A podcast from The University of Texas at Austin that helps explain artificial intelligence—what it means, who it affects and what you need to know right now.
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AI takes a huge amount of energy to run and could make it harder to fight climate change. On the other hand, AI could help make our energy systems more sustainable, efficient and safer. Three experts talk all things AI and energy with a live audience. The talk was part of a daylong symposium titled “Policy Leadership in the Age of AI”, hosted by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin.
Meet the panelists:
Michael Pyrcz is a professor in UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering and the Jackson School of Geosciences, who researches and teaches about ways to apply data analytics and machine learning to improve the exploration and safe production of minerals, groundwater and conventional energy, a.k.a. oil and gas. He also shares educational content on YouTube and elsewhere under the alias GeoStatsGuy.
Varun Rai is a professor in UT’s LBJ School, who studies the spread of clean energy technologies and how real-world factors – from economics to politics to regulation to social behaviors – drive the adoption of these technologies.
Rob James is an attorney at the law firm Pillsbury, who leads a number of energy and infrastructure projects for the firm in Texas and California. Those projects have included AI data centers and zero-emission power generation and storage.
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
The cover photo for this episode is by Thomas Meredith, courtesy of LBJ School of Public Affairs.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Live with Kara Swisher
Episode 10
Thursday, October 10, 2024 • Duration 31:47
Kara Swisher, the one-of-a-kind tech reporter, podcaster and book author, dropped by The University of Texas at Austin’s Cactus Café for a spirited conversation with a live audience about her concerns over the concentration of power in a few big tech companies, the capacity of tech to be used as both a tool and a weapon, her embrace of self-driving cars and her belief that AI will never replace human creativity.
Swisher is the host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher and the cohost of the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway, both distributed by New York magazine. Her latest best-seller is Burn Book, a memoir of her many years covering Silicon Valley.
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
For our first episode, we’re starting with the big picture. What is (or isn’t) “artificial intelligence”? How can we be sure AI is safe and beneficial for everyone? And what is the best way of thinking about working with AI right now, no matter how we use it?
Here with all the answers is Peter Stone. He’s a professor of computer science at UT Austin, director of Texas Robotics, the executive director of Sony AI America and a key member in the 100 Year Study on AI. He’s worked for many years on applications of AI in robotics: for example, soccer-playing robots, self-driving cars and home helper robots. He’s also part of UT Austin’s Good Systems initiative, which is focused on the ethics of AI.
Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Alan Turing’s 1950 article describing the Imitation Game, a test to determine if a machine has human intelligence)
Good Systems (UT Austin’s grand challenge focused on designing AI systems that benefit society)
Introducing: AI for the Rest of Us
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 • Duration 02:19
We’re celebrating the launch of “AI for the Rest of Us”, a podcast to help get you up to speed on the essentials of artificial intelligence. Every two weeks, we’ll sit down with UT faculty experts and get them talking, in simple terms, about how AI might transform healthcare, work, the ways we learn and how we make big decisions.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Is AI Coming for Our News?
Episode 9
Thursday, September 26, 2024 • Duration 26:40
How much of our news is AI-generated right now and how might that change? With more and more misinformation posing as news, how can we sort out fact from fiction? And, in the face of falling revenue, can AI help save the news industry?
Robert Quigley is a professor of practice in UT Austin’s Moody College of Communications where he teaches digital journalism and podcasting. As the director of media innovation for the college, he focuses on artificial intelligence and journalism. He leads a group of educators from across campus who share best practices for AI in the classroom. He’s a co-host of Check Out This Podcast, a show that helps you discover your next favorite podcast. He led a project where students used AI to generate news stories, called The Future Press.
Today on AI for the Rest of Us, we’re talking about AI and the law. What are the biggest risks of AI that are not currently regulated? Do the makers of AI chatbots like ChatGPT owe something to content creators whose material was scraped to train the models? What kinds of things could we do to make AI safer and more useful for everyone? And could too much regulation stifle innovation and US competitiveness?
Matthew Murrell is a lawyer and lecturer in The University of Texas School of Law who is teaching a new class on the Law of AI in fall 2024. According to Murrell, one of the biggest risks of AI that isn’t currently regulated is aggregation, the ability for companies to assemble copious amounts of data about a person to build a rich profile of their life, which could be misused by nefarious actors. He noted another top concern: automated decision-making tools that perpetuate discrimination against historically marginalized people. He said in many cases, AI doesn’t present entirely new legal questions, just new twists on old questions. And he predicts that in the near term, most new regulations will likely be amendments to existing laws.
