MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

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MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed episodes

  • From Rabbit Holes to Recommendations: Reddit’s Vishal Gupta
    Vishal Gupta, engineering manager, machine learning at Reddit, joins the podcast to explain how the social media community platform uses artificial intelligence to improve user experience and ad relevance. Much of the advertising work relies on increasingly sophisticated recommender systems that have evolved from simple collaborative filtering to deep learning and large language model–based systems capable of multimodal understanding.
    Vishal and Sam also explore the philosophical and ethical aspects of
    AI-driven platforms. Vishal emphasizes the importance of balance —
    between exploration and exploitation in recommendations, between
    advertiser goals and user experience, and between human- and
    machine-generated content. He argues that despite the rise of
    AI-generated material, authentic human conversation remains vital and
    even more valuable as models depend on it for training. Read the episode transcript here.
    Guest bio:
    Vishal Gupta is a seasoned engineering leader who leads multiple
    artificial intelligence and machine learning teams at Reddit in the ads
    domain. He has a decade of experience working on cutting-edge machine
    learning techniques at companies like DeepMind, Google, and Twitter.
    Gupta is passionate about applied AI research that significantly
    contributes to a company’s top and bottom lines.
    Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.
    We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
    27 min
  • Christopher Ali, "Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity" (MIT, 2021)
    As much of daily life migrates online, broadband—high-speed internet connectivity—has become a necessity. The widespread lack of broadband in rural America has created a stark urban–rural digital divide. In Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity (MIT Press, 2021), Dr. Christopher Ali analyzes the promise and the failure of national rural broadband policy in the United States and proposes a new national broadband plan. He examines how broadband policies are enacted and implemented, explores business models for broadband providers, surveys the technologies of rural broadband, and offers case studies of broadband use in the rural Midwest.
    Ali argues that rural broadband policy is both broken and incomplete: broken because it lacks coordinated federal leadership and incomplete because it fails to recognize the important roles of communities, cooperatives, and local providers in broadband access. For example, existing policies favor large telecommunication companies, crowding out smaller, nimbler providers. Lack of competition drives prices up—rural broadband can cost 37 percent more than urban broadband. The federal government subsidizes rural broadband by approximately $6 billion. Where does the money go? Ali proposes democratizing policy architecture for rural broadband, modeling it after the wiring of rural America for electricity and telephony. Subsidies should be equalized, not just going to big companies. The result would be a multi-stakeholder system, guided by thoughtful public policy and funded by public and private support.
    Dr. Christopher Ali is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and is also the author of Media Localism: The Policies of Place. He is a Knight News Innovation Fellow with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and former Fellow with the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.
    Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. His most recent research, “The Queen and Her Royal Court: A Content Analysis of Doing Gender at a Tulip Queen Pageant,” was published in Gender Issues Journal. He researches culture, social identity, placemaking, and media representations of social life at festivals and celebrations. He is currently working on a book titled Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River. You can learn more about Dr. Johnston on his website, Google Scholar, on Twitter @ProfessorJohnst, or by email at [email protected].
    0 min
  • MIT Economist Jon Gruber on AI, Trade-offs & Healthcare

    Prof. Jonathan Gruber, our guest for this episode, likes to tell his students that economics is a fundamentally right-wing science. What he means by that is that classical economics is built on one powerful explanatory insight: that free markets—networks of buyers and sellers, producers and consumers, weighing the trade-offs of different options and making self-interested choices based on supply and demand—do a better job of deciding how to allocate resources than can be achieved by a top-down, command-economy approach. But as Gruber goes on to explain, that principle only holds when all participants have equal access to markets and to information; in the real world, imbalances in that access lead to market failures, inefficient allocations of resources that leave most people worse off than they would otherwise be. That’s why government regulation still has a role in a properly functioning economy. Tune in to hear Prof. Gruber explain why we need “capitalism with gutter guards” to ensure equitable outcomes, especially in sectors of the economy such as healthcare where the ideal markets envisioned by classical economics are particularly unattainable or undesirable. 

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator portal

    Prof. Gruber’s faculty page

    14.01 Principles of Microeconomics on MIT OpenCourseWare

    14.41 Public Finance and Public Policy on MIT OpenCourseWare

    Power and Progress (book by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson)

    Video version of this interview on YouTube

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

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    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Jackson Maher, producer

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    30 min
  • Update: Where we've been and where we're going

    We’re dropping into your feed to share the news that our founding host, Laur Hesse Fisher, is departing MIT and TILclimate. In this episode, Laur sits down with new host Madison Goldberg to talk about the philosophies that have shaped TILclimate over seven seasons and take listeners behind the scenes of the show. They also discuss what’s in store for season eight—because TILclimate isn’t going anywhere.

