[inaudible conversations] hello. Before we get started who has never been to this bookstore before . [applause] so to talk about the housing were can but we do here those infected with hiv aids through the advocacy the provision of lifesaving services and those to sustain our efforts so everything here in the bookstore has been donated house saying Health Care Advocacy and job training. Every time you buy a book you were doing a great deed with a nice beautiful display that you can go to housing works and were so grateful for donating their time and talents. You can donate your time we also house beautiful weddings or private parties. And those that will continue every week and other awesome defense even as. So now we will get started with the launch. Ellen ullman writing your First Computer Program 1978 with a 20 year career at her books are landmark works the author of to a novels and has one the hemingway award. As part of the classic heard a book life in code a personal history of technology is a continuing story while living in the midst during the two decades. Based in San Francisco. Our second conversationalist is the host and managing editor of the tech show about being jilin from her podcast to lifes digital quandaries. Ended 2014 the alliance for women in media any draw outstanding post. Sova lets have a big round of applause. [applause]. Failing girl lived is happening right now. This is my kid is a to sit down and a cafe to chat about your book. You can listen in if you want to because i have to thank my producer because i have my version and said oh my god. We all have to read this book when we talked about it and could not wait to have you on the show and we got a lot of amazing feedback. So now we get to ask you the book is a compilation of essays here and ideas. How would you begin . You are prolific. So that prediction really did come true. How did you decide to do this . To read my editor said leo best work. The idea was to stop motion in history. And then to look at the different pieces with a discussion of Artificial Intelligence but they make their own story is three stories of what we owe the past writing about technology and the future it is important look at what happened in 1980. This is our learn to have skepticism. We are getting some feedback . That is how it came about been removed to the present present, coming to the end peas here rigo again it will not crash but slowly deflate what i feared it would it be when i started in 1984 into the deepest intimacy is of our lives that technology is not leading that place in us as human beings. Host you save the yucatec with interest into the intimacies of our allies buy you didnt know so many people would be delighted at that changed state of existence. What do you mean by that . That is the peace waller was away and give credit to my editor because there was the whole in the time sequence he said is there an essay . And then i finished the book and these are things i had feared all of this time that the internet would intrude with privacy coming into the lives and social lives in changing politics so then i looked at that these are things that i feared. And then it seems to me that on the one hand we know were being surveyed. And then to be traded and like everybody cannot live without this anymore. If you say there is where it happens with the fraud in the proverbial pot . O bios. But 1996 was the first and then taking place through Silicon Valley. And that was in San Francisco. So by 1998 to take over Economic Life there is a with recalled and all those people who had helped fuel to figure out the agents and brokers and libertarians that they were not to be trusted or out for themselves and to the first Mainstream Media and to draw people directly to the web that is where you have indeed satisfied. That was more than your insurance payments the tissue were trapped with the blood website. And then there is a whole layer of the middle class it expertise and then that were mistrusted the that is the beginning of something different. What i have is from that walking toward Market Street one afternoon i saw that in the brilliant sky blue. They have not read that yet. [laughter] and it said the the world really does revolve around do what does that mean for us now . She called instagram a decade ago you saw this was coming the personalization but not only the zero wonders of that of the blue and free indian food delivered to my door in 20 minutes but also the underbelly for every wonderful thing that happened there was another side. I did not foresee anything and i described what seemed to be coming all round me slowly dawning on me it wasnt obvious but it was the more i thought about it and learned about it. How can i say this . So when i read that back tweeting over the work but i am sorry this happened i didnt foresee instagram or twitter the thought machine of the divorce universe. [laughter] but i am sorry that i did and they think i hope i am wrong. Oh i am worried about the stock market in the way the first one that the general public is the last one it is a gold rush i have my chance it goes up by half to get into the game those in the general public are not in they would be the shoeshine boys of the depression and buying stock. And putting in the 401k not the extra billions. I am afraid the mitigating the of the year so i dont know what effect at have the larger those that make no money whatsoever. And losing 645 million. This is what i worry about so much money they could afford to lose of financing the companys heeling tremendous Growth Without any natural break are they making money . Is that a benefit to the public . It is interesting like with your example of uber is a really their training machines to take this to a world we dont need to reverse the centrally to all the way you get around. Is that a shift powless Silicon Valley always works . Ten or 20 years that far . Relating to Artificial