MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

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MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed episodes

  • Peter Krapp, "Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation" (MIT Press, 2024)
    We're pleased to welcome Dr. Peter Krapp, the author of Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation (MIT Press, 2024), to the New Books Network. 
    In Computing Legacies, Peter Krapp explores a media history of simulation to excavate three salient aspects of digital culture. Firstly, he profiles simulation as cultural technique, enabling symbolic work and foregrounding hypothetical literacy. Secondly, he positions simulation as crucial for the preservation of cultural memory, where modeling, emulation, and serious play are constitutive in how we relate to our mediated history. And lastly, despite suggestions that we may already live in a simulation, he interrogates how simulation can serve as critique of the computer age. In tracing our digital heritage, Computing Legacies elucidates inflection points where quantitative data becomes tractable for qualitative evaluations: modeling epidemics for scientific study or entertainment, emulating older devices, turning numerical calculations into music, conducting espionage in virtual worlds, and gamifying higher education. Simulation, this book demonstrates, is pivotal not only to high-tech research and to archives, museums, and the preservation of digital culture but also to our understanding of what it is to live and work under the technical conditions of computing.
    Dr. Peter Krapp is a Professor of Film & Media Studies, English, and Music at UC-Irvine.
    Your host is Dr. Adam Kriesberg, Assistant Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science.
    1 hr 10 min
  • Driving Behavior by Design: MIT CSAIL Professor Sam Madden on the Science of Safer Roads with AI
    Can your phone make you a safer driver? Or is it part of the problem?
    MIT CSAIL Professor Sam Madden shares the origin story of Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a CSAIL spinout using smartphones and AI to prevent car crashes and save lives. In this episode, Professor Madden joins host Kara Miller to explore how accelerometers, algorithms, and well-timed incentives are transforming how we understand and improve driver behavior.
    Professor Madden reflects on surprising data trends, like why crash rates haven’t fallen despite better car tech, and how the ubiquitous smartphone became a key tool for reducing risk on the road. He also dives into how generative AI is reshaping software development, what it means for education and programming skills, and why trust and privacy remain top concerns when deploying AI across sensitive industries.
    Covering distracted driving, autonomous vehicles, behavioral nudges, and business infrastructure, Professor Madden reveals what’s working and where the road ahead leads.
    Topics include:
    The history of Cambridge Mobile Telematics
    The realities of traffic accidents
    How your phone can track your driving safety
    Turning your data into a narrative
    The corrosive effects of phones
    Learn more about Professor Madden on his website: https://db.csail.mit.edu/madden/
    Or his CSAIL page: https://www.csail.mit.edu/person/sam-madden
    Read our case study on Cambridge Mobile Telematics: https://cap.csail.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2023-05/CMT_Case%20Study%20Template_2022.pdf
    Connect with CSAIL Alliances:
    On our site: https://cap.csail.mit.edu/about-us/meet-our-team
    On X: https://x.com/csail_alliances
    On LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/mit-csail
    35 min
  • Jessica Smith on Engineering and Public Accountability in Energy Industries
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Jessica Smith, Professor in the Engineering, Design, and Society Department and Dean’s Fellow for Earth and Society Programs of the Colorado School of Mines, about her work on engineering and public accountability in energy and mining industries. The pair discuss Smith’s long-held interests in mining and extractive industries, including her roots in coal country; her book, Extracting Accountability: Engineers and Corporate Social Responsibility (MIT Press, 2021); her current work on the social and community dimensions of carbon sequestration projects; and many asides about what it takes to study the social dimensions of engineering, including in humanities and social sciences cultures that contain many negative stereotypes of engineers.
    1 hr 10 min
  • Upcycling and Upskilling With AI: Goodwill's Steve Preston
    Many of us know Goodwill Industries International as a retailer that accepts and resells donated goods. What the average consumer may not know is that the nonprofit takes in over 5 billion pounds of goods each year — and not all of it can be resold. For those unwanted or unviable items, the organization can either look into recycling or upcycling, and with the help of AI, it’s able to efficiently make that determination while also improving its process for sorting and allocating sellable goods for different retail channels.
    Additionally, Goodwill helps its workforce with career-development skills. Much of this training has been enhanced with AI. Tune in to this episode to hear directly from Goodwill CEO Steve Preston about how the organization is using technology to fulfill a mission that extends beyond the retail store. Read the episode transcript here.
    Guest bio:
    As president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International, Steven C. Preston leads a network of 153 local Goodwill organizations with a combined revenue of $8.2 billion. In addition to being a secondhand retail leader, Goodwill is a leading nonprofit provider of workforce training and development in North America.
    Positioning the organization at the forefront of workforce development has been a top focus for Preston since he joined Goodwill in 2019. He has also forged partnerships with organizations focused on sustainable practices in the secondhand retail marketplace and developed mission-focused marketing efforts to elevate the Goodwill brand.
    Previously, Preston served in numerous operational and financial leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. After heading the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business Administration, he led successful turnarounds as the CEO of Oakleaf Global Holdings and Livingston International. He also served as the CFO of Waste Management and ServiceMaster.
    Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the executive producer is Allison Ryder.
    Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.
    We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
    23 min
  • Peter B. Kaufman, "The Moving Image: A User's Manual" (MIT Press, 2025)
    Video (television, film, the moving image generally) is today’s most popular information medium. Two-thirds of the world’s internet traffic is video. Americans get their news and information more often from screens and speakers than through any other means. The Moving Image: A User's Manual (MIT Press, 2025) is the first authoritative account of how we have arrived here, together with the first definitive manual to help writers, educators, and publishers use video more effectively. 
    Drawing on decades as an educator, publisher, and producer, MIT’s Peter Kaufman presents new tools, best practices, and community resources for integrating film and sound into media that matters. Kaufman describes video’s vital role in politics, law, education, and entertainment today, only 130 years since the birth of film. He explains how best to produce video, distribute it, clear rights to it, cite it, and, ultimately, archive and preserve it. With detailed guidance on producing and deploying video and sound for publication, finding and using archival video and sound, securing rights and permissions, developing distribution strategies, and addressing questions about citation, preservation, and storage—across the broadest spectrum of platforms, publications, disciplines, and formats—The Moving Image equips readers for the medium’s continued ascendance in education, publishing, and knowledge dissemination in the decades to come. And, modeled in part on Strunk and White’s classic, The Elements of Style, it’s also a highly enjoyable read.
    Peter B. Kaufman is Senior Program Officer at MIT Open Learning. He is the author of The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge and founder of Intelligent Television, a video production company that works with cultural and educational institutions around the world.
    Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.
    51 min
  • Jennifer Clapp, "Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters" (MIT Press, 2025)
    Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of farm machinery, fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion's share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corporations. The high degree of concentration among these agribusiness titans is striking, considering that just a few hundred years ago agricultural inputs were not even marketed goods. In Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters (MIT Press, 2025), Dr. Jennifer Clapp explains how we got from there to here, outlining the forces that enabled this extreme concentration of power and the entrenchment of industrial agriculture.
    Clapp reveals that the firms that rose to the top of these sectors benefited from distinct market, technology, and policy advantages dating back a century or more that enabled them to expand their businesses through mergers and acquisitions that made them even bigger and more powerful. These dynamics matter because the firms at the top have long shaped industrial farming practices that, in turn, have generated enormous social, ecological, and health impacts on the planet and the future of food systems. Beyond analyzing how these problems have arisen and manifested, the book examines recent efforts to address corporate power and dominance in food systems and assesses the prospects for change.
    Among the first works to examine deep roots of corporate power in agriculture, Titans of Industrial Agriculture helps illuminate just how corporate actors have encouraged the “lock-in” of industrial agriculture, despite all its known social and ecological costs.
    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.
    1 hr 2 min
  • How AI Can Help Save the Natural World, with MIT CSAIL Assistant Professor Sara Beery
    Finches, zebras, Darwin... and AI? 🧠🌍
    Two centuries after Darwin explored the Galápagos, artificial intelligence is transforming how we study and protect the natural world, rapidly expanding what’s possible in biodiversity and ecology research. In this episode, MIT CSAIL Assistant Professor Sara Beery explains how AI is unlocking new possibilities in conservation, from identifying endangered species to analyzing ecosystem health at scale. AI can help biologists collect, process, and interpret enormous volumes of data, unlocking patterns and offering insights that were simply not possible without modern technology.
    Beery shares her journey, from tagging snow leopards in college to leading global research at the intersection of computer vision and ecology. But she sounds a note of caution: AI has no values of its own and must be paired with human values to tackle the complex tradeoffs behind biodiversity decisions. As these tools become more powerful, it’s up to us to decide how they’re used, and what (or who) we prioritize.
    🎧 Topics include:
    Using AI to analyze millions of wildlife images
    Why computer vision is revolutionizing species identification
    The ethical dilemmas behind conservation decisions
    How researchers are using AI to inform policy and protect ecosystems
    🔗Learn more about Professor Beery:
    🌐 Website: https://beerys.github.io/ or her CSAIL page https://www.csail.mit.edu/person/sara-beery
    Connect with CSAIL Alliances:
    On our site: https://cap.csail.mit.edu/about-us/meet-our-team
    On X: https://x.com/csail_alliances
    On LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/mit-csail
    #MITCSAIL #AI #Conservation #Biology #Technology #CSAILPodcast
    15 min
  • Shifting to a Product Mindset for Data
    Barb Wixom reads MIT CISR's April 2025 research briefing, which she co-authored with Nick van der Meulen and Cynthia Beath. See the text version and related content at https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2025_0401_DataProductMindset_WixomVanderMeulenBeath.
    Abstract: Today, by adopting a product mindset for data, organizations hold people accountable for the payoff of data investments over time. Data assets and data solutions represent two distinct types of “data products.” Organizations can use three sets of product management practices to more effectively generate returns from their data assets and data solutions: practices for satisfying data consumers, practices for setting prices, and practices for sustaining profits. This briefing illustrates these practices using examples from information businesses.
    14 min
  • Geothermal: Earth’s infinite clean power

