Marnie Hughes-Warrington, "Artificial Historians" (Routledge, 2025)
New Books in Science, Technology, and SocietyShow Notes
I spoke with Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington about her 2026 book Artificial Historians, co-authored with Anne Martin and Lewis Yarlupurka O’Brien. A distinguished historian, philosopher, academic leader, and Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) based at the University of Adelaide, my guest explores how the logic of history, defined around trivalent logic (the “maybes,” the “ifs,” the ontological uncertainties), intersects with and challenges the logic of dominant AI algorithms.
The book raises urgent questions about the changing status of human agency, the ethics of AI-powered data collection about us, and the de facto histories that AI is writing about us every second—histories that may decide whether we can travel, access education, or receive medical care. We talk about the opportunities that this perspective on AI presents to humans (and historians in particular!), how some non-Western conceptions of history—for instance, those of the Indigenous nations of Australia—complicate the dominant Western understanding of what history is, and the challenges we must address as we hand over more and more data and delegate the writing of actual human histories to AI.
Aristotle makes a cameo, and my guest talks about how the economy might be shifting from knowledge bias to ethics bias.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
More from New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Tazin Abdullah chats with Dr. Priyanka Bose. Priyanka is a lecturer in English Literacy Education at the School of Education at Western Sydney University, Australia and winner of the 2026 Michael Clyne Prize for outstanding postgraduate research into immigrant bilingualism and language contact.
At a time when artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and digital technologies increasingly shape our understanding of what it means to be human, Fuchs argues that we need to recover a richer conception of the human person. Rather than viewing ourselves as information-processing systems or collections of neural mechanisms, he develops a philosophical vision centred on embodiment, relationality, and lived experience. The result is a compelling defence of human agency, dignity, and freedom against contemporary forms of reductionism and transhumanism.
How AI is rewiring our social fabric—and how we can better shape our future.
Social media giants like Meta and transnational regulators such as the European Union are transforming private governance by creatively emulating public law frameworks. Drawing on exclusive interviews and in-depth analysis of Meta's Oversight Board and the EU's Digital Services Act, Governance by Emulation: The Oversight Board, the Digital Services Act, and the Struggle for Platform Accountability (Cambridge UP, 2026) explores how these approaches blend European and American perspectives, bridging distinct legal traditions to address the challenges of platform governance. Analysis of content moderation practices and their implications uncovers a critical pattern in the evolution of governance for industries that will define the future, from digital platforms to emerging technologies. Combining public and private law in innovative ways, the book sheds light on bold governance experiments that will shape the digital world-for better or worse. This study offers crucial insights for understanding the next chapter of global governance in an increasingly interconnected and privatized world. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This is the first episode in a series that explores the intersections of science and the humanities in university life. In today’s conversation, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera is joined by artists Yasmín Hernández and Baruch Vergara for a discussion about Herlihy-Mera's article “The humanities should really matter to STEM disciplines.” They explore the relationship that art and the humanities have with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and consider why that relationship matters more than ever.