Intelligence that moment was to create a human 98 two with 08 robot they would be smarter thats utterly failed to block against the big problem called consciousness and a self awareness and the emotions that bind up so now what is going on with Artificial Intelligence with machine interaction and that is applied to the selfie driving cars. I call them Driverless Cars neither drives like a human being they wanted to. It is an interaction so with the Uber Movement is on the verge of the culmination of the trend of the ugly blossom to remove all love the intermediaries what were left with this machine to machine interaction. With the Artificial Intelligence and then last week i was taking lyft because uber is off my phone. You should know a hint it was a lovely man who moved to the United States 13 years ago from kenya and he had a four yearold and i learned a story he told me his rented how many square feet the five per cent or 20 years you will not be too is in San Francisco as a place to get a job. Where would you as an immigrant . With that toehold into the American Dream people were still coming here for the desperately. Day classic case of the immigrant job. I take taxis i confess i know that they are not strong course dollars they had day 0w i they probably would not lose a wheel i space pay ahead of time. I probably will not be affected. Did it your mother ever tell you dont get into a car with a stranger . [laughter] but is it . They dont give great ratings you are devoted and devoted to. C. It cannot rate fairly spirited take a regular taxi from the airport that i take a the lyft and price difference is extraordinary. It is half the price for so how cannon the taxi . The driving industry is just one example to go down the line. With good and close and the hardware goods sorry i interrupted you. So can basket industry question . Do you have tax stocks . You are a few tourist. I dont make these choices myself because i by very well that i cannot sell some my friend to does help me and manages this says you are just afraid to take your cards off the table you really dont know when to get out because i might miss Something Like leaving the party too soon. She said stop doing this on your own. So it tears out apple is the best performing stock the last 10 years if you like them or not. What is the future . What will happen to people needing jobs . People in retail are losing their jobs. Small shops are closing. Big box stores are suffering. Even walmart they use that as a show room then go to amazon on line. Where does it stop . I dont know purposes the future i dont want to force either somebody who looks at things no tell me where they think it is going. Could should we be watching closest in the near term . With facebook site braudel but it happened the last two weeks with special counsel investigating the russian and sponsored ads end antitrust privacy regulations and to target users and talking about those issues for a long time the last couple years but this seems a year at a moment where the bloom is off the rose. But we had the bigger moment with society not good enough facebook is not going away. Uber was not going away europeans certainly a pretty good job to snap at around but apple is not going away. Google is not going the way. These companies have real value. Facebook is the devil. [laughter] [applause] tweak that. What else can i say . Fake news started with them. To stay if you have him in curators with the leading liberal you cannot have that so they fire and the human and replace them with the algorithm to pick up trending they look at what people were chatting about these are all the arguments with rivers like a childhood deduction ring in the back of a pizzeria in new jersey. So removing that human intermediary created fake news. That is for this started. I dont think they are laughing digesting they want to be paid well they are good at what they do and want to go to their jobs and then Mark Zuckerberg genuinely seems he has our best interest of heart. Interest from San Francisco general hospital. I now think anybody says we will be a greedy ogre venture capitalists definitely are. That is their job. Guest that is what they do for a living. How will that make me money . But those individuals there are not the fault but and to create an entity of itself but first way back when with the internet and then with that user interface as it was such a great relief. But not everyone did is easier and easier. But now i have facebook but they changed the format just when you get comfortable how he will express yourself or talk to the people now we do a different way and this is true just when you get to be an expert tried this because now you are an idiot. It is better. That nice feature not you have to pay to get that. Pretty unusual. And interviewed minutes of the conversation. So if the explosion will happen is that possible . End avenue a few saw that with that since of misogyny where does that have roots . Tied it to a movement and also it is tied to the extreme right. And to bring in the women in to help people have been excluded. How quickly it turns pornographic yes we should see the review have he could not complete a fall apart send a couple of other interchanges i saw her naked body did not like how that looked. This was the place as a Software Engineer. If this is the conversation they wanted. So a conference to make an effort with those posted notes and within 48 hours and it turned pornographic. Kin to dave meggett on their own . Sold now of reading a the animal wearing it its a witch hunt. Those victims to victimized themselves those poor guys are put upon with us to a hundred thousand dollar a year salary. So the adn that women can make it so this will relate directly back to your book. So women cannot be Good Software engineers or sleep under their desks at night to get work done. So it is in the arrested state of development. This is a term