    Deep beneath the Earth’s surface, a molten stew of metals radiates vast amounts of energy. Prof. Roland Horne, Director of the Stanford Geothermal Program, joins TILclimate to talk about the “geothermal energy” technologies that tap this underground resource for electricity, manufacturing, and home heating and cooling. He also shares the recent breakthroughs that have begun bringing this always-on, clean, renewable source of energy to new places and applications.

    For a deeper dive and additional resources related to this episode, visit: https://climate.mit.edu/podcasts/e5-geothermal-earths-infinite-clean-power

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

    Credits

    Laur Hesse Fisher, Host and Senior Editor

    Aaron Krol, Writer and Executive Producer

    David Lishansky, Editor and Producer

    Grace Sawin, Student Production Assistant

    Michelle Harris, Fact Checker

    Music by Blue Dot Sessions

    Artwork by Aaron Krol

    16 min
  • MIT Economist Andrew W. Lo on Finance, AI, and Human Behavior

    In this the first of two pilot episodes of Chalk Radio with VIDEO, Professor Andrew Lo, who teaches finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, knows that many people find financial matters perplexing and scary. Lots of us don’t have a good head for numbers, and besides, how can one get advice and make sound decisions when it’s taboo to discuss one’s finances at all? That’s where a financial advisor is useful–someone who understands the concepts, can crunch the numbers, and has a fiduciary responsibility to look out for your best interests. For many people, hiring a financial advisor might be a financial impossibility, but Prof. Lo and his colleagues are working to develop an AI financial advisor that not only gives ordinary people access to sound financial advice, but acts with real fiduciary responsibility. Large language models can’t do this yet, he says, but the technology is developing fast. Other topics he touches on in this episode include the outsized influence of finance on drug development and global decarbonization and the equally outsized influence of teachers on their students–he names many who changed his own life, from his third-grade teacher in Queens to his professors at college and graduate school.        

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator portal

    Professor Lo’s faculty page

    15.401 Finance Theory I on MIT OpenCourseWare

    15.481x Adaptive Markets: Financial Market Dynamics and Human Behavior on MIT Open Learning Library

    15.482x Healthcare Finance on MIT Open Learning Library

    Video version of this interview on YouTube

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

     

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    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Jackson Maher, producer

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    40 min

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Episodes from podcasts from around MIT