FEATURED PROJECT

SEEING DOUBLE: AI BIRTHS DIGITAL HUMANS

Digital twins capture the physical look and expressions of real humans. Increasingly these replicas are showing up in the entertainment industry and beyond. It gives rise to some interesting opportunities as well as some familiar, thorny questions about ownership.

2023 New York Festivals Radio Awards

This episode was selected as a finalist

Generating creativity

This episode we meet people building next generation tools for creativity who are thinking about how these AI models should be trained and deployed in order to be both useful and fair to artists.

Update: How pricing algorithms learn to collude

Algorithms now determine how much things cost. It’s called dynamic pricing and it adjusts according to current market conditions in order to increase profits. The rise of e-commerce has propelled pricing algorithms into an everyday occurrence—whether you’re shopping on Amazon, booking a flight, hotel or ordering an Uber.

Hired by an algorithm

If you’ve applied for a job lately, it’s all but guaranteed that your application was reviewed by software—in most cases, before a human ever laid eyes on it. In this episode, the first in a four-part investigation into automated hiring practices, we speak with the CEOs of ZipRecruiter and Career Builder, and one of the architects of LinkedIn’s algorithmic job-matching system, to explore how AI is increasingly playing matchmaker between job searchers and employers. But while software helps speed up the process of sifting through the job market, algorithms have a history of biasing the opportunities they present to people by gender, race...and in at least one case, whether you played lacrosse in high school.

Attention Shoppers: You’re Being Tracked

Cameras in stores aren’t anything new—but these days there are AI brains behind the electric eyes. In some stores, sophisticated systems are tracking customers in almost every imaginable way, from recognizing their faces to gauging their age, their mood, and virtually gussying them up with makeup. The systems rarely ask for people’s permission, and for the most part they don’t have to. In our season 1 finale, we look at the explosion of AI and face recognition technologies in retail spaces, and what it means for the future of shopping.

Who watches AI watching students?

A boy wrote about his suicide attempt. He didn’t realize his school's software was watching. While schools commonly use AI to sift through students' digital lives and flag keywords that may be considered concerning, critics ask at what cost to privacy.

Live: How to craft effective AI policy

A conversation about equity and what it takes to make effective AI policy taped before a live audience at MIT Technology Review’s annual AI conference, EmTech Digital.

Optimizing for convenience

We’re in the middle of another major disruption in retail—one that’s been accelerated by the pandemic, and looks to take the convenience of e-commerce and apply it to physical environments. In this episode, we examine how AI is at the center of this transition.

When Your Face is Your Ticket

Face mapping and other tracking systems are changing the sports experience in the stands and on the court.

AI finds its voice

Synthetic voice technologies are increasingly passing as human. But today’s voice assistants are still a far cry from the hyper-intelligent thinking machines we’ve been musing about for decades. In this episode, we explore how machines learn to communicate—and what it means for the humans on the other end of the conversation.

How AI is giving a woman back her voice

Voice technology is one of the biggest trends in the healthcare space. We look at how it might help care providers and patients, from a woman who is losing her speech, to documenting healthcare records for doctors.

What's AI doing in your Wallet?

Our entire financial system is built on trust. We can exchange otherwise worthless paper bills for fresh groceries, or swipe a piece of plastic for new clothes. But this trust—typically in a central government-backed bank—is changing. As our financial lives are rapidly digitized, the resulting data turns into fodder for AI. Companies like Apple, Facebook and Google see it as an opportunity to disrupt the entire experience of how people think about and engage with their money. But will we as consumers really get more control over our finances? In this first of a series on automation and our wallets, we explore a digital revolution in how we pay for things.

Curious Coincidence

PRODUCER

Hosted by Meg Marco, this 5-part podcast series from MIT Technology Review and ProPublica looks at the money, people and technology behind the explosion of ransomware that is delivering hundreds of millions of dollars to cybercriminals around the world.

PRODUCER

The Extortion Economy

This is a detective story that’s unsolved. Hosted by investigative reporter Antonio Regalado, Curious Coincidence dives into the mysterious origins of Covid-19 by examining the genome of the virus, the labs doing sensitive research on dangerous pathogens, and questions of whether a lab accident may have touched off a global pandemic.

PRODUCTION DUTIES

• Guest host episodes of In Machines We Trust.

• Research/pitch coverage topics and prep stories.

• Book, prep and record guests and reporters for studio, remote and field interviews.

• Edit audio and compile episodes in ProTools and Adobe Audition.

• Lead scripting, host tracking, fact-checking, headline writing and show notes.

• Collaborate with the engagement and off-platform teams on promotion/marketing strategy.

• Collaborate with senior editors on the planning of future reporting, business development and expansion.

• Work alongside the events team to coordinate and host live editorial stage events.