Artificial Intelligence and You

248 - Guest: Tim O'Reilly, Entrepreneur of Ideas, part 2

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

My guest has fundamentally reshaped the landscape of digital technology. Your experience of the Internet owes a large part of its identity to Tim O’Reilly, the founder, CEO, and Chairman of O’Reilly Media, the company that has been providing the picks and shovels of learning to the Silicon Valley gold rush for the past thirty-five years, a platform that has connected and informed the people at ground zero of the online revolution since before there was a World Wide Web, through every medium from books to blogs. And the man behind that company has catalyzed and promoted the great thought movements that shaped how the digital world unfolded, such as Open Source, the principle of freedom and transparency in sharing the code that makes up the moving parts of that world, notably through the Open Source Conference which was like Woodstock for developers and ran from the beginning of that era for many years and which I personally presented at many times. Named by Inc. magazine as the “Oracle of Silicon Valley,” Tim created the term “Web 2.0” to denote the shift towards the era where users like you and me participate by creating our own content, which turned into social media and which is now just part of the digital water we swim in. His 2017 book, WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us explores the technological forces on our world and how to harness them for a better future. We talk about the effects of generative AI on our work processes, what AI does to the value model of accessing information, meme stocks in the new economy, AGI, and preference alignment and market influencing leading to collective intelligence. Really. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

 

 

 

 

247 - Guest: Tim O'Reilly, Entrepreneur of Ideas, part 1

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

My guest has fundamentally reshaped the landscape of digital technology. Your experience of the Internet owes a large part of its identity to Tim O’Reilly, the founder, CEO, and Chairman of O’Reilly Media, the company that has been providing the picks and shovels of learning to the Silicon Valley gold rush for the past thirty-five years, a platform that has connected and informed the people at ground zero of the online revolution since before there was a World Wide Web, through every medium from books to blogs. And the man behind that company has catalyzed and promoted the great thought movements that shaped how the digital world unfolded, such as Open Source, the principle of freedom and transparency in sharing the code that makes up the moving parts of that world, notably through the Open Source Conference which was like Woodstock for developers and ran from the beginning of that era for many years and which I personally presented at many times. Named by Inc. magazine as the “Oracle of Silicon Valley,” Tim created the term “Web 2.0” to denote the shift towards the era where users like you and me participate by creating our own content, which turned into social media and which is now just part of the digital water we swim in. His 2017 book, WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us explores the technological forces on our world and how to harness them for a better future. We talk about intellectual property rights in the generative AI era – Taylor Swift will make an appearance again - and Tim’s conversations with Sam Altman, parallels with the evolution of Linux, comparing incentives with social media, the future of content generating work, and opportunities for entrepreneurial flowering. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

 

 

 

 

246 - Guest: Paul Reber, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, part 2

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

How do our brains produce thinking? My guest is an expert in cognitive neuroscience, the field that aims to answer that question. Paul Reber is professor of psychology at Northwestern University, Director of Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and head of the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition program, focusing on human memory—how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information. With a PhD from Carnegie Mellon, his work has been cited over 6,000 times. He has served as Associate Editor for the journal Cortex and contributed to NIH review panels. His recent projects explore applications of memory science in skill training and cognitive aging. If we want to build AI that reproduces human intelligence, we need to understand that as well as possible. In part 2, we talk about how to memorize something like a TED talk, the difference between human and computer memory, how humans make memories more resilient, catastrophic interference, and just how big is the human brain and can we fill it up? All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

 

 

 

 

245 - Guest: Paul Reber, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, part 1

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

How do our brains produce thinking? My guest is an expert in cognitive neuroscience, the field that aims to answer that question. Paul Reber is professor of psychology at Northwestern University, Director of Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and head of the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition program, focusing on human memory—how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information. With a PhD from Carnegie Mellon, his work has been cited over 6,000 times. He has served as Associate Editor for the journal Cortex and contributed to NIH review panels. His recent projects explore applications of memory science in skill training and cognitive aging. If we want to build AI that reproduces human intelligence, we need to understand that as well as possible. In part 1, we talk about distinguishing neuroscience from cognitive neuroscience, the physical structure of the brain, how we learn physical skills, comparing the brain to AI, and foundational problems in neuroscience. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

