Ep 5. Echo Chambers

This is an episode of another WHYY podcast called The Pulse. In a lot of ways, artificial intelligence acts as our personal butlers — it filters our email, manages the temperature in our homes, finds the best commute, shapes our social media, runs our search engines, even flies our planes. But as AI gets involved in more and more aspects of our lives, there are nagging fears. Will AI replace us? Make humans irrelevant? Make some kind of terrible mistake, or even take over the world? On this episode, we hear from scientists and thinkers who argue that we should look at AI not as a threat or competition, but as an extension of our minds and abilities. They explain what AI is good at, and where humans have the upper hand. We look at AI in three different settings: medicine, work, and warfare, asking how it affects our present — and how it could shape our future.

We examine AI’s role in polarizing America, from online echo chambers to the virulent spread of misinformation on social media.

AI systems can be highly susceptible to bias. The potential for serious consequences is huge, especially when it comes to the AI increasingly used in police departments.

AI tools played a major role in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, from developing drugs and vaccines, to aiding medical research, & coordinating healthcare providers.

Increasingly, we’re putting AI in the driver’s seat, physically, with autonomous vehicles. We’ll consider the progress, safety, security, and ethical implications of machines

Artificial intelligence has seen huge advances in the last decade, very notably in the technology of natural language processing.

A.I. Nation investigates how machine learning, automation, and predictive analytics are impacting our lives right now.