AI-Curious with Jeff Wilser – Details, episodes & analysis

What happens when an AI prediction does not just forecast the future, but helps create it?

In this episode of AI-Curious, we talk with philosopher and ethicist Carissa Véliz about AI ethics, AI privacy, predictive AI, and the hidden power of algorithmic decision-making. We explore how AI systems used in hiring, lending, insurance, and other high-stakes settings can become self-fulfilling prophecies, shaping outcomes rather than simply measuring them.

We also examine the growing privacy risks of large language models and AI agents, especially as they gain access to more personal data, communications, and systems. Along the way, we discuss automated decision-making, surveillance, human autonomy, and why predictions about people are far more ethically fraught than predictions about things like the weather.

This conversation also goes beyond policy and into philosophy: how narratives about AI shape public thinking, why humor can be a response to technological power, and how individuals and companies can use AI responsibly without giving up judgment, control, or resilience.

If you are interested in AI ethics, algorithmic bias, AI privacy, AI agents, responsible AI, predictive algorithms, self-fulfilling prophecy, and the future of AI, this episode offers a clear and thought-provoking framework for understanding what is at stake.

Guest
Carissa Véliz — Philosopher, Associate Professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, and author of Prophecy, Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future: From Ancient Oracles to AI.

Carissa's TED talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/carissa_veliz_beware_the_power_of_prediction

Carissa's new book: Prophecy, Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future: From Ancient Oracles to AI.

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What if the job you have today will soon require a completely different set of skills? 

In this episode of AI-Curious, we talk with Dan Roth, Editor in Chief of LinkedIn, about what LinkedIn’s data reveals about the future of work, the rise of AI literacy, and why deeply human skills may matter more than ever. We dig into LinkedIn’s “Skills on the Rise” research, what employers are actually looking for now, and why the shift toward skills-based hiring is changing how people get hired, promoted, and evaluated.

We also explore the surprising rise of storytelling, public speaking, conflict resolution, and stakeholder communication in an AI-driven workplace. Along the way, we discuss why traditional resumes and polished cover letters may matter less in a world where anyone can use AI to sound impressive, and why some companies are moving toward live prototyping and real-time problem solving in interviews instead.

Later, we get into AI agents, what Dan is building himself, and how leaders can create stronger AI adoption inside their companies. We also talk about what it takes to stay competitive in a job market where AI is changing the stack of work, but not necessarily replacing the worker.

Guest
Dan Roth — Editor in Chief, LinkedIn

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What happens when software stops just “chatting” and starts acting in the real world, across real workflows, with real consequences?

In this episode of AI-Curious, the Head of AI at Cognizant goes deep on AI agents and agentic workflows: what they are, why enterprises are investing heavily, and what it actually takes to make agent systems reliable and safe at scale. We unpack what separates an AI agent from a traditional chatbot, why “agency” changes the stakes, and how multi-agent systems can be designed to reduce risk instead of amplifying it.

We also explore concrete enterprise use cases, including agent hierarchies that coordinate across complex systems (like networks, utilities, and other operations), plus how “agentic process automation” builds on older automation models while adapting to unexpected edge cases. Finally, we zoom out to the future of work: which tasks get augmented first, why disruption is happening faster than most forecasts, and how trust in AI systems may shift over the next several years.

Guest

Babak Hodjat — Head of AI at Cognizant; leads AI lab work focused on scaling reliable, trustworthy agent systems; longtime AI builder with deep experience in applied natural language systems. 

