AI Nation podcast, from CITP and WHYY

I’m excited to introduce AI Nation: a podcast about AI, everyday life, and what happens when we delegate vital decisions to machines. It’s a collaboration, born at CITP, between Princeton University and WHYY, Philadelphia’s famous NPR station. The first episode drops on April 1.

Tune in, and you’ll hear a variety of voices. You’ll hear my co-host, Malcolm Burnley, a journalist who reports on culture and social justice, a non-scientist sci-fi enthusiast who is much hipper than me. (A low bar, I know, but you get my point.) You’ll hear voices of people who have been impacted by AI problems, such as being arrested due to bad facial recognition. And you’ll hear from a diverse group of experts on the tech and its implications.

We spent a long time figuring out how to make a podcast that is compelling without being superficial, and connects everyday life to the deep and important issues raised by the AI and computing revolution. There were several false starts and some pilots that got progressively closer to the vision. Then we connected to the team at WHYY, and found the recipe.

I hope you like it. Whatever you think, let us know!

Huge thanks to everyone who has made this possible. At Princeton, that starts with Olga Russakovsky who helped to hatch the original vision, Tithi Chattopadhyay who shepherded the process from beginning to end, Margaret Koval who advised us and made vital connections, and Daniel Kearns for his peerless audio engineering. At WHYY, the thanks start with our producer Alex Stern (now I know and more importantly appreciate everything a producer does!), John Sheehan, and of course my co-host Malcolm Burnley.