MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

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MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed episodes

  • Me, Myself & AI: AI Hype and Skepticism with Economist Paul Romer (Bonus Episode!)
    The MIT CSAIL Alliances Podcast is collaborating with MIT Sloan’s Me, Myself, and AI podcast to share a special bonus episode this month.
    Paul Romer once considered himself the most optimistic economist. He rightfully predicted that technology would blow up as an economic driver coming out of the inflation of the 1970s, but acknowledges he did not foresee the inequality that technology advances would lead to.
    On this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Paul shares his views on AI advances and their implications for society. Rather than pave the way for full automation, he is a proponent of keeping humans in the loop and believes that technology can be pointed in a direction for more meaningful and beneficial use, citing education as an area ripe to benefit from AI.
    More about CSAIL Alliances and our podcasts: csail.mit.edu/podcast
    For more episodes from Me, Myself, and AI: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio-series/me-myself-and-ai/
    25 min
  • Daniel Oberhaus, "The Silicon Shrink: How Artificial Intelligence Made the World an Asylum" (MIT Press, 2025)
    AI psychiatrists promise to detect mental disorders with superhuman accuracy, provide affordable therapy for those who can't afford or can't access treatment, and even invent new psychiatric drugs. But the hype obscures an unnerving reality. In The Silicon Shrink: How Artificial Intelligence Made the World an Asylum (MIT Press, 2025), Daniel Oberhaus tells the inside story of how the quest to use AI in psychiatry has created the conditions to turn the world into an asylum. Most of these systems, he writes, have vanishingly little evidence that they improve patient outcomes, but the risks they pose have less to do with technological shortcomings than with the application of deeply flawed psychiatric models of mental disorder at unprecedented scale.
    Oberhaus became interested in the subject of mental health after tragically losing his sister to suicide. In The Silicon Shrink, he argues that these new, ostensibly therapeutic technologies already pose significant risks to vulnerable people, and they won't stop there. These new breeds of AI systems are creating a psychiatric surveillance economy in which the emotions, behavior, and cognition of everyday people are subtly manipulated by psychologically savvy algorithms that have escaped the clinic. Oberhaus also introduces readers to the concept of “swipe psychology,” which is quickly establishing itself as the dominant mode of diagnosing and treating mental disorders.
    It is not too late to change course, but to do so means we must reckon with the nature of mental illness, the limits of technology, and what it means to be human.
    This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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.
    56 min
  • Tackling Injuries With AI: The NFL's Jeff Miller
    Jeff Miller moved from a career in government to focus on the health and safety of NFL players. Due to the nature of their sport, they are more prone to injuries, including concussions, than other professional athletes. By leveraging the game’s unique elements, such as the volume of cameras filming on-field activities, the NFL can gather large data sets to track injuries, and then segment their likelihood of occurrence by position and design equipment and update game rules to minimize them.
    Jeff joins us to describe how the NFL has partnered with tech companies, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), to expand its technology fluency and implement these solutions. Listen to today’s episode to learn about specific equipment the NFL has produced and rule changes it has implemented to better track and protect its players, as well as one element of the game Jeff believes technology cannot replace. Read the episode transcript here.
    Guest bio
    Jeff Miller is the National Football League’s executive vice president overseeing player health and safety. He is also the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, public affairs, and policy. During his tenure, the league has used data, artificial intelligence, and engineering to improve protective equipment, make rule changes, and support independent medical research related to players’ wellness and the rate of concussions.
    Before joining the league, Miller spent a decade on Capitol Hill as chief counsel and staff director for the Antitrust and Business Competition Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.  
    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 coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Alanna Hooper.
    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.
    31 min
  • MIT CSAIL Podcast: How AI will Change Your Job and The Potential of Self-Supervised Learning
    How AI will Change Your Job with MIT Economics Professor David Autor & The Potential of Self-Supervised Learning with CSAIL PhD Student Sharut Gupta
    Host: Kara Miller
    Part One: MIT Economics Professor David Autor says that AI is “not like a calculator where you just punch in the numbers and get the right answer. It's much harder to figure out how to be effective with it.” Offering unique insights into the future of work in an AI-powered world, Professor Autor explains his biggest worries, the greatest upside scenarios, and how he believes we should be approaching AI as a tool, and addresses how AI will impact jobs like nursing and skilled trades.
    Studies and papers referenced in conversation:
    AI and Product Innovation: https://aidantr.github.io/files/AI_innovation.p
    AI and the Gender Gap: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4759218
    Robotics and Nursing Homes:
    https://www.nber.org/papers/w33116
    Part Two: CSAIL PhD student Sharut Gutpa describes how self-supervised learning might bring about truly adaptable models which can respond to fast-changing environments, like consumer preferences.
    CSAIL Alliances connects business and industry to the people and research of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Labs. Learn more about CSAIL Alliances here.
    Each month, the CSAIL podcast features cutting-edge MIT and CSAIL experts discussing their current research, challenges and successes, as well as the potential impact of emerging tech. Learn more and listen to past episodes.
    Connect with CSAIL Alliances:
    On our site: https://cap.csail.mit.edu/about-us/meet-our-team
    On X: x.com/csail_alliances
    On LinkedIn: linkedIn.com/mit-CSAIL
    45 min
  • The future of customizable 3D printing — Stefanie Mueller

    Stefanie Mueller is an associate professor with a joint appointment in MIT's Electrical and Computer Science, and Mechanical Engineering departments. Her work is mostly focused on developing novel hardware and software systems that advance personal fabrication technologies. She envisions a world in which anyone can use 3D printing to create any object at any time.