used in to call them sub adult. [laughter] so young men who have not yet taken on the responsibilities they could even bring their dogs to work. So now i have to get back to your book. That is very bad Software Engineering to stay under your desk all light or staring at your screen for one set of problems will not get you anywhere as you go you have to back away to introduce emptiness and board and into your life. Play frisbee. Not only expressing misogyny this is what i dont get why the concentration of these feelings word junior men, why . I was that the last week and i was giving a talk basically saying to change the daily digital habits to get rid of some of the horrible things there is wonderful things in difficult things. I was expecting a huge backlash from the engineers and all they wanted to know how did they burn out . Really . Theyre just like us. Those elected to stay behind to chat was awkward. We had a moment bin to seem and elaine completely when i dont understand is why does this industry have this particular beef . They are going into medicine or into politics hopefully sort of. Land in in journalism, why not here . I have been speaking in broad generalities but as often as i can buy a selftaught working in areas there are amazing women. Island the great deal from them. If i did not have these supportive people i never would of had this career. And with baggy guinness. To help me get in touch it is sent all bleak. So women coming into the possession with women in medicine when they become primary care and then to get into things like surgery that advocates more narrow in narrow. There is the front end and the back end in the internet in between and in that sense to message that handles the bulk of the work. So even women with experienced go to google and offer jobs so they cut in and theyre put into the pink data which is the front end. And then shunted. Was that because im thinking of the momentum of 1986 the head of the map Department Said dont bother to do calculus because obviously it was a very good at this stuff. He could not say that this day and age. You cannot say that. Of those the roots . Is it biological . Eleven years old they are confident. And then and puberty happens in of the confusion so how did they find that 11 year old again . That is confident enough so they say i try coating but it is hard. But if anything that you really want to know is hard to is because it is hard does a mean you cannot be good but are you intrigued . You get those first little successes it doesnt matter if its hard that is the message to put out there over andover. Steam is better then stem. But a good description was they labeled moment for me. So to bring that literary eloquence to describe how those digital parts are built. And then to give more opportunities and then later you talk about your experience with the massive online course the open course agent it was supposed to be a great equalizer that anybody can go online if youre interested bring your curiosity, take the course and off you go. Well, it is taught by the same people who teach Computer Science everywhere so they have their own internalized preconceptions with expectations of a the other students are so the matter you go you will find that. Has the air purifier it is a concentrator of prejudice so starting with programming with the video games than presumes that i want the shrubbery and you cannot take the course. But the radical that might have been dead is the introduction to python witches beginners language programming for everybody in the introductory video, i want to have a way out word so people in general can see everybody. When you see the three lions and there is a cutout in the middle that is a manburner and he leaned over as if this were not being streamed around the world live. Dont tell your students that its the latest thing and you will lose your credibility. I actually have to soften it in the book because lawyers dont like certain things. It was a verbal dominance. She literally moved aside and it was heart stopping to watch. Then she says i am a Computer Scientist and it is my job to be a little goofy. She was reaching for anything to try to regain her composure. There was an excerpt of this and they sent a piece and object did how it was portrayed. They said i took it out of context. Of course. This was the only context they had left. It was actually shocking. I could not believe what i was looking at so this is what you find. The coded messages. It is interwoven into the teaching and so i think it is a good thing to do if people form groups you can download these videos by the way and show them to groups of people. You dont have to have an internet connection. You can just have your computer set up and they are useful people who are trying to Learn Together can still drown out all that stuff or laugh at it. So, its good because i think if people are excluded or even you if you are curious you can take one of these beginners classes and see if you find it fun. I dont mean take it, you can audit it. You dont have to do all the assignments. Some of it is easy to get started and it might be fun. You dont know. So i encourage people to take a look at this. There are social biases inside. I could keep going but lets take your questions or comments. Who has a question. [inaudible] im sorry. I couldnt hear what you just said. [inaudible] i am going to repeat the question for those who dont know the Net Neutrality, the fight for Net Neutrality doesnt have any sort of implication for minorities or women getting into technology or having a greater voice in technology. In case anyone here doesnt know what Net Neutrality is. Lets spell it out. The idea was providers charge the same fees and then various websites with more money said i want to run faster. I will pay more to go on a faster channel. You could have the t1 line which is fast. You pay more for it than you do the home phone