OpenAI Changes Everything

MIT researchers found our brains quiet down when we offload to AI. My guest Paul Truax (Cognify Learning Company) argues the fix isn’t less AI—it’s using it right to deepen learning and strategy. We break down the study, “director vs. automation,” and how to turn answers into understanding.

This week, I am honored to have Harneet Singh on the show, known as the "Lion Founder" and the innovative mind behind Rabbitt.AI, a company leading the charge in creating sophisticated AI agents. Harneet, a seasoned serial entrepreneur, believes that 2025 will be remembered as the "Year of the AI Agent," representing a transformative moment in how businesses leverage Artificial Intelligence.

This week, we’re diving into one of the most important—and tricky—questions in Responsible AI: Are Responsible AI principles culturally relative? If so, what does that mean for companies trying to implement Responsible AI for their products? For example, if fairness means something different in Norway, the United States, or a Muslim country, how can companies possibly implement Responsible AI in a way that works for everyone? To help unpack this, I’m joined this week by Pouria Akbari who is a PhD student who has published several papers on the practical challenges of implementing Responsible AI.

What if the ethical dilemmas we face with animals—like dogs and dolphins—start applying to AI systems like ChatGPT? Should we care about the welfare of AI in the same way we care about other intelligent beings? And at what point on the road to Artificial General Intelligence do we need to pause and ask: Are we causing our AI agents harm? In this thought-provoking episode, I have the privilege of sitting down with philosopher John Basl to explore his groundbreaking paper, “The Ethics of Creating Artificial Consciousness.” Together, we’ll unravel whether AI might one day deserve moral consideration—and what that means for the future of humanity and technology.

This week, I got the opportunity to sit down with Ari LiVigni from GitHub Copilot to discuss the future of coding. Coding assistants are edging closer and closer to enabling developers to build apps using human language. Does this mean that we can just fire all of the engineers and have product managers build all of our apps?

Could Artificial Intelligence unlock the secrets of the cosmos? This week, I’m thrilled to interview Professor Stella Offner, an astrophysicist and the visionary Director of the CosmicAI initiative. Join us as we dive into the future of AI and its role in shaping our understanding of the cosmos!

My guest this week, Tim Rich, was the Product Manager who drove Responsible AI at Indeed, the world's largest jobsite. Can AI make hiring more fair? Tim shares his vision of using AI to create a more just and fair society.

Our guest this week, Dan Turchin, believes in the potential of AI to transform work in ways that uplift rather than diminish. Join us as we dive into his optimistic vision for a future where AI complements human skills and amplifies our capabilities.

Imagine every college student having their own AI-powered teaching assistant—personalized, available around the clock, and tailored to help them learn faster. Could this be the future of higher education? This week, I’m joined by a founder of Cognify, an innovative AI startup on a mission to transform how students learn. Join us as we explore how AI could change the classroom experience and reshape the future of learning.

Not everything you read on the Internet is true. In fact, misinformation can lead to real-world harm—fanning the flames of antisemitism, inciting riots, and even spreading disease. So, how do we combat disinformation without infringing on free speech? My guest today, Matthew Lease, is one of the leaders of an ambitious project called Good Systems, which is focused on developing innovative AI technologies to protect the information environment. His team is working to support journalists, fact-checkers, and analysts in their efforts to combat misinformation.

Today’s guest offers a compelling perspective on how we might be fundamentally misunderstanding Generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Rather than trying to make it fit existing paradigms such as databases or search engines, he argues that ChatGPT represents something entirely new. It’s best understood as a confabulator—an engine that constructs narratives, or stories, rather than retrieving facts. But this doesn’t mean it’s flawed. In fact, understanding ChatGPT in this way opens up exciting new possibilities for how we can harness its true potential.

Did you know that about one-third of all food produced globally—1.3 billion tons—ends up wasted each year? In this episode, I talk with the co-founder of FridgeGuide AI, a startup using cutting-edge AI to tackle food waste and rethink how we manage food inventory. Tune in to see how technology can help fight world hunger and save our planet.

In this week's episode, I sit down with the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Solutions at Quadrant Technologies to discuss how enterprises — companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Nike — are using technologies such as OpenAI. There is one powerful use case that my guest identifies.

