MIT Technology Review Narrated

AI consciousness isn’t just a devilishly tricky intellectual puzzle; it’s a morally weighty problem with potentially dire consequences. Fail to identify a conscious AI, and you might unintentionally subjugate, or even torture, a being whose interests ought to matter. Mistake an unconscious AI for a conscious one, and you risk compromising human safety and happiness for the sake of an unthinking, unfeeling hunk of silicon and code.

Philosophers, cognitive scientists, and engineers are grappling with what it would take for AI to achieve consciousness—and whether it's even possible.

This story was written by Grace Huckins and narrated by NOA.

Three years ago this week we launched this podcast on a mission to show the world how AI touches our everyday lives. It's been our great honor and privilege to make it through three seasons, a global pandemic, an unbelievable nineteen (19!!) award nominations, and a whole lot of tests and demos.

Goodbyes are very hard to say, so instead we'll leave you with some of the show's highlights and an invitation to follow us as we continue our journey with a new show called SHIFT. Sign up for updates at shiftshow.ai and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Credits:

This series was created by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens with the support of Gideon Lichfield and Michael Reilly. Its producers have been Emma Cillekens and Anthony Green. The editors have included Gideon Lichfield, Michael Reilly and Mat Honan with support from Karen Hao and Tate Ryan Mosley. You can thank Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski for the original music and excellent sound design. The weekly art was from Stephanie Arnett with album art from Eric Mongeon. 

Thanks for listening.

Hidden away in our voices are signals that may hold clues to how we’re doing, what we’re feeling and even what’s going on with our physical health. Now, AI systems tasked with analyzing these signals are moving into healthcare.

We meet:

Lina Lakoczky-Torres, student at Menlo College

Angela Schmiede, Vice President of Menlo College.

Grace Chang, CEO of Kintsugi

David Liu, CEO of Sonde Health

Liam Kaufman, former CEO of Winterlight Labs. 

Margaret Mitchell, Chief Ethics Scientist of Hugging Face

Bjoern Schuller, professor of artificial intelligence at Imperial College London

Credits:

This episode was reported by Hilke Schellmann, produced by Jennifer Strong, Emma Cillekens and Anthony Green, edited by Mat Honan and mixed by Garret Lang with original music by Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski. Artwork by Stephanie Arnett. Special thanks to the Knight Science folks at MIT for their support with this reporting. 

AI is used in farming in some ways you might not expect, like for tracking the health of crops—from space. We travel from test farms to labs in the second installment of our series on agriculture, AI, and satellites. 

We Meet:

Joseph Liefer, senior product manager of autonomy at John Deere

Julian Sanchez, director of emerging technology at John Deere

Shely Aranov, CEO of InnerPlant

Rod Kumimoto, CSO of InnerPlant

Credits:

This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong, Emma Cillekens and Anthony Green. It was edited by Mat Honan, and mixed by Garret Lang, with original music by Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski. Artwork by Stephanie Arnett.

In this special episode we bring you a live taping between the "Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton and MIT Technology Review's Senior Editor for AI Will Douglas Heaven. This conversation was recorded at EmTech Digital, our signature AI event, in the MIT Media Lab.

Credits:

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in Cambridge, Massachusetts with special thanks to Will Douglas Heaven, Amy Lammers and Brian Bryson. It was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, directed by Erin Underwood, and edited by Mat Honan.

This episode, we get an insider's look at the ongoing chip war from the person who wrote the book on it, Chris Miller, professor at Tufts University and the author of Chip War. Join us for a live conversation from the MIT Media Lab at Tech Review’s Future Compute conference.

Credits:

This episode was recorded and produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens and Anthony Green. We’re edited by Mat Honan and mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski. Artwork from Stephanie Arnett.

I Was There When is an oral history project that’s part of the In Machines We Trust podcast. It features stories of how breakthroughs and watershed moments in artificial intelligence and computing happened, as told by the people who witnessed them.

In this episode we meet Cognitive Scientist Gary Marcus.

CREDITS:

This project was produced by Jennifer Strong, Emma Cillekens, and Anthony Green. It was edited by Mat Honan and mixed by Garret Lang with original music by Jacob Gorski. The art is from Eric Mongeon and Stephanie Arnett. It was recorded at the TED Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

LINKS:

https://blog.ted.com/the-astounding-new-era-of-ai-notes-on-session-2-of-ted2023/

https://www.technologyreview.com/topic/artificial-intelligence/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-vs-machines-with-gary-marcus/id1532110146

The term ‘smart city’ paints a picture of a tech-enabled oasis—powered by sensors of all kinds. But we’re starting to recognize what all these tools might mean for privacy. In this episode, we meet a researcher studying how this is being applied in Iran and visit one of the nation’s top smart cities, to learn how its efforts there have evolved over time.

We Meet:

University of Oxford and Article19 Human Rights Researcher Mahsa Alimardani

City of Las Vegas Chief Innovation Officer Michael Sherwood

City of Hope Director of Campus Support Operations Mark Reed

Sounds:

How will artificial intelligence change the cities we live in? - BBC Ideas via YouTube 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXxyCBimRyM 

‘Smart’ cities promise economic and environmental benefits to the developing world - CBC News via YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u08A7yiTmu4 

Singapore is building a city in China - CNBC via YouTube 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP11XeIV1ZA 

Global Smart Cities - The China Current via YouTube 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qmiqHWD6Uc 

Footage appears to show Iranian riot police confronting students at university in Tehran - The Guardian via YouTube 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgQshPJohmg 

China: facial recognition and state control - The Economist via YouTube 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH2gMNrUuEY 

Facial recognition: Concerns over China's widespread surveillance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT6KEy_QXvM

Credits:

This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong and Anthony Green with help from Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Mat Honan, and mixed by Garret Lang, with original music by Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski. Artwork by Stephanie Arnett.

The best definitions of AI are vague, largely lack consensus and represent a huge challenge for lawmakers and legal scholars looking to regulate it. But back to back breakthroughs and rapid adoption of generative AI tools are making it feel a lot more real to everybody else. We examine how it’s possible that alone might be enough to push conversations about ethics further into focus.

We Meet:

MIT Technology Review Senior AI Reporter Melissa Heikkilä

Mozilla President Mark Surman

IBM Chief Privacy Officer Christina Montgomery

United Nations AI Advisor Neil Sahota

Sounds:

Advances in artificial intelligence raise new ethics concerns - PBS NewsHour via YouTube https://youtu.be/l5nTlHeqYOQ

He loves artificial intelligence. Hear why he is issuing a warning about ChatGPT - CNN via YouTube https://youtu.be/THJysHMi81c  

Credits:

This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong and Anthony Green with help from Emma Cillekens and Melissa Heikkilä. It was edited by Mat Honan, and mixed by Garret Lang, with original music by Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski. Artwork by Stephanie Arnett.

This episode we meet people building next generation tools for creativity who are thinking about how these AI models should be trained and deployed in order to be both useful and fair to artists.

We hear from:

Artist Holly Herndon

Adobe CTO Digital Media Ely Greenfield

Soundful CEO Diaa El All

Links:

https://www.ted.com/talks/holly_herndon_what_if_you_could_sing_in_your_favorite_musician_s_voice

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/03/1067786/ai-models-spit-out-photos-of-real-people-and-copyrighted-images/

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/16/1065247/artists-can-now-opt-out-of-the-next-version-of-stable-diffusion/

Credits: This episode was produced by Anthony Green with help from Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Jennifer Strong and Mat Honan, mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from Jacob Gorski.