line. However, what that does is it means for smaller websites are running on a slow speed on the local trap whereas facebook, google are running on the express. Some of the effect is on any small site, number one, the startups, the young people who want to get started somewhere and because they are less wellfunded, that will adversely affect the women and minorities in the same way that it will affect small businesses. Its gone away and the Current Administration and the fcc has ruled against it. I think we had to turn back on it. Thereve been a lot of politics back and forth. Im not sure the outcome at this moment. Its the public discussion. Im not sure if they close the petition you could sign until a couple weeks ago but my understanding is if we dont continue to have Net Neutrality to continue to consolidate the people that already have it which doesnt seem very fair. Anybody else . [inaudible] what are the biggest things like outsourcing [inaudible] the question is uber driver or any driver might not have a job in years. What about software or coders as that becomes more automated and can run itself lacks thats why i have a concern about women being pushed into the Front End Development because they are better and better tools for this and eventually, it will be a very lowlevel job of coming click here and click here and it will be very dumbed down profession. So, yes, the automation that creeps into the province of human intelligence. Thats all i can say. I have no solution for is all i can do is worry for you. Here is my theory. This next generation is going to need to code but its where you have like digital blocks. Is coding the answer to in the short term jobs and education or, i wrote a whole book about it, if its that is disciplinary approach to Teaching Technology and understanding from the sociological, historical and psychological perspective and use the technology to design what we want for the future, not necessarily if it is bent back. It has been a dumbing down of the programming that started in the 90s there was a piece about it in 1999 that has continued. My point in asking people to at least expose themselves is to demystify coding. We are surrounded by these algorithms that control whether you get a mortgage would you get a job. I dont have to go on. And there is the sense that we cannot do anything about it. And if one learns just enough about it to know people write these things, they are not magic. Maybe these things can be changed. I have a wonderful story about this. The councilman whose name, im sorry i wish i could remember his name right now, proposed a bill in which all the algorithms can be examined for bias and this includes where the police are assigned and even garbage pickup schedules where kids go to school and this to me is one of those open your eyes hiring people to examine the code, people who can examine the code and are motivated to do this for the City Department and dont want to work for google tha butr a small consultant that will work. This is why i hope that there will be a wider society. I am going to stop on that. I went to a Company Recently and they were like yeah we lost a lot of people because they have better talk goes on thursday. [laughter] i was like are you kidding me. So we need those people to work in the bronx. There was a gentleman right behind you. Yes please. [laughter] there was the devil and the four horsemen. I feel like it is very complex. In part because it is vast and there are some parts that are doing cool things like jigsaw and defender then theres others like its become so fractured that it worries me a. You are friends with them. She offers him a job at a cocktail party. Its like im basically teaching myself the multiprocessing using two or more chips and their faces when do you want a job. Now this was at a startup party, and do i want a job at google . This was the late 90s and i just became terrified. I was like a blizzard at the ball to the ceiling. I was afraid i would fail. I look back on that as a moment where then i regret. All other times i said i will learn this. I dont know all of it but i will figure it out. This was different. This was really hard hard and i lost faith in my ability to figure it out. When they started dont be evil, they meant it. But they had to make money. One of the early officers got up there and was talking about this. The first time we have all these people coming to the site. How do we make money and they have to make money. The story goes on from there. Google has tried hard, again, trying to have humans occasionally interact with the algorithms. Im kind of worried about this algorithm that you are using. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. He sat there and thought about it and as i am concerned about that but i dont know any other way to do it. And he meant algorithmically. Algorithms can make choices. People are choosing this and there are many links and he said i cant really go and evaluate the quality of that. The only way that i know is by how many people think its good. That is the limitation of algorithms. And he was concerned about it and they had to make money, and make money they did. That is not in the book. [laughter] i have lots more to tell. My breath got taken away. Why dont we its funny how amazon to me because we all have crime marji i dont. [laughter] i just made an admission i didnt have to make. Okay lets go to another question. Yes. [inaudible] so the question is about the pros and cons. [inaudible] [laughter] keenness scare me. Someone with that much selfconfidence and that much money was able to pretty much do what he wants. And hes terrified of ai. Hes using it. Of course he has to and there is no way to build a computing machine without it now. Its useful. Its in everything you do. Your car is a little robot, or a little take robot, i dont know what kind of car you drive. Essentially it is woven into any kind of electronic