Ali Alkhatib describes himself as ‘an anthropologist shouting at engineers’. But voices like his, it seems, must often strain to be heard above the din of computer science’s feverish quest to find the answer to all the world’s problems by endlessly sorting through data. As the interim director of the Center for Applied Data Ethics at the University of San Francisco, he maintains that algorithmic systems are being deployed into our world so quickly and so pervasively that they are now eroding the very institutions that hold our societies together. Exploring this dilemma through his conviction that ‘technical problems are social problems’, Ali works to bridge the gap between disciplines and communities. He stresses the vital importance of our lived experience – making it possible for those most affected by tech to join in the conversation about our future. He makes the most explicit plea we’ve ever published that society must emphatically assert its right to demand more accountability from the tech giants. The burden is on us, in turn, to radically transform the ways we think about and care for each other.