In this week's episode, I interview David Weinberger who is the author of the book Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity, and How We’re Thriving in a New World of Possibility. He argues that we are entering a new Age of AI which will profoundly change how businesses work and how we explain the world around us. He argues that we'll need to give up on simple, general explanations — human explanations — of the world and fully embrace that, very soon, only AI will be able to understand why I didn't get hired for a job, why I was sentenced to 10 years in prison instead of 2, or why I will die of cancer in the next 6 months. And why all of that is okay.

This week on the podcast, I’m thrilled to interview one of the brilliant minds behind an exciting new platform: Agent.AI. Created by key innovators from the multi-billion-dollar company HubSpot—including co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah—Agent.AI aims to revolutionize the gig economy. Their vision? To build a marketplace of AI agents that could one day rival human-driven platforms like Fiverr and Upwork.

What if you could create a digital twin of yourself that sounds just like you, looks just like you, knows what you know, and interacts with people just like you would? Now what if you could clone yourself a thousand times? Today, we dive into this futuristic vision with my guest, the co-founder of a groundbreaking startup named Tavus.io that is making digital twins a reality. Tune in to discover how these virtual replicas are set to change the way we live, work, and connect.

In this must-listen episode, I’m joined by AI risk expert David Manheim to dive deep into one of the most pressing issues of our time: the AI Alignment Problem. We explore whether advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity and what can be done to ensure our future safety. Are we on the brink of an AI-driven crisis, or is the fear overblown? Tune in to find out why you might (or might not) want to lose sleep over AI’s impact on our world.

This week, I sit down with Marko Klopets — one of the founders of the startup SuperSimple — to discuss how product managers, CEOs, and other business leaders can trust Artificial Intelligence to analyze their business data. How can we trust AI when AI sometimes makes things up?

This week, I interview Professor Lenore Blum and Professor Manuel Blum who explain their Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) model of consciousness. They present the minimal architecture required to create conscious Artificial Intelligence.

This week, I sit down with the Head of AI at Domino’s to discuss how AI is transforming retail business. How does AI help Domino's deliver over a million pizzas a day?

This week, we dive deep into the mysteries of consciousness with Marta Halina, a philosophy professor from the University of Cambridge. Join us as we explore the intriguing question: What sets humans, animals, and artificial intelligence apart? Could ChatGPT exhibit human-like thinking, creativity, and consciousness? Don’t miss this thought-provoking episode that challenges our understanding of the mind and the potential of AI.

Should we use AI to capture and reproduce human voices? In this week's podcast, I interview Microsoft Artificial Intelligence MVP Charles Elwood who has worked with several people who have lost their voice due to disease. Leveraging AI, Charles has given these people back their voices. What does it mean when we can reproduce any human voice?

Can AI change a fundamental human activity such as reading? The goal of Rebind, a new AI startup, is to change the reading experience by turning books into interactive conversations. Rebind covers both classic and modern literature, including The Great Gatsby, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Walden. Using advanced AI, they have “cloned” renowned experts like Deepak Chopra, John Kaag, and John Banville, allowing you to engage in real-time discussions with these experts in their voice as you read.

Interview with the former CEO of Kaiser Permanente, the largest non-profit healthcare company in the United States, on how OpenAI will transform healthcare. Can AI replace doctors? Should patients trust medical advice from ChatGPT?

Interview with the Vice President of AI for TurnItIn — the largest AI-Writing Detection company. Should we be using AI-Writing Detection to "bust" college and high school students for using ChatGPT to write their papers?

In this episode, I interview Priten Shah who is the author of the best-selling book "AI and the Future of Education: Teaching in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" Learn how OpenAI is transforming education.

What is the "EU AI Act"? The Biden "Executive Order on AI"? The "NIST AI Risk Management Framework"? In this episode, Hadassah Drukarch, the Director of Policy and Delivery at the Responsible AI Institute, clarifies why these regulations matter and how ignoring them could cost your company millions.

Forms are everywhere: you use forms to register at websites, apply for credit cards, and submit job applications. But do forms still make sense in the age of AI? In this episode, I interview Nicolas Grenié about a new product built on OpenAI named Formless that replaces forms with conversations.

What is the AI Alignment Problem and why are companies such as OpenAI so concerned about solving it? In this podcast, I interview Mako Yass who is the winner of the Future of Life Institute's World Building Competition with his entry "To Light." In his entry, Mako imagines a positive future where humanity has solved the Alignment Problem and found peace by embracing Artificial General Intelligence.