New large language models are capable of writing essays, drafting marketing pitches and having human-like exchanges on chat apps. But can they make us laugh the way a human can? To explore this, host Gary Marcus is joined by Dr. Naomi Saphra, an AI researcher and comedian, Bob Mankoff, former Cartoon Editor of The New Yorker magazine and Yejin Choi, a computer science professor at the University of Washington and 2022 MacArthur Fellow. While artificial intelligence systems can generate far more jokes than humans can, knowing what’s funny remains — at least for now — a uniquely human ability.

We've been promised wide-scale driverless cars for more than a decade, but a true driverless experience still remains out of reach. It turns out that taking humans out of the loop is putting everyone on the road at risk. Host Gary Marcus talks to Cade Metz, a tech reporter for The New York Times and Dr. Missy Cummings, former senior safety advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to explore requirements that would make self-driving cars reliable and secure for everyone.

After its victory on Jeopardy, IBM made a billion-dollar bet on Watson: cancer. But it turned out that diagnosing patients isn’t the same as answering questions on a game show. Gary Marcus talks to journalists, doctors and computer scientists to find out how and why IBM’s experiment failed to live up to expectations, then looks at a new AI project that is showing promise at treating one of the world’s leading causes of hospital death. 

In 2011, Watson, a computer built by IBM, shocked the world by becoming the first non-human contestant to win Jeopardy. An immediate sensation, Watson became the symbol of the seemingly limitless horizons of artificial intelligence. Host Gary Marcus retells this amazing story with the help of Dave Ferrucci, the genius behind Watson’s success, and Ken Jennings, the all-time Jeopardy champion and the inspiration behind IBM’s project.

A transcript of their conversation can be found at Aventine.org/podcast. 

From the producers of The World as You’ll Know It, a new series about the perils and promise of artificial intelligence with cognitive scientist, Gary Marcus. For all the progress in artificial intelligence over the last 70 years — computers can now beat people at chess and Go, detect fraud, give driving instructions and write like Shakespeare — we still don’t know how to build AI we can trust. The risks are serious, but the potential benefits of AI are too great to be ignored. In this special edition series, host Gary Marcus — cognitive scientist, best-selling author and AI entrepreneur — digs into AI’s history, present and future, bringing to life some of the technology’s most significant breakthroughs and failures. He enlists engineers, scientists, philosophers and journalists working at the forefront of AI to explore what’s wrong with our current approach and ways we might change it. Humans vs. Machines debuts this spring.

Judith Warner speaks with Dr. Matthew Johnson about the state of psychedelic research today and the likelihood that certain drugs — MDMA and psilocybin specifically — could soon be approved for the treatment of conditions like addiction and PTSD. Psychedelics have long been known for their abilities to alter perception, but renewed interest by major research institutions in psychedelics’ ability to treat a range of common disorders has brought some of them to the precipice of FDA approval.

DR. JOHNSON is a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and a leader in the study of psychedelics for the treatment of addiction.

A transcript of their conversation can be found at Aventine.org/podcast.

One out of five Americans suffer from chronic pain and a new approach to treatment could transform their lives. Judith Warner speaks with Drs. Yoni Ashar and Tor Wager, neuroscientists who are at the forefront of a new way to understand and treat chronic pain that looks to the brain rather than the body as pain’s source. The treatment is relatively new, but growing rapidly in acceptance, thanks in part to a groundbreaking study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association earlier this year in which two-thirds of participants who were treated with the new approach were pain free or nearly pain free after a month.

DR. ASHAR is a clinical psychologist and an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz medical campus; DR. WAGER is a neuroscientist and a professor at Dartmouth.

A transcript of their conversation can be found at Aventine.org/podcast.

Judith Warner speaks with Dr. Thomas Insel, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, about the failures in mental healthcare and how technology could be an important tool in addressing them. 

DR. THOMAS INSEL was the head of the National Institute of Mental Health from 2002 to 2015, during which time he grew concerned about the lack of improvement in mental health outcomes despite great leaps forward in technology and brain science. He left for Silicon Valley, where, most recently, he founded Vanna Health, a company looking for community-based solutions for people with serious mental illness. In February, 2022 he published Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health.

A transcript of their conversation can be found at Aventine.org/podcast.

Judith Warner speaks with Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, a neurologist and professor at Harvard University, about the possible causes of and coming treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease. One of the most complex and mysterious diseases ever known, Alzheimer’s has been the focus of Dr. Tanzi’s professional life for forty years; in 1987 he co-discovered the first gene that causes early onset Alzheimer's as a graduate student. 

DR. RUDOLPH TANZIi is the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Vice-Chair of the Neurology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital where he also serves as the Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit.

A transcript of their conversation can be found at Aventine.org/podcast.

Judith Warner speaks with Dr. John Donoghue about recent advancements in brain computer interface, or BCI, a technology that allows paralyzed people to move and communicate through the power of their thoughts.

DR. JOHN DONOGHUE, the H.M. Wriston Professor of Neuroscience and Engineering at Brown University, has been a pioneer in the field of BCI research for over four decades, contributing to many of the breakthroughs that have made today’s progress possible.

A transcript of their conversation can be found at Aventine.org/podcast.