    Check out an extended video version of this conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB544MVZ9bg

    For a deeper dive and additional resources related to this episode, visit: https://climate.mit.edu/podcasts/update-where-weve-been-and-where-were-going

    For more episodes of TILclimate by the MIT Climate Project, visit tilclimate.mit.edu. 

    Credits

    Laur Hesse Fisher, Founding Host and Senior Editor

    Madison Goldberg, Incoming Host and Associate Producer

    Aaron Krol, Writer and Executive Producer

    David Lishansky, Editor and Producer

    Danielle Simpson, Editor

    Music by Blue Dot Sessions

    Artwork by Aaron Krol

    Special thanks to Brett Paci of MIT OpenCourseWare and to the folks at Giro Studio for their help producing this episode.

    0 min
  • Bridging the AI Gap: Inside MIT’s Systalyze Startup with Associate Professor Manya Ghobadi
    In this episode of MIT CSAIL Alliances, host Kara Miller sits down with Professor Manya Ghobadi, a researcher and entrepreneur bridging the gap between academia and industry. Ghobadi, who has worked at Microsoft Research, Google, and now leads her own startup Systalyze, explores why so many companies struggle to efficiently deploy AI — and how her team is creating the “AI doctor” enterprises didn’t know they needed.
    From hospitals sitting on mountains of private data to banks seeking smarter fraud detection, Ghobadi explains how better infrastructure and smarter tools can finally unlock AI’s full potential. Tune in for an inside look at how innovation moves from lab to launchpad — and what it takes to make AI work in the real world.
    Topics Include:
    00:07 - Origins of Systalze
    01:40 - AI systems are difficult to build
    02:53 - Systalyze is like an AI doctor
    03:38 - How AI can transform the health care industry
    04:41 - When companies unlock their AI potential
    05:13 - Academia as an enterprenuer
    Episodes, listener discounts, meet the host, and more can be found here: csail.mit.edu/podcast
    Connect with CSAIL Alliances:
    On our site: cap.csail.mit.edu/about-us/meet-our-team
    On LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/mit-csail
    #MITCSAIL #AI #Education #MIT #GenerativeAI #Leadership #Technology #csailpodcast
    7 min
  • Nora Kenworthy, "Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare" (MIT Press, 2024)
    In Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare (MIT Press, 2024), Dr. Nora Kenworthy presents an eye-opening investigation into charitable crowdfunding for healthcare in the United States—and the consequences of allowing healthcare access to be decided by the digital crowd.
    Over the past decade, charitable crowdfunding has exploded in popularity across the globe. Sites such as GoFundMe, which now boasts a “global community of over 100 million” users, have transformed the ways we seek and offer help. When faced with crises—especially medical ones—Americans are turning to online platforms that promise to connect them to the charity of the crowd. What does this new phenomenon reveal about the changing ways we seek and provide healthcare? In Crowded Out, Dr. Kenworthy examines how charitable crowdfunding so quickly overtook public life, where it is taking us, and who gets left behind by this new platformed economy.Although crowdfunding has become ubiquitous in our lives, it is often misunderstood: rather than a friendly free market “powered by the kindness” of strangers, crowdfunding is powerfully reinforcing inequalities and changing the way Americans think about and access healthcare. Drawing on extensive research and rich storytelling, Crowded Out demonstrates how crowdfunding for health is fueled by—and further reinforces—financial and moral “toxicities” in market-based healthcare systems. It offers a unique and distressing look beneath the surface of some of the most popular charitable platforms and helps to foster thoughtful discussions of how we can better respond to healthcare crises both small and large.
    This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
    0 min
  • Personalization and Innovation in a Regulated Industry: Experian’s Kathleen Peters
    Kathleen Peters brings a background with digital communications companies and tech startups to her role as Experian’s chief innovation officer. On this episode, Kathleen shares a bit about Experian’s Innovation Lab, outlining some of its projects and explaining how the recent democratization of generative AI tools has made even more innovative thinking possible, both for tech experts and for contributors who have other core competencies. Read the episode transcript here.
    Guest bio:
    As Experian’s chief innovation officer, Kathleen Peters explores new ways to solve market challenges in identity, risk, and fraud detection. She and her team define business strategies and investment priorities while incubating new products, analyzing industry trends, and leveraging the latest technologies to bring ideas to life.
    Peters joined Experian in 2013 to lead business development and global product management for its newest fraud products. She later led its Fraud &
    Identity business in North America until being named chief innovation officer for decision analytics in 2020. Peters has twice been named a “Top 100 Influencer in Identity” by One World Identity (now Liminal), which annually recognizes influencers and leaders in the identity space.