Key topics we cover

• 07:00 — What an AI agent is (and how it differs from a chatbot)
• 13:03 — State of play: what’s working, what’s not, and why “agent systems must be engineered”
• 17:00 — A practical multi-agent design pattern across telecom, power, and agriculture
• 20:28 — Agentifying rigid processes (and handling unforeseen situations)
• 24:14 — Who should deploy agents, why single “do-everything” agents are risky
• 26:34 — An open-source starting point for experimenting with multi-agent systems
• 29:12 — Guardrails: reducing hallucinations, adding redundancy, and safety thresholds
• 35:29 — Why we should use LLMs for reasoning, not knowledge retrieval
• 38:15 — The future of work: tasks, jobs, and decision-making roles shifting upward
• 41:59 — AGI, limitations, and why modular multi-agent systems may matter
• 44:57 — A prediction: we’ll delegate more than we expect as systems become more trustworthy

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Dmitry Shaprio has been in the space for decades; he was a product lead at Google and the CTO of MySpace. 

Now he's the CEO of MindStudio, a company that helps companies create custom apps to integrate AI.  

And a LOT of companies are using MindStudio.  34,000 apps have now been created using MindStudio, and this ranges from large corporations to solo-entrepenuaers to government agencies.  The apps are used for sales, HR, marketing, operations -- everything.

Dmitry, essentially, is helping companies go from AI Hype to AI Substance.

We get into the nitty gritty of why these Apps matter, how they're used, and how businesses can (actually) integrate AI into their operations. 

Fun episode!

MindStudio.ai:
https://youai.ai

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At a recent hackathon, Ian Laffey was part of a team that designed, created, 3D-printed, and assembled a drone in 24 hours... and for under $500.

The drone's breakthrough: It doesn't need a signal for GPS, which means that it can be deployed off the grid, and can't be "jammed" in a war zone...like Ukraine.

Laffey's drone is now a sensation in the world of defense-tech. 

Laffey is now the CTO of Theseus, and he joins the pod to discuss how his team pulled this off, why the drone is such a breakthrough, how AI played a crucial role -- we get into the nuts and bolts, not just platitudes -- and then Laffey shares, on a day-to-day basis, what it's really like to be a 24-year-old AI engineer working in San Francisco, the world's nexus for AI innovation.

Fun convo! 

Ian Laffey on Twitter/X:
https://twitter.com/ilaffey2

Theseus:
https://theseus.so

Article from AviationWeek on the drone Laffey helped create:
https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/emerging-technologies/how-trio-engineers-developed-gps-denied-drone-under-500

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There are many AI doomsdayers.

Kevin Surace is not one of them.

Kevin has been in a pioneer in the AI space since the 1990s, went he helped develop the tech that would directly influence Siri and Alexa. He has since been named by CNBC as one of the "Innovators of the Decade" and is now a regular keynote speaker.

We have a *wide-ranging* conversation on how AI will shape the future, covering everything from robots to flying cars to job losses to whether AIs can become sentient. 

A really fun conversation.

You can find Kevin at:
https://kevinsurace.com

and 
https://twitter.com/kevinsurace?lang=en

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If you need to get a puppy, what's the best way to go about it?

Harnessing AI,  of course.

I recently decided to get a puppy. I didn't know what to get or how to do it. (I've never owned a dog.)

So I made liberal use of ChatGPT in research, analysis, and execution, and then turned to AI for help with puppy training.

I doubt you're in the market for a new puppy, but I think this is a useful extended metaphor of how AI -- and specifically ChatGPT -- can help in a very concrete, real-world analysis situation.

(This episode is sponsored by my new puppy.)

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AI might change the world. But it can it help change you? 

You could argue that AI coaching, fundamentally, might be the most important impact of the entire tech. In today’s world, professional career coaching is generally only available for the privileged. What if it was available for all? But what are the risks and concerns?

Joining us to break this down is Dr. Friederike Redlbacher, Managing Director of Symbolon AG. She’s working with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and developed the world’s first AI-based coaching tool in 2023, which is largely art-based. 

In this episode, Dr. Redlbacher and I cover the pros, cons, upsides, risks, and exciting potential of injecting AI into the coaching landscape. 

Link to Symbolon self-coaching:
https://www.dfki.de/symbolon-coaching/?language=en

To claim one of the 5 free codes offered by Dr.  Redlbacher, email me at jeff@jeffwilser.com with the subject line “AI coaching - code.”

