Is South by Southwest the big tent tech revival for the American creative class? As knowledge workers make their annual pilgrimage to Austin this week to participate in a giant festival filled with the latest in technology, music and film, it's worth asking if conferences like this one are the 21st century's communities of engagement.

As traditional organizations, civil and religious alike, like Lions Club International and Rotary International, churches, and even unions lose membership, there is a need for new structures to organize and engage people in meaningful ways, especially those in the creative class.

Witness the rise of the conference, the unconference, the meetup and the ascendancy of the professional group as one of the primary binding elements of our society — at least for those involved in the information economy. In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss this phenomenon examined through the lens of the popular SXSW festival.

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SXSW and Social Organization for the Creative Class

In this episode of The Digital Life, we talk with Niti Bhan about the highly active entrepreneurial space around mHealth in Africa, her perspective on human centered strategy for digital health, and the unique and innovative methods developed for Africa's emerging healthcare consumers.

mHealth in Africa [The Digital Life 101]

In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss healthcare experience and the Internet of Things (IoT) with Juhan Sonin, director of Involution Studios. Juhan will be speaking on these topics at the Rework Internet of Things Summit in Boston on Friday, May 29. 

What role is the Internet of Things going to play in the coming revolution in human health?  As the experience of healthcare changes, there will be massive opportunities for and impacts of technology and design in this area. But in order to make it real, designers will need to be familiar with the digital, materials and networking technologies.

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Healthcare Experience and the IoT

The latest and greatest from Apple used to be something to celebrate. At their Worldwide Developers Conference this week, the biggest tech company in the world announced its newest efforts to much fanfare and largely came up short. While the Apple Watch and the newly minted Apple Music streaming service have garnered lots of interest from the tech press, these offerings from Cupertino seem like pale shadows, trailing after the company's previous glory. In this episode of The Digital Life, we comment on Apple's innovation drought from a design and UX perspective.

Apple Misses the Mark

Virtual reality headsets could be the next big thing for entertainment. A bevy of new product offerings from the Oculus Rift to the HTC Vive to Sony’s Project Morpheus, mean that there will be plenty of consumer choices when it comes to this new computing and communications device. But how, exactly, will this medium will fit into our online and offline lives? Product demonstrations so far have been severely limited. And no one knows exactly how much these things will cost.

In this episode of The Digital Life we take on the new virtual reality product craze from a user experience perspective — examining everything from the new social norms of virtual space to the practical realities of navigating your environment when you can't see. 

Has Virtual Reality Finally Arrived?

For our final podcast of 2015, we chat about the big themes, learnings and insights on the show and our favorite episodes over the past year. We had conversations on design and tech with some wonderful guests including Niti Bahn, Madeleine Price Ball, Uday Gajander, Kelly Goto, Bill Hartman, Suzanne Livingston, Jon McKay, Scott N. Miller, Juhan Sonin, Scott Stropkay, Scott Sullivan, and Giuseppe Taibi. 

From UX in the enterprise to emerging technologies like wearables and robotics to the disruptive nature of creative class work, we covered a wide range  topics on The Digital Life in 2015. So what did we learn from a year talking design?

Enterprise UX is on the rise

Enterprise users — from employees to customers to managers — face experiences that are antiquated and needlessly complicated when compared with the experience of consumer-facing software. For those large, complex businesses, government agencies, and other organizations, UX research and design can provide enterprise products with a competitive edge. What is the current state of enterprise software when it comes to UX? What is the scale and complexity of enterprise UX problems? And, most importantly, how is UX changing the way the enterprise works?

Emerging technologies require design to be successful

From robotics to wearables to bio-inspired materials, emerging technologies represent a future that desperately needs design. There are immediate, significant opportunities for emerging technologies in energy, health, and manufacturing. Designers working in these areas will need to help identify the major challenges in these areas and seek proactive solutions — not an obvious or easy task.

The innovation economy is changing the way we work, collaborate, and live our lives

How do we separate work from play, busyness from leisure in the digital age? Is South by Southwest the big tent tech revival for the American creative class? What is the connection between creative routines and output? Creative work and digital automation are changing the economics of the American middle class. The need for meaningful work is an essential one for humanity, and one that increasingly is falling prey to technological change.

A Year Talking Design

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about digital healthcare services in 2016 (and beyond). From sensor technology for medication adherence to conversational UI, health analytics to digital care planning, we cover the top industry trends to watch. If you like what we have to say on this topic, we encourage you to check out our piece on MobiHealthNews (http://mobihealthnews.com/content/digital-healthcare-services-2016-and-beyond).


