The Future of Everything

Algorithms inform the news you read, the TV shows you watch, and the advertisements that appear on your internet searches – and they also have a say in who gets a bank loan, what medical procedures are covered by insurance, and who gets selected for a job interview. As algorithms are used to make these decisions, how do we make sure they’re fair? And what does fairness even mean?

In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, computer science professor Omer Reingold explains how we can create definitions of fairness that can be incorporated into computer algorithms. Reingold and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, also discuss how flawed historic data may result in algorithms making unfair decisions and how a technique called multi-group fairness can improve health predictions for individuals. Listen and subscribe here.

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Unfortunately, not every medical procedure is 100% successful. Due to the complexity of breast cancer lumpectomies, for instance, 16–25% of surgeries fail to remove the entire tumor, requiring patients to repeat the procedure. But to improve surgery success rates, and their efficiency, physicians are now looking to technologies from a surprising source: the gaming industry.

In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Bruce Daniel, a professor of radiology, explains how technologies developed by the gaming industry, such as virtual reality and body tracking, can be used to improve medicine. With host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Daniel also discusses how the potential of these technologies goes beyond surgeries, even helping patients manage anxiety before undergoing stressful diagnostic procedures like MRIs. Listen and subscribe here.

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Since they were invented more than a century ago, airplanes have gone from carrying a single person to ferrying many hundreds of people and several tons of cargo. Despite the increase in size and capacity, commercial aircraft have actually become quieter over the past several decades, thanks to a few key design changes informed by fluid mechanics, a branch of physics that studies fluids in motion.

In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Sanjiva Lele, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of mechanical engineering, explains how adjustments in aircraft design, landing gear, and engines can have massive consequences for the field of aeroacoustics.

Lele joins host, bioengineer Russ Altman, to also discuss how high-fidelity simulations can be used to study and improve the fluid mechanical modeling of aircraft engines, as well as wind turbines. Listen and subscribe here.

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Data shows that greater gender diversity on company leadership groups leads to improved business outcomes, says Stanford cardiologist Hannah Valantine. Likewise, she says, in medical research, where diversity boosts the development of new technologies.

In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Valantine, the former inaugural chief officer for scientific workforce diversity at the National Institutes of Health, as well as a senior investigator at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, discusses why increasing the diversity of researchers and study participants is vital to medical innovation. Valantine and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, then explore the barriers that keep new medical technologies, such as a blood test to detect signs of heart transplant rejection, from being used in hospitals. Listen and subscribe here.

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In our deeply polarized society, the prospect of holding thoughtful discussions on policy issues seems impossible. But it doesn’t have to be. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, James Fishkin, a professor of communication at Stanford, describes the deliberative polling model, a system of structured and moderated small group discussions that can help bring people together and bridge differences in perspective on even some of the most politically fraught issues. Together with host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Fishkin discusses how deliberative democracy has been successfully used in more than 30 countries, including Chile, Denmark, and Japan, and how it can be scaled up through technology. Listen and subscribe here.

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Many of the lies, distortions, and pieces of disinformation online are easy to spot. But as technology advances it will become harder to tell the difference between video and images that are true and accurate and those that are manipulated or outright made up. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Jonathan Dotan, of Stanford’s Starling Lab for Data Integrity, and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss what researchers are doing to keep ahead of advances in deep fakes and other forms of manipulated media. Dotan explains how the lab is using cryptography and blockchain technologies to verify the veracity of images and videos, and how these tools are already being used to document war crimes in Syria and Ukraine, and to secure the testimonies of genocide survivors. Listen and subscribe here.

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Physicians diagnose Alzheimer’s disease with tests that measure memory loss and behavioral change. But many years before these symptoms appear, the disease is changing the brain, leading to the buildup of misfolded proteins and brain shrinkage that cause cognitive decline. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford mechanical engineer Ellen Kuhl explains how she’s using databases of brain images of both Alzheimer’s patients and healthy individuals to create computational models that show how the disease spreads through distinct parts of the brain and gradually impacts different brain functions. Kuhl and host, Stanford bioengineer Russ Altman, explore how these models have generated new insights into how Alzheimer’s affects the brain, as well as its diagnosis and its potential treatment. Listen and subscribe here. 

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Humans have been trying to predict when earthquakes will happen for centuries, with little success, by developing earthquake detectors and by wondering if unusual animal behavior could be a sign of an incoming temblor. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Eric Dunham, a geophysicist at Stanford University, explains that while we’re still unable to predict when earthquakes will happen, advanced computers and new sensors on the seafloor are pushing the field of natural-hazard modelling forward and providing new information about the nature of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. Dunham and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss how this modeling could help us understand where large earthquakes and tsunamis are likely to happen – and how it could help us prepare for these potentially devastating events. Listen and subscribe here. 

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Computer chips are everywhere: your cellphone, your car, even your refrigerator. And they’re essential to enabling advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and faster and better computers -- and to solving global challenges such as climate change. The omnipresence of this foundational technology has been growing for decades, but the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of society, significantly increasing the demand for more and better chips.

In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford electrical engineer Philip Wong and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss why filling that need will require a greater emphasis on semiconductor research in universities, global cooperation, and increased investment in both research and development (R&D) and manufacturing. They also discuss the importance of shortening the distance between the kind of computer chip innovations happening in university labs and the fabrication of the next generation of chips, or what Wong calls “the lab-to-fab gap.” Listen and subscribe here.

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Search online and you’ll find lists of all the skills entrepreneurs should have - among them are imagination, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship. But are entrepreneurs born with these relevant skills, or can they be taught?

In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Tina Seelig, professor of the practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, explains the differences between imagination, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, and how all four can be taught and then applied to finding solutions to big challenges. Join Seelig and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, as they discuss how to train a generation of entrepreneurs who will make positive contributions to the world. Listen and subscribe here.

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