    Peters is regularly quoted in prominent media outlets, including Forbes and Bloomberg, and she frequently shares her insights on innovation, AI, and fraud prevention at industry events.
    Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.
    We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
    0 min
  • Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier, "Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship" (MIT Press, 2025)
    AI is changing democracy. We still get to decide how.AI’s impact on democracy will go far beyond headline-grabbing political deepfakes and automated misinformation. Everywhere it will be used, it will create risks and opportunities to shake up long-standing power structures.In this highly readable and advisedly optimistic book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship (MIT Press, 2025), security technologist Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan Sanders cut through the AI hype and examine the myriad ways that AI is transforming every aspect of democracy—for both good and ill.The authors describe how the sophistication of AI will fulfill demands from lawmakers for more complex legislation, reducing deference to the executive branch and altering the balance of power between lawmakers and administrators. They show how the scale and scope of AI is enhancing civil servants’ ability to shape private-sector behavior, automating either the enforcement or neglect of industry regulations. They also explain how both lawyers and judges will leverage the speed of AI, upending how we think about law enforcement, litigation, and dispute resolution.Whether these outcomes enhance or degrade democracy depends on how we shape the development and use of AI technologies. Powerful players in private industry and public life are already using AI to increase their influence, and AIs built by corporations don’t deliver the fairness and trust required by democratic governance. But, steered in the right direction, AI’s broad capabilities can augment democratic processes and help citizens build consensus, express their voice, and shake up long-standing power structures.Democracy is facing new challenges worldwide, and AI has become a part of that. It can inform, empower, and engage citizens. It can also disinform, disempower, and disengage them. The choice is up to us. Schneier and Sanders blaze the path forward, showing us how we can use AI to make democracy stronger and more participatory.
    Nathan E. Sanders is a data scientist focused on making policymaking more participatory. His research spans machine learning, astrophysics, public health, environmental justice, and more. He has served in fellowships at the Massachusetts legislature and the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard University.
    Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.
    0 min
  • Lily Hsueh, "Corporations at Climate Crossroads: Multilevel Governance, Public Policy, and Global Climate Action" (MIT Press, 2025)
    Dr. Lily Hseuh is trained as an economist and public policy scholar, and is an associate professor in Economics and Public Policy in the School of Public Affairs, at Arizona State University.
    Her research bridges the fields of economics, public policy, and management to investigate how the environment and the global commons are managed and the ways in which behaviors of firms and organizations are shaped by multiple forces from markets to government policies.
    During her tenure at ASU, she has been a two-time recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as receiving the Professor of Impact award
    Her work been featured in major news outlets, including the Financial Times, Fortune, and PBS News Hour, and recently, she was awarded an American Fellowship by the American Association of University Women.
    She earned her PhD in Public Policy and Management from the University of Washington, and before her just published book, she has been asked to contribute a chapter to a number of other publications and has over 20 peer-reviewed articles in such areas as: 
    Private And Public Interactions And Global Climate Change,
    Rights-Based Management And Ocean And Marine Resources,
    Sustainability And State And Local Governments,
    Participatory Governance And Social Equity
    0 min
  • Business Models in the AI Era
    Ina Sebastian reads MIT CISR's October 2025 research briefing, which she co-authored with Peter Weill, Stephanie Woerner, and Gayan Benedict. See the text version and related content at https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2025_1001_BizModelsAIEra_WeillSebastianWoernerBenedict.
    Abstract: MIT CISR anticipates that rapid advancements in AI will drive business model evolution over the next decade, and we propose that business models in the AI era will become increasingly outcome oriented and enabled by autonomous AI. In this briefing, we draw on our research from 2013 to 2025 involving 2,378 companies to describe how digital business models have developed over the last twelve years, and introduce a framework for AI-driven, real-time business models. We illustrate how companies have begun exploring these new business models with a case study of One New Zealand.
    0 min

About MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

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Episodes from podcasts from around MIT