Man Made

Tracey Spicer

Simon & Schuster

Otago Daily Times, August 5th 2023

In our increasingly wired and algorithmically directed world, it is all too easy to become complacent about the technology that we interact with daily. The essays in Australian journalist Tracey Spicer’s short but hard-hitting collection challenge us to look more closely at the prejudices and inequalities baked into a system organised and run by and for young white men.

Her focus ranges from the writing out of the many women who contributed to the development of computing to the physical obliteration of black people from Twitter images, the reification of gender roles in Alexa and Siri, and the way algorithmic policing and sentencing perpetuate structural racism. She also explores how an intersectional approach could benefit not just the disadvantaged but the field as a whole. 

The book concludes with an epilogue outlining practical ways in which we can rage against the machine: Support companies run by women and marginalised.  Changing the voice of your PDA from female to non-binary. Find out if there was a human involved in the loop that rejected your loan/job/visa application. Time is running out, but it is not too late to change things. Man Made is Spicer’s attempt to do just that.

https://www.odt.co.nz/southland/the-ensign/challenging-%E2%80%98norms%E2%80%99-technology