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If AI gets super intelligent and super powerful, will it be benevolent? Or will it want to crush us like ants?

Perhaps they’ll be benevolent. Maybe they’ll be “aligned” with our interests. But if not? What should we do? How can we prepare for this nightmarish scenario?

Trent McConaghy has a plan. McConaghy has been working in AI for decades, both as an entrepreneur and as a researcher, and he’s widely respected in the field. 

And he recently gave a speech to the “existential-risk” (x-risk) group at NASA about how, to prepare humanity for this all-powerful AI…We need to become more than humans. Specifically, we need to embrace the idea of Brain-Computer Interface, or BCI. 

BCI, says McConaghy, can even help unshackle us from the constraints of being a flesh-and-blood human. In a literal mind-meld with computers, we could be 1,000 times smarter and live longer. 

This sounds like deep sci-fi, but McConaghy lucidly breaks down the vision in a way that’s step by step, easy to understand, and almost feels…plausible?

Whether you agree with the theory or not, McConaghy’s thoughts are FASCINATING and he makes for a wildly engaging conversation about the future of AI. I’m confident that anyone even remotely interested in AI — or sci-fi — will find his thought experiments intriguing. 

Among many other sweeping and futuristic topics, we cover:

Why economic incentives make AGI (or “ASI,” for Artificial Super Intelligence) is perhaps more likely than we think (13:50); Why we might soon be like an anthill compared to god-like entities of Artificial Smart Intelligence (23:00); whether these all-powerful ASIs will protect human rights (26:00); why we need a “more competitive substrate” that helps us be more than human and hyper-boost our intelligence (29:00); how creating powerful Brain-Computer-Interfaces is more grounded and less sci-fi-ish than you might think (35:00); how we will some day —maybe soon — be able to just think of videos and use telepathy to send to friends (45:00); why the human “bio-stack” won’t be enough and we’ll need a synthetic solution (53:00); the dangers of “bike shedding” the risks of ASI (59:30); how BCI could plausibly go mainstream (61:30); why when we’re 94 years old we might switch from our “bio-stack brain” and migrate to our “silicon-stack” side (65:00). 

So join us on a futuristic and fascinating journey….

McConaghy’s presentation to the existential-risk group at NASA:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tLK1sBCMNuJTNX8Pi99iDmLzFiIsUOk5/view

McConaghy’s Medium article that breaks down the BCI theory:
https://medium.com/@trentmc0/bci-acc-a-path-to-balance-ai-superintelligence-80bb6f32e39c

McConaghy on Twitter/X:
https://twitter.com/trentmc0

Ocean Protocol, the blockchain-powered AI ecosystem that McConaghy founded:
https://oceanprotocol.com

My article about AI and blockchain where I first interviewed McConaghy, and he shares a part of this theory (which got me fascinated in the first place):
https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/09/21/is-crypto-ai-really-a-match-made-in-heaven/

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The cover of this week’s TIME Magazine has a bold headline: “The First AI War.” The subtitle: “Palantir and other tech giants are building the future of battle in Ukraine.”

The writer of this cover story is Vera Bergengruen, a senior correspondent at TIME.

And Vera joins us today at AI-Curious.

We cover: How Ukraine is using AI and what it’s accomplishing (3:00); how they’ve created a “war lab” that's a testing ground for new innovations (12:00); privacy and ethical concerns (23:00); repercussions for the future of war (37:00); and some behind-the-scenes from her reporting (40:30).

Important topic. And Vera's the perfect guest to discuss it. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

Vera’s cover story in TIME Magazine, “The First AI War”:
https://time.com/6691662/ai-ukraine-war-palantir/

Vera’s author page:
https://time.com/author/vera-bergengruen/

Vera Bergengruen on Twitter/X:
https://twitter.com/VeraMBergen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

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