Mostly Human with Laurie Segall

There’s a disconnect between Silicon Valley’s AI promises (Abundance! AI for all!) and the public’s growing skepticism and anxiety about the technology’s effect on their lives, jobs and well being. Host Laurie Segall has talked a lot about agency in this podcast and what it looks like when this gap between Big Tech and the people it's supposed to serve gets impossible to cross. On this last episode of Mostly Human, Season 1, Laurie talks to someone who believes he’s built a bridge. Henrik Werdelin is an author, investor, and tech founder, most recently of Audos, a tech company that finds and develops everyday entrepreneurs to build money-making businesses. With AI upending the way companies run, employees are hired, and job seekers apply, Werdelin thinks there’s no better time to bet on being an entrepreneur. The key, he says, is the relationship with the customer. 

Find out more about Audos here. 

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at [email protected].

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The technology that we use may be small, handheld, cloud-stored, but its environmental impact is big and growing more concerning with each update. AI has changed the conversation about tech and sustainability, making the two both at odds and in concert with one another. If you're leading the sustainability efforts of one of the biggest technology giants, how do you find a balance? Amazon's Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst says you have to think holistically about the many different ways the world's biggest online retailer impacts the planet. In this conversation, host Laurie Segall and Kara Hurst talk about Amazon's sustainability goals, how they are planning on meeting those goals, the advances they have already made and the gaps they still need to fill. They get into the fears around data centers, unpack the myths, and set the record straight on a few things. It's a conversation about the power and responsibility of being a human on this planet in this era of ever expanding tech.

This conversation is a part of a partnership between Mostly Human and Amazon about sustainability.

Learn more about Amazon’s sustainability efforts here.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at [email protected].

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you don’t have your own newsletter (what are you even doing?!), your inbox is probably packed with them. In a world of bifurcated media, billionaire journalism moguls, and misinformed doomscrolling, the humble email newsletter has become the information-delivery tool dejour. But can a newsletter do more for media, the internet, our sanity? Tyler Denk sure thinks so. The cofounder and CEO of Beehiiv, the newsletter platform he hopes will rival Substack, is building outloud, using his own newsletter to share the highs and lows of that #entrepreneurlife, the mental health tax, and what it means to share content - to share yourself - on the internet. In this conversation, host Laurie Segall and Tyler Denk talk about the rise of newsletter culture, building a community of strangers, the information ecosystem, and how to bet on yourself when no one else will. 

Find out more about Beehiiv. 

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at [email protected].

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One in six job applicants is fake. Their resume, their identity, even their face for zoom interviews are all made up. What does this mean for job seekers? What does this mean for employers? And what does this mean for national security? "Your HR recruiter is the front of your security perimeter," says Vijay Balasubramaniyan, co-founder and CEO of Pindrop Security. In this episode, Laurie Segall talks to Vijay about the AI deepfake infiltrating the workplace, how their technology detects these bad actors, the AI-amplified deterioration of truth more broadly, and how we - any of us - can help turn things around. 

Find out more about Pindrop.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at [email protected].

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dating Apps overwhelming serve young people — A generation who has grown up on the internet, whose very lives are dictated by tech, whose still navigating a post-pandemic period of isolation, and whose mere desire for a relationship is ‘cringe.’ How do you meet this audience where they are? For Hinge CEO Jackie Jantos, the answer comes down to empathy and understanding this cultural moment. In this conversation, Laurie Segall and Jackie Jantos talk about what AI can and cannot do when it comes to pairing two humans, how the app incorporates inclusion, and how to productize intimacy. Jackie also answers  your questions about profiles, swipe-fatigue, and dating after divorce. 

Find out more about the Hinge event, Heads Up, and Jackie’s reflections on our ‘closeness crisis.’

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There is a lot of doom and gloom with AI, particularly with how it could affect that uniquely human output - creativity. AI has already infiltrated the art world, but Alex Reben believes it’s for the good if we don’t relinquish our control. The artist, roboticist, and co-founder and CTO of Phyzify is building an entire company around the belief that machines can democratize creation and help bring more ideas into the physical world. In this conversation, host Laurie Segall and Alex dig deep into those big questions about what is — and isn’t — art in the AI age and mull over the choices we can make to both protect the creativity that makes us human while using tech to advance it.  Alex argues we have the opportunity now to have agency in this marriage of art, creativity and AI, but we might not for long. Where will humans sit within the future that is coming fast? And at the end of the conversation, Alex demonstrates how he uses AI to make art — and magic — right before Laurie’s eyes. 

Learn more about Phyzify. Read Alex Reben’s manifesto.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

YouTube has gotten huge. Not just because it's been number one in streaming for the past three years, but because it's on the big screen, in our living rooms, and consuming most of America's attention. How much bigger can YouTube get and what does it mean for the entertainment industry, for media, and how we get information? On this bonus episode, Laurie interviews YouTube leaders Amjad Hanif (VP creator products) and Kurt Wilms (Sr Director, Product, YouTube on TV) about the evolution of the site and how we consume content. They talk about the new products launched during their annual Made On event, including serialized shorts. Laurie also explores the future of identity online and asks the execs, in an AI world how we retain the most human parts of ourselves?

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Samir Chaudry is one of the original creators on YouTube. His channel, Colin and Samir, has made him and his co-host Colin Rosenblum some of the most influential voices in the creator economy. In this conversation, recorded at YouTube’s Made On event, Laurie Segall and Samir talk about what it’s really like to be a creator and to make a living through what you post on YouTube. Samir says he uploaded his first video in 2011 and hasn’t stopped since. And there’s a price to what he calls that ‘indefinite season of content’ but there’s a gift in it too — finding a community of connection. Samir talks about the evolution of YouTube from a creator’s perspective, where it’s going, and his advice to up-and-coming creators.

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There’s a lot of concern right now about the big scary ways AI could take control of the human race, or extinct us all together. But computational social scientist Sandra Matz argues the human deterioration by AI is more subtle than that — and already happening. Sandra Matz studies the cross section of human behavior, our technological relationships, and our inner mental lives -- and now, AI’s influence on it all. In this conversation, Laurie Segall and Sandra Matz talk about how AI has the ability to make us boring, flatten our potential, cause cognitive atrophy, and  impact our human relationships. They explore unexpected ways AI can track our human behavior. If we’re not careful, that data can be weaponized and manipulated by companies all around the world. But it’d be too simple to discount the potential of AI. Sandra and Laurie go in depth about all the ways the power of AI could be used for good - like how AI could be used to detect our deteriorating mental health. 

Sandra’s book: Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you have kids in school — or soon will, or know someone who does — you probably have questions about AI in the classroom. Should schools be using it? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? And who’s actually getting to decide? New York Times tech reporter Natasha Singer has spent over a decade exploring exactly those questions. In her new book, Coding Kids, Natasha traces how Google, Microsoft, and Apple have moved from supplying Chromebooks to training teachers, funding nonprofits, writing the lessons, and how they’re now shaping what a generation of kids learns about AI. In this episode, host Laurie Segall and Natasha Singer break down what every parent — or bystander — needs to understand about the influence Big Tech has always had in the classroom and how kids, teachers and parents can take control of the curriculum in the age of AI.  

Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools, by Natasah Singer

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.