Artificial Intelligence and You

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Have you ever thought about your thoughts? About what or how you’re thinking? It gets real meta real fast, doesn’t it? That’s called metacognition, and humans and certain other creatures do it. But what about AI? We’re coming back to the interview with Ricky Sethi, Professor of Computer Science at Fitchburg State University, and researcher into artificial metacognition, or whether and how machines can think about thinking. Ricky’s research spans fact-checking misinformation, virtual communities, and artificial metacognition, where he focuses on designing GenAI systems that can monitor, evaluate, and regulate their own reasoning. He is Director of Research for the Madsci Network, and an Adjunct Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has over 50 scholarly publications, and his work has been covered in outlets such as the Chicago Tribune, The Conversation, and Communications of the ACM. We conclude the interview by talking about his research into disinformation, measuring the emotions associated with it, how clusters of models in different roles could assess AIs for lying and implement AI safety, and how AI is impacting the job opportunities in research. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Have you ever thought about your thoughts? About what or how you’re thinking? It gets real meta real fast, doesn’t it? That’s called metacognition, and humans and certain other creatures do it. But what about AI? Can it think about thinking? Here to help us understand this whole thing is artificial metacognition researcher Ricky Sethi. He is Professor of Computer Science at Fitchburg State University, Director of Research for the Madsci Network, and an Adjunct Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His research spans fact-checking misinformation, virtual communities, and artificial metacognition, where he focuses on designing GenAI systems that can monitor, evaluate, and regulate their own reasoning. Is that cool or what? Ricky has a bachelors in neurobiology and physics, an M.S. in physics/information systems, and a PhD in AI from UC Riverside. He has over 50 scholarly publications, and his work has been covered in outlets such as the Chicago Tribune, The Conversation, and Communications of the ACM. Recently, he has introduced the Metacognitive State Vector framework for quantifying key cognitive signals in ensembles of large language models. We talk about how this spans computer science, neuroscience, and psychology; System One and System Two thinking come up again, with a beautiful explanation. We also talk about testing and measuring metacognition in humans and AIs – and what about dolphins? All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Because AI touches our lives down to our core where our emotions and subconscious reside, we need to be touched with the important lessons that our fellow humans wish to communicate about AI through vehicles like art, poetry, and, in the case of today’s guest, fiction. Mark Peres is a professor, author, and civic innovator with decades of experience teaching leadership and ethics at Johnson & Wales University. He’s just published The Accord, a powerful speculative novel exploring the relationship between a philosopher and a sentient general AI, Lyla. As much as that sounds like a description of any number of sensationalist and shallow works that you and I could name, this is not in that category. I found his book remarkable for the level of maturity it granted the reader and the no-holds-barred courage with which it tackled issues of the identity of a future artificial general intelligence - which may not be so far in the future any more. We talk about why the AI character of Lyla has a true sense of identity and mortality, whether control over advanced AI is possible, principles for human–AI coexistence, what responsible use, transparency, and “cognitive autonomy” look like for today’s university students, what it means to “humanize” AI before trying to regulate it, and how to take responsibility for our future with AI. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . We shouldn’t learn the important lessons of AI through just exposition, through just descriptions, explanations, lessons, and textbooks. But because AI touches our lives down to our core where our emotions and subconscious reside, we need to be similarly touched with the important lessons that our fellow humans wish to communicate about AI through art, poetry, and, in the case of today’s guest, fiction. Mark Peres is a professor, author, and civic innovator with decades of experience teaching leadership and ethics at Johnson & Wales University. He’s just published The Accord, a powerful speculative novel exploring the relationship between a philosopher and a sentient general AI, Lyla. I will say right now that whatever stereotypes that description is evoking in you right now – and god knows there are lots to choose from – I want you to throw them out. And you’ll soon see why as we talk about the big questions the story raises about consciousness, responsibility, and what we owe intelligent machines, the clash between universities, corporations, and government forces trying to control new technology, the growing role of AI as companion and confidant in everyday life, and the real-world headlines and classroom debates that inspired the book. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . In 2023 a global movement called Pause AI started, advocating for a pause in the development of powerful AI, and on the show we have its co-founder, Holly Elmore. Their website says “We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in.” Holly is the founder of the Pause AI US group, and has organized protests in their name. She was formerly an evolutionary biologist, with a PhD from Harvard. We conclude the interview by talking about what would actually flip public opinion on AI safety, specific AI bills and regulations, why some leaders warn about risk while accelerating anyway, whether and when it would be safe to unpause, and how you can get involved. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . In 2023 a global movement called Pause AI started, advocating for a pause in the development of powerful AI, and on the show we have its co-founder, Holly Elmore. Their website says “We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in.” Holly is the founder of the Pause AI US group, and has organized protests in their name. She was formerly an evolutionary biologist, with a PhD from Harvard. We talk about what the Pause movement stands for, overlaps with animal welfare strategies, why pausing is an effective aim and why we need it, the pros and cons of limiting AI training by compute metrics, and comparing AI safety to the airline industry. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . One of the great wounds people are experiencing around AI is in creativity. Look at the writers’ and actors’ strikes, for example. I continue talking about this very sensitive subject with Maya Ackerman, author of the new book Creative Machines: AI, Art, and Us, which tackles it head on, full of emotion, vulnerability, and poetry. Maya is the CEO and co-founder of Wave AI, and professor of Computer Science at Santa Clara University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and UC San Diego, and has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications. She was named a Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and her work has been featured in Forbes, NPR, Fortune, and NBC News. She is also a singer, pianist, and songwriter. We talk about experiments in machine creativity, the distinction between creative processes and creative products and the role of the observer in the creative experience, how bias against AI shows up, and how AI that’s constructed around compassion and ethical stewardship could support deeper human flourishing in the next few years. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . One of the great wounds people are experiencing around AI is in creativity. Look at the writers’ and actors’ strikes, for example. Here to talk about this very sensitive subject is Maya Ackerman, author of the new book Creative Machines: AI, Art, and US, which tackles it head on, full of emotion, vulnerability, and poetry. Maya is the CEO and co-founder of Wave AI, and professor of Computer Science at Santa Clara University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and UC San Diego, and has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications. She was named a Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and her work has been featured in Forbes, NPR, Fortune, and NBC News. She is also a singer, pianist, and songwriter. We talk about how Maya’s interdisciplinary backgrounds of machine learning and computational creativity converged in her book, what Maya calls “humble creative machines”: AI collaborators and how they can uplift us, her concept of a co-creative spectrum where humans are served by AI assisting us in being more creative, and – opera singing. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . The fear, uncertainty, and doubt around the future of work has reached epidemic proportions. We'll attempt to shed some light and provide some relief with data, questions, and informed speculation on the topic. How is the generation of content going to evolve, and what's awaiting us in robotics? Who will make the decisions about the future workplace, and what will happen to creatives in marketing and other fields? All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . I am talking with José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson about AI in postsecondary education, because they are authors of the new book Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning. José is leader of the Bowen Innovation Group, consulting on innovation in higher education and was the 11th president of Goucher College. He has held leadership roles at Stanford, the University of Southampton, Georgetown, Miami University, and Southern Methodist University, and his book Teaching Naked reshaped conversations about technology and pedagogy. He is an international jazz pianist and edited the Cambridge Companion to Conducting. Eddie Watson is Vice President for Digital Innovation at the American Association of Colleges and Universities and is the Founding Director of their Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. He directed the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Georgia, and is a Fellow of the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education. In our conclusion, we talk about the future of textbooks, José and Eddie’s meta-analysis of AI literacy frameworks and standardizing AI literacy training, the evolution of teaching models and practices like lectures, and the future of degrees themselves. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . After last week’s exploration of AI in secondary education it’s time to look at how it’s landing in the universities, and so I am talking with José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson, authors of the brand new book Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning. José leads the Bowen Innovation Group, consulting on innovation in higher education and was the 11th president of Goucher College. He has held leadership roles at Stanford, the University of Southampton, Georgetown, Miami University, and Southern Methodist University, and his influential book Teaching Naked reshaped conversations about technology and pedagogy. He edited the Cambridge Companion to Conducting, and is an international jazz pianist. C. Edward Watson - Eddie on our show - is Vice President for Digital Innovation at the American Association of Colleges and Universities and is the Founding Director of their Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. He directed the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Georgia, and is a Fellow of the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education. We talk about how students and teachers are reacting to AI, threats to jobs – particularly teaching jobs – and changes to how we work, what really matters in the practice of teaching in an AI world, cheating, changes to relationships between teachers and students and the importance of caring. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines! Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . What’s going on with getting AI education into America’s classrooms? We're finding out from Jeff Riley, former Commissioner of Education for the state of Massachusetts and founder of a new organization – Day of AI, started by MIT’s Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education institute. And they are mounting a campaign called Responsible AI for America’s Youth, which is now running across all 50 states and will run an event called America’s Youth AI Festival in July 2026 in Boston. Jeff has got master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. He was a Boston school principal and as commissioner, successfully navigated Massachusetts schools through Covid and other crises. In our conclusion, we talk about how Jeff sees the AI education of teachers evolving, responsible use of AI by students, differentiated learning, making AI in classrooms safe for teachers and students, the impact of AI on educational inequalities, the future of educational reform, and how you can get involved in AI in schools. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . What’s going on with getting AI education into America’s classrooms? We’re going to find out from Jeff Riley, former Commissioner of Education for the state of Massachusetts and founder of a new organization – Day of AI, started by MIT’s Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education institute. And they are mounting a campaign called Responsible AI for America’s Youth, which is now running across all 50 states and will run an event called America’s Youth AI Festival in July 2026 in Boston. Jeff has got master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. He was a Boston school principal and as commissioner, successfully navigated Massachusetts schools through Covid and other crises. We talk about what the campaign is doing and how teachers are responding to it, risks of AI and social media to kids, what to do about cheating and AI detectors, and much more! All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . It's that time to visit the - ghosts? - of AI past, present, and future, in our traditional retrospective/predictions episode. Forming the panel are Dan Turchin, CEO of PeopleReign, the AI platform automating HR and host of the “AI and the Future of Work” podcast. And Richard Foster-Fletcher, the Founder and Executive Chair of MKAI, the inclusive Artificial Intelligence Community, and leader of the MKAI Centre for Digital Trust and host of the Boundless podcast. Both have been on the show before, as guest experts and year-end panelists, and both are good friends. We'll talk about surprises from 2025, ways companies have used AI productively and ways it has been oversold, whether an AI bubble may pop next year, what'll happen next with AI slop, and how much AI may advance human progress next year and the emergence of AI nation states. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . What is consciousness? That’s a profound question that many would say is unanswerable. And how could you make artificial consciousness? That’s a more profound question that many would say is impossible. We are talking with Suzanne Gildert, founder of Nirvanic, a Quantum-AI research company, who is not just talking about consciousness, she’s doing something about it. She is a prolific inventor with more than 60 US patents in quantum computing, humanoid robotics and artificial intelligence. Suzanne has a PhD in experimental quantum physics and was the founder of two robot companies, Kindred AI, and Sanctuary AI. At Nirvanic she seeks to understand consciousness and innovate conscious AI using quantum computing. In the conclusion of our interview, we talk about how robots will use quantum computing, world models and what robots really can and can’t do right now, form factors for robots, and the connection between robot consciousness and finding our purpose in the world. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . What is consciousness? That’s a profound question that many would say is unanswerable. And how could you make artificial consciousness? That’s a more profound question that many would say is impossible. Tackling both of those head-on is Suzanne Gildert, founder of Nirvanic, a Quantum-AI research company. She’s not just talking about consciousness, she’s doing something about it. She is a prolific inventor with more than 60 US patents in quantum computing, humanoid robotics and artificial intelligence. Suzanne has a PhD in experimental quantum physics – I mean, how cool is that - and was the founder of two robot companies, Kindred AI, and Sanctuary AI. At Nirvanic she seeks to understand consciousness and innovate conscious AI using quantum computing. We talk about quantum computing and consciousness, the nature of reality and its connection to quantum physics, the Observer Effect and Schrödinger’s Box, panpsychism, the state of the art of quantum computing, quantum supremacy, the present and future of general purpose robotics, and the connection between reward functions and the consciousness of the universe. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . What if artificial superintelligence - ASI - could be made both more safe and more profitable? I'm talking with Craig Kaplan, who has the website superintelligence.com, about his concept of "democratic AI." Craig is CEO and founder of iQ Company, focused on AGI and ASI. He also founded and ran PredictWallStreet, a financial services firm which used AI to power a top hedge fund. Craig is a former visiting professor in computer science at the University of California, and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from famed robotics hub Carnegie Mellon University, where he co-authored research with the Nobel-Prize-winning economist and AI pioneer Dr. Herbert A. Simon. In part 2, we talk about rights of AIs, safe superintelligence, where AI gets its values, and how model vendors might be incentivized to put their products into the collective AI intelligence. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . What if artificial superintelligence - ASI - could be made both more safe and more profitable? Returning to the show after a year is Craig Kaplan, talking about how "democratic AI" can do that. Craig, who has the website superintelligence.com, is CEO and founder of iQ Company, focused on AGI and ASI. He also founded and ran PredictWallStreet, a financial services firm which used AI to power a top hedge fund. Craig is a former visiting professor in computer science at the University of California, and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from famed robotics hub Carnegie Mellon University, where he co-authored research with the Nobel-Prize-winning economist and AI pioneer Dr. Herbert A. Simon. We talk about democratic AI, a kind of a hive mind of AIs that combine to work together safely, and how do they talk to each other, what are they made up of, and we’ll also talk about systems for solving ethical problems. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . How should AI change democracy? That’s the topic of Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, and I am continuing my talk with its authors. Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist and the bestselling author of fourteen books, including Data and Goliath and A Hacker’s Mind. Nathan Sanders is a data scientist who has served in fellowships and the Massachusetts legislature and the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard. He writes in The New York Times and The Atlantic. We talk about whether wealthy entities might subvert the use of AI in democracy, how smaller countries are engaging with AI in government, the utility of open weight and open source models, digital twins in government, the future of surveillance, and what makes Bruce and Nathan optimistic about the future. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . How should AI change democracy? That’s the topic of Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, and I am talking today with its authors. Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist and the bestselling author of fourteen books, including Data and Goliath and A Hacker’s Mind. He is a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt. Nathan Sanders is a data scientist researching machine learning, astrophysics, public health, environmental justice, and more. He has served in fellowships and the Massachusetts legislature and the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard. He writes on AI and democracy in The New York Times and The Atlantic. We talk about this fascinating and scary intersection of AI and government, of AI being used in making legislation, the concept of democracy as an information system, ways AI can transform how citizens engage their governments, regulatory responses to AI from the US and around the world, and how the judicial branch can use AI. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . What's really going on in classrooms with AI right now? I'm talking with Gerry White, a teacher, technologist, writer, and lifelong learner who has spent two decades at the forefront of education and technology integration. Gerry is the Dean of Academic Technology at ECPI University in Virginia and the founder of MyTutorPlus, an AI-powered tutoring platform designed to personalize education for learners of all ages. From building over 70 apps to creating immersive AR and VR experiences, his work bridges the gap between the humanities and technology. His Substack articles and books unpack the ethical, emotional, and societal consequences of AI. We talk about how cultural bias in GenAI affects the classroom, what school leadership should be doing, AI in group work, assessment, how AI might accelerate learning and augment the human experience, interactions with parents, and kids’ social uses of AI, all in the context of real experiences in school. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . We're continuing to focus on AI in education because it's so pivotal to the future of the human race. What's really going on in classrooms with AI right now? We are learning that from Gerry White, a teacher, technologist, writer, and lifelong learner who has spent two decades at the forefront of education and technology integration. Gerry is the Dean of Academic Technology at ECPI University in Virginia and the founder of MyTutorPlus, an AI-powered tutoring platform designed to personalize education for learners of all ages. From building over 70 apps to creating immersive AR and VR experiences, his work bridges the gap between the humanities and technology. His Substack articles and books unpack the ethical, emotional, and societal consequences of AI. We’re going to talk about how generative AI first showed up in Gerry’s classrooms, the importance of preserving students’ voices, confronting the cheating and plagiarism problems, optimal ways of engaging students’ use of AI, and finding the unique value of humans in the workplace, all in the context of real experiences in real classes. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Students using AI to cheat on homework - or being inaccurately flagged as cheating - falls under the heading of 'academic integrity,' so I am talking with Alyson King, Professor in Political Science at Ontario Tech University in Canada, and editor of the new book, “Artificial Intelligence, Pedagogy and Academic Integrity,” containing 12 contributors’ thoughts and research on the problem of maintaining academic integrity in a world where AI can complete virtually any school assignment at a passing grade or higher. Alyson earned her PhD in the History of Education at the University of Toronto and currently she engages in research intended to better understand student experiences and academic integrity. In her teaching, she includes topics related to Indigenous experiences and worldviews, such as Residential Schools, and has designed a course about the politics of Indigenous Rights. We’re going to talk about teachers getting to know their students’ voices, AI detectors, and the place of AI in education. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Students using AI to cheat on homework - or being inaccurately flagged as cheating - falls under the heading of 'academic integrity,' so I am talking with Alyson King, Professor in Political Science at Ontario Tech University in Canada, and editor of the new book, “Artificial Intelligence, Pedagogy and Academic Integrity,” containing 12 contributors’ thoughts and research on the problem of maintaining academic integrity in a world where AI can complete virtually any school assignment at a passing grade or higher. Alyson earned her PhD in the History of Education at the University of Toronto and currently she engages in research intended to better understand student experiences and academic integrity. In her teaching, she includes topics related to Indigenous experiences and worldviews, such as Residential Schools, and has designed a course about the politics of Indigenous Rights. We’re going to talk about plagiarism, AI-proofing assignments, motivating students, threats to critical thinking, and much more. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.