SHIFT

How do we minimize the risk of mid-air collisions between aircraft? And how does that change in the era of artificial intelligence and things like drone swarms?

Claire Tomlin works on questions like these, and her work is now the basis of a new field of AI in which a system automatically learns operational and control objectives from data, while maintaining things like flight safety.

We Meet: 

University of California Berkeley’s Claire Tomlin, 2024 IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus Medal recipient recognized “for foundational work in the design and verification of cyber-physical systems with applications to safety in autonomous systems”

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

A growing number of school kids are getting their writing assignments back with grades and feedback that were given by AI software.Teachers say these AI tools can help them grade papers faster but who’s grading the AI tools? 

We Meet: 

CalMatters Tech Reporter Khari Johnson

https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/06/teachers-ai-grading/ 

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

A team of computer scientists at the University of Chicago has built tools that let artists poison the training data embedded in their work, and fight back against those who scrape the internet to build generative AI models. 

We Meet: 

Nightshade Creator Ben Zhao, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

For some types of problems quantum computers can work exponentially faster than other types of supercomputers, but significant challenges remain to building useful quantum machines. 

We hear from one of the key players in the field and learn about his efforts to do so in the latest installment of our oral history project.

We Meet: 

Google Quantum AI Lab Founder Hartmut Neven 

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

A live conversation about the potential promises and pitfalls of AI in public health, hosted by Boston University's School of Public Health.

We meet: 

Dr. David Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, with secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health

Dr. Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, former Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden and Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy  

Greg Singleton, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at the US Department of Health and Human Services 

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

A look at how generative AI is being used in the drug discovery process in this latest installment of our oral history project.

We Meet:

Insilico Medicine Founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

Cornell University’s Elephant Listening Project has been trying to get real-time monitoring of the Central African Republic’s forest elephants for years. FruitPunch AI and a roster of other AI researchers are closer than ever to making that a reality.

This week’s show is a special feature episode from our friends at the Click Here Podcast. We’ll be back with a new episode of SHIFT next week. Thanks for listening!

A look at how AI is helping and hurting cybersecurity in this latest installment of our oral history project.

We Meet:

Palo Alto Networks Chief Product Officer Lee Klarich

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

In this bonus episode, we tour Google's Project Starline at this year's TED Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

We Meet:

Andrew Nartker from Google’s Project Starline

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

The way we pay for things is changing dramatically, and it’s only going to become more invisible and integrated into our experiences going forward—like a car that can pay for gas or electric charging all on its own.

We Meet:

Mastercard President and CTO Ed McLaughlin

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.