Episodes
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Frank McCourt is an American executive and philanthropist. He’s also the author of a new book about the internet, called “Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age”. We talk to him about that fight before a live audience in New York City at a gathering held by the responsible technology non-profit, All Tech Is Human.
We Meet:
Frank H. McCourt, Jr., civic entrepreneur and executive chairman of McCourt Global, founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty
Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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EU AI Act architect and lead author Gabriele Mazzini shares his experience drafting the law. He also talks about his concerns with implementation, and its potential impact on European competitiveness, and how that led him to quit his job, in the latest installment of our oral history project.
This episode was recorded at TEDAI in Vienna.
We Meet:
MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate & MIT Connection Science Fellow Gabriele Mazzini
Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
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Activists are fighting back against generative AI and reclaiming a misunderstood label in the process, says Brian Merchant in a new piece for The Atlantic.
Originally aired February 14, 2024.
We Meet:
Tech Journalist & Author Brian Merchant
Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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This is the final installment of a special series documenting the race to build superintelligent AI systems. The Race to Superintelligence is a deep dive into the rapidly expanding world of artificial intelligence. Join us as we explore the groundbreaking, mystifying and world-changing potential of the next machine age.
Support for this program comes from The Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network, supporting and bringing together journalists reporting on AI, and with AI, globally.
Credits:
The Race to Superintelligence is created and produced by Jennifer Strong, with Emma Cillekens, Daniela Hernandez, and Meg Marco. We had additional research and production assistance from Sonya Gurwitt, Niamh McAuliffe, Anthony Green and Luke Robert Mason. The show is mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski.
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This is part two of a special series documenting the race to build superintelligent AI systems.
The Race to Superintelligence is a deep dive into the rapidly expanding world of artificial intelligence. Join us as we explore the groundbreaking, mystifying and world-changing potential of the next machine age.
Support for this program comes from The Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network, supporting and bringing together journalists reporting on AI, and with AI, globally.
Credits:
The Race to Superintelligence is created and produced by Jennifer Strong, with Emma Cillekens, Daniela Hernandez, and Meg Marco. We had additional research and production assistance from Sonya Gurwitt, Niamh McAuliffe, Anthony Green and Luke Robert Mason. The show is mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski.
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The Race to Superintelligence is a deep dive into the rapidly expanding world of artificial intelligence. Join us as we explore the groundbreaking, mystifying and world-changing potential of the next machine age.
Support for this program comes from The Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network, supporting and bringing together journalists reporting on AI, and with AI, globally.
Credits:
The Race to Superintelligence is created and produced by Jennifer Strong, with Emma Cillekens, Daniela Hernandez, and Meg Marco. We had additional research and production assistance from Sonya Gurwitt, Niamh McAuliffe, Anthony Green and Luke Robert Mason. The show is mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski.
Special thanks to our guest Cade Metz at The New York Times.
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Disney’s science-fiction thriller, The Creator, paints a picture of a future world at war—humans vs. artificial intelligence. This episode we meet the film’s director Gareth Edwards, who unpacks just how complex the relationship is between the two, and why he decided to explore it in this film.
We Meet:
Director Gareth Edwards
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Anthony Green, with help from Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from Jacob Gorski.
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There’s a world in which a group of mountain gorillas in Rwanda might one day be able to pay for their own protection. It involves a new financial model with an AI-powered digital wallet and data that’s provided by the gorillas themselves, as well as the people who live and work around them.
All of this might sound far-fetched, but the man behind this project has brought other unlikely ideas to life. Jonathan Ledgard is a futurist thinker on risk, nature, and advanced technology in Africa and emerging markets, as well as a pioneer of drone delivery and interspecies money. We hear his story in the latest installment of our oral history project.
We Meet:
Jonathan Ledgard, CEO of Tehanu
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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Perhaps the greatest fear about artificial intelligence is it will eventually replace human intelligence altogether, because if AI takes over decision-making, what’s irreplaceable about humans?
We Meet:
Neil Lawrence, professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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Songwriter and music producer Harvey Mason Jr. has worked with some of the biggest stars of our time, from artists like Beyonce and Elton John, to Whitney Houston and Justin Bieber. In his current role as CEO of the Recording Academy he helps drive the conversation about AI in the music industry - like deciding what qualifies for the Grammys.
We Meet:
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr.
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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Do you think it's harder or easier to be a teenager now than in the past? The Pew Research Center has been studying this question and found that however a parent or teen answers, technology is likely to be cited as the reason.
We Meet:
Jeff Gottfried, Associate Director of Research at Pew Research Center
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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Meet a founder questioning the wisdom of the Turing Test as he works to address the loneliness epidemic among the elderly, in the latest installment of our oral history project.
We Meet:
Intuition Robotics Founder Dor Skuler, maker of the ElliQ digital companion
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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In this encore edition of our oral history project we meet a man trying to solve AI’s black box problem with symbolic AI, a subfield that communicates how decisions are made.
We Meet:
Casper Wilstrup, the Founder & CEO of Abzu
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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We learn why lawyers who help people seeking to legally expose corruption in the government and at private companies have decided to focus on big tech, in the latest installment of our oral history project.
We Meet:
Whistleblower Aid CEO Libby Liu
Credits:
The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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Hearing has a profound impact on a person’s emotional, mental and cognitive well-being and there’s also a long, rich history of cutting edge tech being used in devices that are meant to help us hear better.
And yet, it’s not something we talk much about.
We Meet:
Stefan Launer, Sonova's Senior Vice President Science & Technology
Credits:
The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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In the latest installment of our oral history project, we meet a scientist who’s been supporting deep investigative journalism projects for more than a decade. This collaboration between Neo4j and journalists helped to uncover Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Panama Papers - an investigation of one of the biggest ever global corruption scandals that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
We Meet:Neo4j Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Webber
Credits:
The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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We hop into the backseat of a police car and learn how officers in Rwanda have adopted and deployed AI on the streets of its capital city, Kigali.
We Meet:
Chief Inspector of Police Paul Ryamugwiza, director of traffic and road enforcement systems for Rwanda National PoliceCredits:
The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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Potentially a quarter billion children worldwide lack access to an education. Advances in education tech and AI programs for learning can help students who have access to tools and internet. This episode, we bring you a conversation with members of the International Rescue Committee, an aid group developing tailored learning experiences for children in crisis. It was taped before a live audience at Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech conference, in Lisbon, Portugal.
This episode originally ran on November 29, 2023.
We Meet:
Atish Gonsalves, Global Lead for Research & Innovation in Education, International Rescue Committee (IRC)
Morena Baccarin, Actor, IRC Ambassador
Sara Wayne Callies, Actor, IRC Ambassador
Credits:
SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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We meet Dr. Fei-Fei Li In the latest installment of our oral history project. She's a Chinese-American computer scientist and the creator of ImageNet - the dataset that made rapid advances possible in this field of AI that helps computers take meaningful information from things like photos and videos.
We Meet:
Stanford University's Fei-Fei Li, author of "The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI"
Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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Smart TVs that track what people watch and how they watch it give political campaigns a new trove of data to exploit, with little transparency on how it’s happening.
We meet:
Investigative Reporter Maggie Severns speaking about her article:
https://www.notus.org/2024-election/streaming-tv-campaign-ads
Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.
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