 

 

 

 

244 - Guest: Beth Singler, Anthropologist of Religion in AI, part 2

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

On the recent wrap-up/predictions panel we had so much fascinating discussion about AI in religion with panelist Beth Singler that I said we should have her back on the show by herself to talk about that, so here she is! Beth is the Assistant Professor in Digital Religions and co-lead of the Media Existential Encounters and Evolving Technology Lab at the University of Zurich, where she leads projects on religion and AI. As an anthropologist, her research addresses the human, religious, cultural, social, and ethical implications of developments in AI and robotics.  She received the 2021 Digital Religion Research Award from the Network for New Media, Religion, and Digital Culture Studies. Her popular science communication work includes a series of award-winning short documentaries on AI. She is co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Religion and AI, and author of Religion and AI: An Introduction, both published last year.  In part 2, we talk about Roko’s Basilisk, which is a concept that changes your life the moment you find out what it is, experiences of AI saying that it’s a God, the reverse Garland test (that’s based on ex Machina), simulation theories starting with Plato’s Cave, more chatbot priests, how Beth does research, and… Battlestar Galactica. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

 

 

 

 

243 - Guest: Beth Singler, Anthropologist of Religion in AI, part 1

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

On the recent wrap-up/predictions panel we had so much fascinating discussion about AI in religion with panelist Beth Singler that I said we should have her back on the show by herself to talk about that, so here she is! Beth is the Assistant Professor in Digital Religions and co-lead of the Media Existential Encounters and Evolving Technology Lab at the University of Zurich, where she leads projects on religion and AI. As an anthropologist, her research addresses the human, religious, cultural, social, and ethical implications of developments in AI and robotics.  She received the 2021 Digital Religion Research Award from the Network for New Media, Religion, and Digital Culture Studies. Her popular science communication work includes a series of award-winning short documentaries on AI. She is co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Religion and AI, and author of Religion and AI: An Introduction, both published last year.  In part 1, we talk about why religion and AI is a thing and what its dimensions are, the influence of science fiction, tropes like End Times, AI used in religious roles, and the Singularity. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

 

 

 

 

242 - Guest: Nick Potkalitsky, AI Integration Expert

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

Continuing our exploration of AI in education, I am joined by Nick Potkalitsky, founder of Pragmatic AI Solutions and co-author of AI in Education: A Roadmap For Teacher-Led Transformation. With a doctorate in narrative and rhetorical studies, he leads AI curriculum integration at The Miami Valley School and develops pioneering AI literacy programs. His Substack “Educating AI” offers curriculum guidance and expert insights. We talk about how AI has landed emotionally for teachers, whether there’s a generational divide in the different reactions teachers have had to AI, how students are using AI tools and the homework problem, the changing landscape of policies in schools, how university requirements are evolving, and the teacher-led transformation of education that Nick foresees. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

 

 

 

 

241 - Guest: Mutlu Cukurova, AI in Education Expert, part 2

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

Virtually every issue around AI – pro, con, in-between – is reflected in education right now. And teachers are on the front lines of this disruption. So it’s especially important that UNESCO – that’s the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization - has developed an AI Competency Framework for Teachers, and here to talk about that and his other work is the co-author of that framework, Mutlu Cukurova, professor of Learning and Artificial Intelligence at University College London. He investigates human-AI complementarity in education, aiming to address the pressing socio-educational challenge of preparing people for a future with AI systems that will require a great deal more than the routine cognitive skills currently prized by many education systems and traditional approaches to automation with AI. He is part of UCL's Grand Challenges on Transformative Technologies group, was named in Stanford’s Top 2% Scientists List, and is editor of the British Journal of Educational Technology and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction. In part 2, we talk about how the competency framework helps teachers use large language models, intelligent tutoring systems, the distinctions between human and machine intelligence, how to find the place to be human in a world of expanding AI capabilities, and the opportunities for teachers in this world. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.