Who wants to take a walk around a California vineyard to explore how it’s deploying sensors and other forms of AI? Join us for a field trip as we do something a little bit different this week.

We meet: 

Dirk Heuvel, vice president of vineyard operations, McManis Family Vineyards

Credits:

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

Retailers face an evolving landscape of fraud tactics each day. It’s why companies are increasingly turning to AI to try and catch threat patterns never seen before, and block attacks before they happen. While this approach lends itself to efficiency, it’s also one that relies on increasingly complex data profiles of consumers. In this episode, we peer into the world of retail fraud detection. 

We Meet:

David Cost, VP of ecommerce and marketing at Rainbow Apparel

Will Douglas Heaven, senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review

Rajesh Ramanand, co-founder & CEO at Signifyd

Credits:

This episode was reported by Jennifer Strong and produced by Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens, It was edited by Mat Honan and contains original music from Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski. Our mix engineer is Garret Lang and our artwork is made by 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 Dave Johnson, the chief data and artificial intelligence officer at Moderna.

CREDITS: This project was produced by Jennifer Strong, Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Michael Reilly and mixed by Garret Lang with original music by Jacob Gorski. The art is from Eric Mongeon and Stephanie Arnett.

A conversation about equity and what it takes to make effective AI policy taped before a live audience at MIT Technology Review’s annual AI conference, EmTech Digital.

We Meet:

Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology at the Brookings Institution

Anthony Green, producer of the In Machines We Trust podcast

Credits:

This episode was created by Jennifer Strong, Anthony Green, Erin Underwood and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Michael Reilly, directed by Laird Nolan and mixed by Garret Lang. Episode art by Stephanie Arnett. Cover art by Eric Mongeon. Special thanks this week to Amy Lammers and Brian Bryson.

Amid a growing epidemic of gun violence, can AI be part of the solution? In this episode we look at some of the weapons detection technologies schools are using in an effort to try to keep students safe. 

We Meet:

Gary Hough, superintendent of Fayette County schools 

Mark Keierleber, investigative reporter at The 74

Mike Ellenbogen, Founder, chief innovation officer at Evolv Technologies

Donald Maye, head of operations at IPVM

Sounds From:

Spielberg, S. (2002). Minority Report. Twentieth Century Fox.

Avigilon Athena Security integration for Gun Detection, via YouTube 

Credits: 

This episode was produced by Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens with reporting from Mark Keierleber. It was edited by Jennifer Strong, Rachel Courtland and Mat Honan, mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from Jacob Gorski and art 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 Gustav Söderström, who helped create algorithms aiming to understand our taste in music. 

CREDITS: This project was produced by Jennifer Strong, Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Michael Reilly and mixed by Garret Lang, with original music by Jacob Gorski. Artwork by Eric Mongeon.

A boy wrote about his suicide attempt. He didn’t realize his school's software was watching.

While schools commonly use AI to sift through students' digital lives and flag keywords that may be considered concerning, critics ask at what cost to privacy.

We Meet:

Jeff Patterson, CEO of Gaggle

Mark Keierleber, investigative reporter at The 74

Teeth Logsdon-Wallace, student

Elizabeth Laird, director of Equity in Civic Technology at Center for Democracy & Technology

Sounds From:

"Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist" from the band Ramshackle Glory's 2011 album Live the Dream.

"Spying or protecting students? CBS46 Investigates school surveillance software" from CBS46 in Atlanta, GA on February 14, 2022.

"Student Surveillance Software: Schools know what your child is doing online. Do you?" from WSPA7 News in Greenville, SC on May 5, 2021.

"Spying or protecting students? CBS46 Investigates school surveillance software" from News 5 in Cleveland, OH on February 5, 2020.

Credits:

This episode was produced by Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens with reporting from Mark Keierleber. It was edited by Jennifer Strong and Michael Reilly, and mixed by Garret Lang with original music from Jacob Gorski. Art by Stephanie Arnett.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/12/school-surveillance-dragnet-suicide-attempt-healing

https://www.the74million.org/contributor/mark-keierleber/

You can support our journalism by going to http://www.techreview.com/subscribe.

The team that brings you In Machines We Trust has much to be grateful for—a brand new season of this show, a big awards nomination for The Extortion Economy, a show about ransomware that we made with ProPublica, and our new investigative series, Curious Coincidence.

We celebrate how far we've come with a look back at where it all started!

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What happens when an algorithm gets it wrong? In the first of a four-part series on face recognition, Jennifer Strong and the team at MIT Technology Review explore the arrest of a man who was falsely accused of a crime using facial recognition. The episode also starts to unpack the complexities of this technology and introduce some thorny questions about its use.  

We meet: 

Robert and Melissa Williams 

Peter Fussey, University of Essex

Hamid Khan, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition

Credits: This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong, Tate Ryan-Mosley and Emma Cillekens. We had help from Karen Hao and Benji Rosen. We’re edited by Michael Reilly and Gideon Lichfield. Our technical director is Jacob Gorski. Special thanks to Kyle Thomas Hemingway and Eric Mongeon.

This is a detective story that’s unsolved. Hosted by investigative reporter Antonio Regalado, Curious Coincidence dives into the mysterious origins of Covid-19 by examining the genome of the virus, the labs doing sensitive research on dangerous pathogens, and questions of whether a lab accident may have touched off a global pandemic.

A five-part investigation from MIT Technology Review.

This week we're sharing another tech show we made that we think you're going to love. It's called The Extortion Economy and it's a five-part series about the ransomware epidemic produced with ProPublica.

See you soon with a whole new season of In Machines We Trust!!

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A new-age iteration of the old-age extortion problem. A ransomware vigilante, a piracy (as in actual boats) expert, a school administrator, and a kidnapping victim share their experiences. This is part one.

We Meet:

Fabian Wosar, CTO, Emsisoft 

Doug Russell, Director of Technology, Haverhill Public Schools

Lisa Forte, Co-founder, Red Goat Cyber Security

Credits: 

This series is hosted by Meg Marco and produced by Emma Cillekens, Tate Ryan-Mosley and Anthony Green. It’s inspired by reporting from Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden from ProPublica. We're edited by Bobbie Johnson, Michael Reilly, Mat Honan and Robin Fields. Our mix engineer is Erick Gomez with help from Rebekah Wineman. Our theme music is by Jacob Gorski. Art is from Lisa Larson-Walker and Eric Mongeon. Emma Cillekens is our voice coach. The executive producers of The Extortion Economy podcast are Meg Marco and Jennifer Strong.

Sounds From: 

Video: Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount testifies at the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Source: CNBC Television, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcYePKjI_mc

Video: Roving Report Italy, Source: AP, http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/8b08bfc68a0b203d238aa8e0c4316e61 

Video: CBS Evening News 1989-12-14, Source: CBS, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsbZEX5pQw