Digital Healthcare Services in 2016 (and Beyond)

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss future crime and the surveillance state in light of China’s recent efforts to use predictive analytics and big data to stop terrorism. China Electronics Technology Group, a state-run defense contractor, is developing the software to analyze data on everything from employment to hobbies to purchasing habits of ordinary citizens to try to predict terrorist acts before they happen. The software, in more ways than one, echoes the fantastical pre-crime technology featured in the science fiction film Minority Report. In this week's episode we explore the question of predicting crime using technology and its consequences.

Future Crime and the Surveillance State

On this episode of The Digital Life, we chat about urban agriculture and its importance to the cities of the future. We’re quickly approaching 8 billion people on the planet. More than half of them live in cities, and this number will continue to grow. The agriculture industry is resource intensive, especially when it comes to water and energy usage. Around the world, as they plan for the cities of the future, people are looking at urban agriculture.

Urban agriculture has many benefits.Because food is grown locally, near where we live, it reduces the cost and environmental impact of long supply chains. Locally grown also means we always get fresh produce.

Cities benefit from the increased greenery of urban agriculture which, importantly, reduces the "heat island" effect, caused by impermeable city surfaces are and dry which make urban regions warmer than nearby rural areas. Additionally, urban farming can bring healthy food as well as jobs to underserved urban areas.

In this episode we discuss the current state of urban agriculture and its future, including vertical farms and products like the Grove Ecosystem.

Urban Agriculture

To start off the new year on The Digital Life, we discuss cyber rights including the "right to disconnect" law that took effect in France on January 1. It looks like the enlightened humanists in France are now staking out new territory for human rights in the digital age. After hours, the French no longer need to pay attention to work e-mail for reasons of health and well being. What should digital human rights or cyber rights include? A right to our data? A right to not be harassed? A right to privacy? Maybe even a right to vote? Join us as well discuss all this and more.

The Digital Life

Our Cyber Rights

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss deceptive software in light of the recent revelations that Uber used its Greyball application to evade and thwart municipal officials nationwide, who were looking to regulate or otherwise monitor the service. This has a similar flavor to the Volkswagen story from last year, in which the company installed special software in its diesel powered cars to specifically reduce emissions during testing by authorities. What are the ways in which consumers now need to be aware of these deceptive practices? And how should we navigate the marketplace?

Designing Deception

On The Digital Life this week, we explore designing bioinspired products with special guest Nic Hogan, a computational designer focused on the creation of design and fabrication techniques that emulate or implement biological processes. Nic’s work includes projects with Harvard iLab and bioinspired technologies currently being developed at the Wyss Institute.

Bioinspired Product Design

On this episode of The Digital Life, we chat about the frontiers of CGI and how we might approach it as reality and the virtual become increasingly indistinguishable. In a video essay, “Goodbye Uncanny Valley” in Aeon online magazine, artist and animator, Alan Warburton, explores this topic, examining everything from Hollywood blockbuster to political propaganda to digital art. What are the agreements that we make as a society regarding what is fact and fiction? How do we make decisions about important issues? Have we reached the post truth era? And, if so, how do we create policy when we have such powerful technology capable of both distorting and augmenting our experience of reality? Join us as we discuss.

Faking It

On this episode of The Digital Life, we wrap up the year with some emerging tech predictions for 2018. We discuss the expansion of AI services in significant ways, automated trucks on the road, Target's online struggles, Amazon's difficulties in exploiting niche businesses,  and the streaming services war as Disney prepares to take on Netflix among other topics.

Tech Predictions for 2018

This week on The Digital Life, we chat about all the new technology fun as CES 2018, the de facto emerging tech showcase, gets going in Las Vegas.

The smart home battleground is heating up as AI virtual assistants, like Google and Amazon Alexa, are being built into everyday household items and appliances. For instance, the bathroom is fast becoming a smartroom with Alexa incorporated into products like Kohler's new mirror, which can personalize light levels for different tasks, and Moen's digital shower technology, that enables users to set a specific water temperature.  Connecting the digital to the physical is a big theme for CES this year, as AI is rolled out for a bevy of products and services. Join us as we discuss all this and more.

Emerging Tech at CES 2018

On this episode of The Digital Life, we talk about designing voice user interfaces with engineer Claire Sun, who just returned from the Conversational Interaction Conference. Today, the voice UI market is primarily focused on performing tasks and controlling devices related to the smart home. Voice recognition technology isn’t robust enough yet to function smoothly in noisy environments or tell the difference between multiple speakers. Additionally, the software that powers VUIs is still at the early stages of being able to understand language in context, as opposed to more simple, transactional phrases. Join us as we discuss approaches to designing VUIs, and the difficulties that designers and engineers encounter in their quest to create software that’s both personal and conversational.

Designing Voice User Interfaces

On this episode of The Digital Life, we chat about a recent study, published in the journal Science by researchers at MIT Media Lab and the MIT Sloan School of Management, showing that false news spreads more quickly online than truthful news. We explore the alarming implications for our ongoing political discussions and possible impacts on society of the spread of misinformation on social media.

