“Not only do we need engineers working alongside anthropologists to do good quality engineering, I also think that we need to do an anthropology of engineers… Engineers are making our world, right? And, the way that we, as engineers, think collectively, behave collectively, what we consider to be important… I think somebody should be watching that and reflecting on that and [relaying] that back to us, to society, to understand how the people who are making our world actually view the world.”

This is the eighth and FINAL episode in our STS podcast series. The aim of this series was to explore the intersection between science and anthropology, to better understand the contemporary issues that the amazing people featured in this series try to solve. We’d like to take this moment to thank everyone who has been a part of our STS series, as well as everyone who has listened along with us.

So in this episode, Ian chats with Professor Elanor Huntington, the first (and current) female Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University. While Elanor’s research has specialised in quantum optics (which, from my understanding, relates to the application of quantum mechanics to phenomena involving light), she is also looking to the future – a future of STEM that needs anthropologists. They talk about the problematic nature of describing human behaviour through numbers and algorithms, unpack what an anthropology of the internet would entail, they discuss the importance of trust in scientific endeavours and the decline of the ‘expert’, and ponder what the future of engineering will look like, as well as what it means to take control of making your future.

QUOTES

“People try to invoke all sorts of really weird, mysterious things when they’re talking about quantum, because it is kind of a bit weird and it’s certainly outside of our personal experience – we don’t live in a quantum world. And so people try to make it sound more mysterious than it actually is.”

“We are very monocultural at the moment, so we are not I think building a world that reflects the true diversity of the folks around us. You know, engineering in Australia and engineering in America and engineering in the UK is too white, too male, and too urban.”

“How many of our politicians are slaves to their twitter feed? Our politicians’ reactions are being driven by software that was written by people on the other side of the planet, who had a very particular view about what they were building and a set of cultural and political and societal and technological assumptions that are just built into that software, and they’re unconscious. They didn’t know they were doing it, they didn’t realise that this is how it was going to go, this technology got released into the wild like cane toads, and we really need anthropologists watching this and starting to create a discourse and some active reflection about where this is all going, because I’m not sure that any of us are particularly happy with where it’s t right now. we need some people who understand people!”

Regarding Latour’s notion that facts are made objects, even though it’s not felt that way: “[Engineers] are taught the scientific method very early, it’s deeply ingrained in the way that we believe that we’re operating, and we do genuinely believe that we are … uncovering facts… but not necessarily constructing them.”

“If you look societally, one of the reasons that the discourse around innovation, around the fourth industrial revolution and all of that sort of stuff, one of the reasons that it’s falling a little bit flat at the moment is because it resonates with a small number of people who can actually see that this is achievable for them or for their kids. … And then on top of that, what you’ve got is a decline of the role of the expert in our society at the moment… because you’ve got access to 3D printers, you’ve got access to machining systems that are lightweight, small and you can go buy one and plug it into your wall outlet, most of them are driven by software that are reprogrammable, reconfigurable. If you’ve got access to that skillset, then actually you can make a whole bunch of pieces of technology these days and you can string all of that together. And so then the question is … who gets to learn how to write the code that actually reconfigures that? Who gets access to that technology? How do we know that they’re actually making…something that is useful, safe-“ “Or will they be printing guns?” “Exactly. And so, what is the role of the expert?”

LINKS AND CITATIONS

You can learn more about the 3AI Institute here: https://3ainstitute.cecs.anu.edu.au/

And listen to our podcast episode with Genevieve Bell here: https://reanth.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/ep-32-genevieve-bell/

The book Elanor mentions reading as part of the 3AI reading list is “Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists” by Sharon Traweek.
https://www.amazon.com/Beamtimes-Lifetimes-World-Energy-Physicists/dp/0674063481

Ian jokingly refers to an article in The Onion called “‘What if we try this?’ asks robotics grad student about to eliminate 30% of workforce”, which you can read here if you’d like some satire in your life:
https://www.theonion.com/what-if-we-try-this-asks-robotics-grad-student-about-1819579651

For an explainer of the Trolley Problem, give How Stuff Works a peak:
https://people.howstuffworks.com/trolley-problem.htm

And if you haven’t already checked it out, head over to our Facebook group The Familiar Strange Chats. We’d like to keep our discussions going from this podcast episode, so let us know your thoughts: what was most interesting? What was most surprising? Did the episode remind you of something else you’ve read, seen, or heard lately – if so, what is it? Let’s keep talking strange, together.

Our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com
Shownotes by Deanna Catto
Podcast edited by Ian Pollock

[Feature image ‘Science Background Fractal Physics Abstract’ from Max Pixel
https://www.maxpixel.net/Science-Background-Fractal-Physics-Abstract-1280081

Image of ribbons in Malta by Nick Fewings (2019) from Unsplash
https://unsplash.com/photos/Mh_ie8n84GI]

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