Lab-grown meat at the intersection of tech and ethics with Dr. Deb Donig, Cal Poly and UC Berkeley

CONSUMED with Jaime Lewis

Here’s one of the great benefits of having a podcast: at any time, you have a perfectly acceptable excuse to ask someone over to chat. And that’s exactly what I did here. Dr. Deb Donig is Assistant Professor of English Literature at Cal Poly and a Lecturer at UC Berkeley’s School of Information in the Master’s in Data Science Program. She is the co-founder of the Cal Poly Ethical Technology Initiative and the host of “Technically Human,” a podcast where she talks with major thinkers, writers, and industry-leading technologists about the relationship between humans and the technologies they create. So what does this have to do with food, you ask? Professor Donig’s specialty is the intersection of ethics and technology, and she has a deep and abiding interest in the concept of so-called “clean meat” or lab-grown meat. She also has the philosophical chops to think critically about what this kind of technology could mean for humanity—as you’ll hear in this interview, I marveled at her critical thinking prowess and ability to hold multiple truths at once.

Website: debdonig.com

Podcast: Technically Human