The Speed of Lies

Our special guest this week on The Digital Life is design strategist, Ben Sauer, who's investigating the idea of secret design skills for his new book. Design is filled with cross-pollination from other fields, from writing to architecture, acting to music. From these other fields we find ways of seeking, thinking and doing that are useful to a designer. What's your secret design skill? Join us as we discuss.

Secret Design Skills

On The Digital Life this week, we chat with special guest Katja Grace from AI Impacts, whose research is focused is the future of AI. Where will AI be in 10 years and what kind of impact will it have on the world? The buzz now is that deep learning will increasingly automate knowledge work. AI and automation will change creative fields, from research science to journalism, fiction writing to graphic design, software engineering to management activities. Join us as we discuss.

AI and Knowledge Work

On The Digital Life this week we chat about human / machine hybrids — the combination of AI and people — into advanced teams that produce amazing creative output. From chess to photography, art to science, these so-called "Centaurs" may represent the future of work for many fields. Join us as we discuss.

AI + Human = Centaur

This week on The Digital Life, chat about automation and reinventing yourself in the job market.

Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of books like Sapiens and Homo Deus had this to say about automation and the difficulties of reinventing your career on the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast:

“It’s questionable how many times a human being can reinvent himself or herself during your lifetime—and your lifetime is likely to be longer, and your working years are also likely to be longer. So would you be able to reinvent yourself four, five, six times during your life? The psychological stress is immense. So I would like to see a science fiction movie that explores the rather mundane issue of somebody having to reinvent themselves, then at the end of the movie—just as they settle down into this new job, after a difficult transition period—somebody comes and announces, ‘Oh sorry, your new job has just been automated, you have to start from square one and reinvent yourself again.'”

Have you ever had to reinvent yourself during your career, maybe due to automation? Personal characteristics like flexibility and creativity play a role as well as external factors like work availability and the market. Join us as we discuss.

Reinventing Yourself

This week on The Digital Life, we chat with Ben Nelson, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Minerva, a groundbreaking university program, and an editor of the book “Building the Intentional University”. 

We discuss some of the key problems with higher education, how Minerva is rethinking the university system to support how people actually learn, and the ways in which the tech-enabled learning experience for Minerva students and professors is vastly different from those of a more traditional college or university.

Rethinking the University

This week on The Digital Life, we speak with special guest, Jason Grant, CEO of Integral, about human development models and the role of human development in creativity.

Human Development Models

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss the intersection of artificial intelligence and science with special guest is Dany DeGrave, founder of Unconventional Innovation. AI and science are coming together in new and significant ways, including the use of cognitive and other innovative technologies in R&D — like NLP, machine learning, and advanced analytics. As bio-science companies rush to invest in AI, the implementation of scientific research, drug trials, and even personalized medicine is undergoing significant change. But with the potential to make erroneous decisions, and even be used for malicious purposes, it may be a long time before we fully trust AI to be used in such development.

AI and Science

On The Digital Life this week our special guest this week is Dr. Carie Little Hersh, an American cultural anthropologist, teaching professor in Anthropology at Northeastern University, and producer and host of podcast Anthropologist on the Street. We chat about human creativity and technology through time, from an anthropological perspective.

Which came first: humans or technology? And what is the relationship between homo sapiens and the species who came before us, or those such as the neanderthals with whom we competed? We consider the anthropological relationship between technology and creativity, as well as patterns in technological progression through time. Join us as we discuss.

Sapiens, Creativity, and Technology

This week on The Digital Life, we explore the difficulties of establishing an AI code of ethics, inspired by an article from MIT Technology Review, “Establishing an AI code of ethics will be harder than people think”.

There's already ample evidence that artificial intelligence can exacerbate existing system bias if left unchecked. And, a set of design ethics guiding AI development may be far in the future, as the difficulty of defining an applicable rule set, and the subjective nature of ethics itself, makes the task extremely difficult. However, such arguments over AI ethics often emphasize top-down efforts rather than bottom-up — for instance, auditing AI decision-making from the initial data curation stage and throughout the process. In this view, AI design and development is not a purely technical practice, but instead incorporates  cultural aspects, similar to teaching children right and wrong. Join us as we discuss.

Establishing AI Ethics

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss the pitfalls of predicting AI. AI predictions range from the measured and meaningful to highly unrealistic and downright hysterical. But how can you tell the difference? In this episode, we dig into some rules of thumb for thinking through the AI predictions we encounter, as laid out in the article "The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions" by Rodney Brooks, a founder of Rethink Robotics. From better understanding the properties of narrow AI to asking "how will it be deployed?", questioning supposed magical properties without limit, to admitting, in the long term, we just don’t know, we'll explore the many factors that counter the breathless hysteria of AI predictions. Join us as we discuss.