that you have. Okay, probably not the toaster, well know, there are posters now but have these amazing sentences. The problem for me that i am very concerned about his Machine Learning because what happens is algorithms that write an algorithm advice and algorithm and comes down to what its seeing in the responses that it gets to outside influences. We cant get to the point that the people that wrote these dont know what its doing anymore. Its moved out of the hands of the human beings that conceived of it. Now this is a part that goes into Science Fiction, and i am not a i worry about that. I dont go to Science Fiction but this is a concern. On the website reread, ther webe are others i worry about this. They wonder how well what is the responsibility of those that create these learning algorithms . She also asked specifically about the good use scenarios. Correct me if im wrong, but there are Amazing Things happening in medicine in terms of diagnoses and lets say understanding how a cancer cell grows simply because of deep learning and a guy coming you can have vast amounts of information and start to make connections that you never wise would have. Now and you can take all that information across the globe and have incredible discoveries or i was learning about this leaf spray your death can see what kind of leads it is an weed thar it needs to actually have a pesticide sprayed on it or not. This is ai. So, to me there are some really wonderful and outstanding use case scenarios. Its when we start to get to the point and think if we see how fast these things move where we dont know what they are doing anymore we start to use it in situations that are ethically questionable. Like right now twitter seems to be the place that you declare war. But thats sort of a summary o scenario. For the last 6 652 going on 5 years, computers began as instruments of war so its important to remember where we started. It is designe was designed to ce projector artillery shells of world war ii and they were the women figuring out by hand to check the result of the machine. They were smart, if they were called computers, they were the smarter ones. They had the right answers. The machines kept getting it wrong. The women who were doing the calculations, it wasnt considered smart, a nice little story. But we have to remember that is where we started. They were conceived as not beneficial objects so much as a lot of technology began as a war. Going back to catapults. I think it also had a lot to do with the internet. [laughter] i am talking about what drives a technical change, so the need for bandwidth it was the only thing making money in the first boom. They were making actual dollars and they needed to get the bandwidth so a lot of what was devised was for them. If there were certain things that drive the changes in technology and corn is one of them. Anybody else ask [inaudible] can you speak up a little bit pleased. You mentioned how you look at forms. How would you describe [inaudible] so the question is about how would you describe people writing the code for the algorithms . Thursday im going to be at the startup. What is the name of paul fords startup . Postflight. Thats the discussion topic, how to be a Software Engineer and lead an ethical life. This is a big question. I think scientists face this also. I first joined a group of Computer Scientists with social responsibility during the star wars idea we will shoot down all these missiles coming over and they were very concerned that working in computing to do this would make it more and more likely because we would have a false sense of security. This is something i find engineers are beginning to think about as there are people with a humanities education being able to enter the procession, places like google are beginning to recognize there are people that wrote a lot of other stuff and maybe we are doing all this stuff about learning and maybe as a mix of people involved in engineering is slowly changing these questions are coming to the floor, at least i hope so. I can be optimistic at times. Three years ago i did say what you think about maybe having a code of ethics and people looked at me like what the hell are you even talking about and now it is being bandied about. I wouldnt say it is a mainstream thing but its not unusual to hear it brought up pretty regularly. And i would also say that some of the regulatory stuff going on in europe is forcing them to confront a lot of that for for example, one of the projects we did about privacy, google have o bring an inhouse philosopher and to sort of discussed. And why . Because in europe there is a history that goes back to world war ii the right to history is seen in a very specific way. We also have a right to privacy called the Fourth Amendment but we dont want to legislate towards it. Do we have time for one more . [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [laughter] sorry, bruce. [laughter] [inaudible] [inaudible] part of it is because of the natural curiosity [inaudible] the discussion is happening in all different sectors of the industry including privacy and security as it should because it equifax. That is a good way to end it. Where are we seeing the reallife implications of some of the thing you solve me build around you . Cultural shift happening right now what you say . Old ways. Every generation thinks that it is an extraordinary time and thats true. We are going to hang out for a little bit. Check out the book and come and say hi. [applause] [applause] the importance of discussing Artificial Intelligence may very well be crucial to human destiny. Destiny. Trying ttry and to assess everyg that could go wrong is not being alarmist. On the contrary, deep thinking coming analysis and advanced planning will allow us to think about what kind of future do we want, and ultimately enable us to create a future with ai that is positive for humans and machines