    Show notes and transcript:

    https://news.mit.edu/podcast/podcast-curiosity-unbounded-episode-13-future-customizable-3d-printing

    Join the mailing list or send us feedback:

    https://eepurl.com/ixPQPA

    21 min
  • Centaur Labs is conquering AI for medical labeling - CEO Erik Duhaime

    We sit down with Centaur Labs founder and CEO Erik Duhaime. Duhaime — and his company —are alums of our delta V accelerator program.

    Centaur Labs was born out of research at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, which explores how people and computers can be organized so that – collectively – they act more intelligently than any person, group or computer alone.

    They “provide high-quality, trusted data annotation at scale, to power the development of superior AI models. We unlock the power of Collective Intelligence. By gathering and intelligently synthesizing multiple expert opinions, we achieve better-than-expert quality at scale.”

    51 min
  • Business Value from Digital Sustainability
    Ina Sebastian reads MIT CISR's January 2025 research briefing, which she co-authored with Stephanie Woerner, Peter Weill, and Daniel Woerner. See the text version and related content at https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2025_0101_DigitalSustainability_SebastianWoernerWeillWoerner.
    Abstract: Sustainability is a cost of doing business for many companies today—but it is also an opportunity for creating value. Companies only achieve value, however, by embedding sustainability goals into company strategy and then developing capabilities to advance these goals. Our survey analysis suggested that there are four distinct strategic sustainability goals: compliance and efficiency, customer and investor reputation, new revenue, and company purpose. Companies in the research that pursued strategic sustainability goals beyond compliance and efficiency saw bottom-line impacts such as greater EBIT, more revenues from innovation, and improved customer experience.
    12 min
  • Jesper Juul, "Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer" (MIT Press, 2024)
    The surprising history of the Commodore 64, the best-selling home computer of the 1980s—the machine that taught the world that computing should be fun.
    The Commodore 64 (C64) is officially the best-selling desktop computer model of all time, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. It was also, from 1985 to 1993, the platform for which most video games were made. But although it sold at least twice as many units as other home computers of its time, such as the Apple II, ZX Spectrum, or Commodore Amiga, it is strangely forgotten in many computer histories. In Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer (MIT Press, 2024), Jesper Juul argues that the C64 was so popular because it was so versatile, a machine developers and users would reinvent again and again over the course of 40 years.
    First it was a serious computer, next a game computer, then a computer for showcasing technical brilliance (graphical demos using the machine in seemingly impossible ways), then a struggling competitor, and finally a retro device whose limitations are now charming. The C64, Juul shows, has been ignored by history because it was too much fun. Richly illustrated in full color, this book is the first in-depth examination of the C64's design and history, and the first to integrate US and European histories. Containing interviews with Commodore engineers as well as an insightful look at C64 games, music, and software, Too Much Fun will appeal to those who used a Commodore 64, those interested in the history of computing and video games and computational literacy, or just those who wish their technological devices would last longer.
    Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design at the IU International University for Applied Science, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, hosts the German local radio show Replay Value and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter DiGRA D-A-CH Game Studies Watchlist.
    35 min
  • James Malazita, "Enacting Platforms: Feminist Technoscience and the Unreal Engine" (MIT Press, 2024)
    An analysis of the game engine Unreal through feminist, race, and queer theories of technology and media, as well as a critique of the platform studies framework itself.
    In this first scholarly book on the Unreal game engine, James Malazita explores one of the major contemporary game development platforms through feminist, race, and queer theories of technology and media, revealing how Unreal produces, and is produced by, broader intersections of power. Enacting Platforms: Feminist Technoscience and the Unreal Engine (MIT Press, 2024) takes a novel critical platform studies approach, raising deeper questions: what are the material and cultural limits of platforms themselves? What is the relationship between the analyst and the platform of study, and how does that relationship in part determine what “counts” as the platform itself? Malazita also offers a forward-looking critique of the platform studies framework itself.
    The Unreal platform serves as a kind of technical and political archive of the games industry, highlighting how the techniques and concerns of games have shifted and accreted over the past 30 years. Today, Unreal is also used in contexts far beyond games, including in public communication, biomedical research, civil engineering, and military simulation and training. The author's depth of technical analysis, combined with new archival findings, contributes to discussions of topics rarely covered in games studies (such as the politics of graphical rendering algorithms), as well as new readings of previously “closed” case studies (such as the engine's entanglement with the US military and American masculinity in America's Army). Culture, Malazita writes, is not “built into” software but emerges through human practices with code.
    Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, department lead for Games at Swiss culture magazine Titel kulturmagazin, editor of “DiGRA D-A-CH Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok.
    38 min
  • Smarter Warehouses: AI & Robotics at the Forefront of Logistics Innovation

    In this episode we sit down with Dr. Matthias Winkenbach, Director of Research at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, Alejandro González, Software Business Unit Director at Mecalux, and Iñaki Fernández, Chief Technology Officer at Mecalux.

    Mecalux, a provider of warehouse management solutions, is a founding research partner of the new MIT Intelligent Logistics Systems Lab, which is at the forefront of advancing logistics through innovative technology. We discuss how AI and machine learning are not just buzzwords but can actually create additional value in warehouse robotics, such as in the case of autonomous robots and software solutions that help companies manage demand out of a distributed network. 

    Host & Executive Producer: Benjy Kantor

    Marketing Writer & Producer: Mackenzie Berry
    Sound Editor: David Benjamin Sound
    Audio Engineer: Kurt Schneider

    33 min

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