The Pitfalls of Predicting AI

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss emerging technologies and the self. What makes us ourselves, the way we take in information, the way we share, communicate, collaborate and interact with people has gone digital in a number of ways. In particular, we delve into the topic of virtual reality experiences and empathy, based on the article in Aeon, “It’s dangerous to think virtual reality is an empathy machine”. VR can change how we think about the world, helping us understanding different perspectives. For instance, the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University created a simulation from the perspective of a cow, of being raised for the slaughterhouse. There are immersive VR experiences of becoming homeless and experiencing racism. But what is the true impact of these early experiments? Join us as we discuss.

Emerging Technologies and the Self

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss the Productivity Paradox, inspired by the recent article in MIT Technology Review, “Advanced tech, but growth slow and unequal: paradoxes and policies”. While we're experiencing an unprecedented boom in technology, the accompanying massive productivity boost that we might expect to see has failed to materialize. In fact, in many major economies, productivity growth is slowing. So, what's the reason for this unexpected outcome? To begin with, our ability to absorb, integrate, and leverage technologies effectively — from mobile to artificial intelligence to the internet of things — has limits. While the technology might be present, it is not been distributed and utilized in ways that have yielded productivity gains in rapid fashion. Constructing the systems, workflows, and roles to take advantage of these new technologies will take time. And, in concert with these, it will be vital that, as a society, we develop policies that support and enable people to shift into new work roles and invest time in learning new skills. Join us as we discuss.

The Productivity Paradox

This week on The Digital Life we discuss the possibilities and perils of editing human genes in light of the news, earlier this week, that Chinese scientist He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology, claimed to have created the first gene-edited babies using CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing tool. The twin girls had the CCR5 gene deleted to make them resistant to HIV and other diseases. The scientist is now being investigated over whether the experiment was in violation of Chinese laws and regulations. This technology is particularly sensitive from an ethics standpoint because any changes will be inherited by future generations. What are the consequences that stem from this experiment, perhaps, the first gene-edited humans? Join us as we discuss.

Gene Editing and CRISPR Babies

This week on The Digital Life, we talk about the future of work, the anxiety of the gig economy, and how we might re-imagine digital platforms, inspired by the essay “Do platforms work?” on Aeon.co. In the Gig Economy, work is an on-demand affair, driven by the needs of the moment, whether you're an Uber driver, freelance marketing expert, or contract product designer. The temporary nature of this work — which is arbitrated by software which matches buyers and sellers — puts much power in the hands of the platform owner. For gig workers, earning a living is dependent on demand, reputation, and ultimately, the whims of a digital overlord. But what if there was a way for these workers to own a piece of that all important platform? Join us as we discuss.

Gig Economy Anxiety

This week on The Digital Life, we talk with author and designer Cennydd Bowles about ethics and emerging technologies. Cennydd’s new book “Future Ethics”, published in September, is available in print and digital from Amazon and the book's Web site (https://www.future-ethics.com/).

How do we conceive of  ethics for emerging technologies? From data privacy issues, to embedded bias in software systems, to the myriad problems posed by artificial intelligence, what ethical issues should really matter to us, as a society? And, how do we grapple with these as new technologies emerge and gain traction?

For instance, mainstream conversations about ethics and artificial intelligence are typically centered around science fiction-type topics such as machines that are smarter than, or even from an evolutionary standpoint replacing, humans. This might be entertaining but is not addressing the real ethical issues that matter in the years and decades ahead. Join us as we discuss.

Ethics for Emerging Technologies

From AI to gene editing, wearables to 3D printing, we take a look at the emerging tech trends for 2019 in this, our final episode of The Digital Life 2018 season.

Emerging Tech Trends for 2019

This week, on The Digital Life we discuss emerging tech and the transformation and fear of change that comes with it. For instance, over the past two years there have been at least 21 attacks on driverless vehicles in Chandler, a city located near Phoenix, Arizona, where Google spin-off company Waymo tests its vans. The reaction of Chandler's residents to this encroaching technology represents the worries that we face as a society when confronting an automated future. Join us as we discuss.

Transformation

This week, on The Digital Life, we discuss the future of education and the business models that will drive it.

Business Models for the Future of Education

This week, on The Digital Life, we discuss the impact of AI on the future of creative work.

The Future of Creative Work

The Digital Life http://www.thedigitalife.com is an online radio show that explores important, timely topics in the world of design and emerging technologies like genomics, robotics, and the Internet of Things.

The show is created by GoInvo http://www.goinvo.com, a studio designing the future of healthcare, whose clients include market leaders like Apple, Johnson and Johnson, and Walgreens, as well as micro startups that will create the markets of the future.

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tdlpodcast

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