Today on AI for the Rest of Us, we’re talking about the ways that AI is being used—or might be used—to help make high-stakes decisions about all aspects of our lives—from who gets hired for a job—to what interest rates people get on loans—to whether or not someone who’s been convicted of a crime gets parole. Are AI systems better than humans at making these decisions? Why is it so tempting to give up our decision-making authority to machines? And what can we do to make sure these systems are fair and unbiased?
Craig Watkins is a professor in the Moody College of Communications at UT Austin who’s been wrestling with these questions.Watkins is executive director of the IC2 Institute and a principal investigator with Good Systems, a university-funded initiative that supports multi-disciplinary explorations of the technical, social, and ethical implications of artificial intelligence.
Today on AI for the Rest of Us, we’re talking about AI in healthcare. There are a lot of wild claims about what AI can do to help make us healthier—so how can we figure out what’s real and what’s hype? And are there some potential pitfalls with these new technologies?
Scott Graham is an associate professor of rhetoric at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the book The Doctor and the Algorithm: Promise, Peril and the Future of Health AI. He uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to study communication in bioscience and health policy, with special attention to bioethics, conflicts of interest and health AI.
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
How AI is Accelerating Discovery
Episode 5
Thursday, August 1, 2024 • Duration 18:01
Researchers in fields as diverse as astronomy, chemistry, neuroscience, biotechnology and public health are now using AI tools to look for patterns in their data, write code, find and summarize existing scientific literature, and even design experiments. Someday, scientific discoveries might even be made entirely by AI.
We sat down with two guests for a bird’s eye view of how AI tools and approaches are boosting scientific discovery. Adam Klivans is a professor of computer science and the director of the Machine Learning Lab (MLL), which is a kind of umbrella organization for interdisciplinary AI research across the university. He also co-leads the Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning (IFML), which focuses on the fundamental theories behind AI. And Alex Dimakis is a professor of computer and electrical engineering. Along with Adam, he co-directs both the MLL and IFML and leads the new Center for Generative AI.
Who will ultimately benefit from having more of our work done by AI—employees or employers? What about potential harms, like forcing us to spend time cleaning up mediocre products—pushing down wages—or eliminating jobs altogether? And how can we best prepare for working in an AI-powered future?
Today on the show we have Maytal Saar-Tsechansky— a professor in the McCombs School of Business, who has been developing AI algorithms especially around improved decision making and achieving societal, business, organizational and personal goals. And we also have Samantha Shorey, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies. She studies the contributions of people who are often overlooked in our dominant cultural narratives about technology innovation—paying close attention to all the creativity and ingenuity of workers (especially women).
Looking for more great podcasts about AI? Then check out Generation AI. It’s produced by our friends over at The Drag Audio, a student-run podcast production house at UT Austin. They cover topics like making cities smarter, autonomous vehicles, election disinformation, and more.
Dig Deeper
Automating Essential Work (Samantha Shorey documented how integrating AI into the workflows of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic increased their workload and made their daily duties more complex and technical.)
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Year of AI – News & Resources (News from an initiative showcasing UT Austin’s commitment to developing innovations and growing leaders to navigate the ever-evolving landscape brought about by AI.)
Episode Credits
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
Cover image for this episode generated with Adobe Firefly, a generative AI tool.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
Elements of the cover image for this episode were generated using Midjourney and Photoshop’s generative AI tools.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
Elements of the cover image for this episode were generated using Midjourney and Photoshop’s generative AI tools.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm, New York Times, (the story of a Black man arrested for a crime he did not commit, on the basis of faulty facial recognition software) (June 2020)
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Elements of the cover image for this episode were generated using Photoshop’s generative AI tools.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
AlphaFold, Wikipedia (the AI model from Deep Mind that Adam Klivans mentioned that has made great strides in predicting the shapes that proteins take)
DataComp LM (UT’s open access dataset for training large language models)
Episode Credits
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
Elements of the cover image for this episode were generated using Midjourney and Photoshop’s generative AI tools.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier, Harvard Business School. (Study finds that the capabilities of AI create a “jagged technological frontier” where some tasks are easily done by AI, while others, though seemingly similar in difficulty level, are outside the current capability of AI.)
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
Elements of the cover image for this episode were generated with Photoshop’s generative AI tools.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu
