] driving technical change board was the only thing actually making money for girl but there were making actual dollars for pro and for all of those videos. To get the band with so there are certain things that drive changes in technology. [inaudible] the question is about if theyre writing the code for the of rhythms there . I will be at the start up that post slight that is the discussion topic out to be a Software Engineer and this is a question. I think scientists face this also i first joined a group Computer Scientist on social responsibility with the radio we would shoot down and they were very concerned to do this would make war were more likely. This is something of a five engineers are beginning to think about with the humanities education places like google are beginning to recognize those so learned other stuff over thousands of years and those who can enrich their point of view. These questions are coming to the four. A thank you are right because three years ago i did say would you think about having a code of ethics . Now i wouldnt say it is mainstream but it isnt unusual to hear that brought up regularly in guy would also say the regulatory stuff going on in europe so for example, we talked about privacy to bring the in house philosopher to discuss. Why . Because in europe there is a history going back to world war ii even in a very specific way. Also the right to privacy called the Fourth Amendment though we dont want to legislate for girl. [inaudible] [laughter] [inaudible] [inaudible] but i get the point made the discussion is solve the fran sectors but that is a great place to end because at this moment we are starting to see some of the things you were built around you with a cultural shift happening right now . Always. Get every generation thinks it was an extraordinary time and that is true. Thanks for being here. Come check out the book. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]