Artificiality: Being with AI

In this conversation recorded on the 1,000th day since ChatGPT's launch, we explore education, creativity, and transformation with Tess Posner, founding CEO of AI4ALL. For nearly a decade—long before the current AI surge—Tess has led efforts to broaden access to AI education, starting from a 2016 summer camp at Stanford that demonstrated how exposure to hands-on AI projects could inspire high school students, particularly young women, to pursue careers in the field.What began as exposing students to "the magic" of AI possibilities has evolved into something more complex: helping young people navigate a moment of radical uncertainty while developing both technical capabilities and critical thinking about implications. As Tess observes, we're recording at a time when universities are simultaneously banning ChatGPT and embracing it, when the job market for graduates is sobering, and when the entire structure of work is being "reinvented from the ground up."Key themes we explore:Living the Questions: How Tess's team adopted Rilke's concept of "living the questions" as their guiding principle for navigating unprecedented change—recognizing that answers won't come easily and that cultivating wisdom matters more than chasing certaintyThe Diverse Pain Point: Why students from varied backgrounds gravitate toward different AI applications—from predicting droughts for farm worker families to detecting Alzheimer's based on personal experience—and how this diversity of lived experience shapes what problems get attentionProject-Based Learning as Anchor: How hands-on making and building creates the kind of applied learning that both reveals AI's possibilities and exposes its limitations, while fostering the critical thinking skills that pure consumption of AI outputs cannot developThe Educational Reckoning: Why this moment is forcing fundamental questions about the purpose of schooling—moving beyond detection tools and honor codes toward reimagining how learning happens when instant answers are always availableThe Worst Job Market in Decades: Sobering realities facing graduates alongside surprising opportunities—some companies doubling down on "AI native" early career talent while others fundamentally restructure work around managing AI agents rather than doing tasks directlyMusic and the Soul Question: Tess's personal wrestling with AI-generated music that can mimic human emotional expression so convincingly it gets stuck in your head—forcing questions about whether something deeper than output quality matters in artThe conversation reveals someone committed to equity and access while refusing easy optimism about technology's trajectory. Tess acknowledges that "nobody really knows" what the future of work looks like or how education should adapt, yet maintains that the response cannot be paralysis. Instead, AI4ALL's approach emphasizes building community, developing genuine technical skills, and threading ethical considerations through every project—equipping students not with certainty but with agency.About Tess Posner: Tess Posner is founding and interim CEO of AI4ALL, a nonprofit working to increase diversity and inclusion in AI education, research, development, and policy. Since 2017, she has led the organization's expansion from a single summer program at Stanford to a nationwide initiative serving students from over 150 universities. A graduate of St. John's College with its Great Books curriculum, Tess is also an accomplished musician who brings both technical expertise and humanistic perspective to questions about AI's role in creativity and human flourishing.Our Theme Music:Solid State (Reprise)Written & performed by Jonathan CoultonLicense: Perpetual, worldwide licence for podcast theme usage granted to Artificiality Institute by songwriter and publisher

Join Eric Schwitzgebel, a Professor of Philosophy at UC Riverside and author of The Weirdness of the World, as he delves into the intriguing notion that the United States could be seen as a conscious entity under specific scientific theories. He discusses the philosophy of opening, emphasizing the importance of embracing uncertainty and diverse possibilities. From ethical considerations regarding AI to the complexities of collective consciousness, Eric provocatively challenges our intuitive beliefs, while advocating for a future rich in diverse intelligences.

In this conversation, we explore the challenges of building more inclusive AI systems with John Pasmore, founder and CEO of Latimer AI and advisor to the Artificiality Institute. Latimer represents a fundamentally different approach to large language models—one built from the ground up to address the systematic gaps in how AI systems represent Black and Brown cultures, histories, and perspectives that have been largely absent from mainstream training data.John brings a practical founder's perspective to questions that often remain abstract in AI discourse. With over 400 educational institutions now using Latimer, he's witnessing firsthand how students, faculty, and administrators are navigating the integration of AI into learning—from universities licensing 40+ different LLMs to schools still grappling with whether AI represents a cheating risk or a pedagogical opportunity.Key themes we explore:The Data Gap: Why mainstream LLMs reflect a narrow "Western culture bias" and what's missing when AI claims to "know everything"—from 15 million unscanned pages in Howard University's library to oral traditions across thousands of indigenous tribes.Critical Thinking vs. Convenience: How universities are struggling to preserve deep learning and intellectual rigor when AI makes it trivially easy to get instant answers, and whether requiring students to bring their prompts to class represents a viable path forward.The GPS Analogy: John's insight that AI's effect on cognitive skills mirrors what happened with navigation—we've gained efficiency but lost the embodied knowledge that comes from building mental maps through direct experience.Multiple Models, Multiple Perspectives: Why the future likely involves domain-specific and culturally-situated LLMs rather than a single "universal" system, and how this parallels the reality that different cultures tell different stories about the same events.Excavating Hidden Knowledge: Latimer's ambitious project to digitize and make accessible vast archives of cultural material—from church records to small museum collections—that never made it onto the internet and therefore don't exist in mainstream AI systems.An eBay for Data: John's vision for creating a marketplace where content owners can license their data to AI companies, establishing both proper compensation and a mechanism for filling the systematic gaps in training corpora.The conversation shows that AI bias goes beyond removing offensive outputs. We need to rethink which data sources we treat as authoritative and whose perspectives shape these influential systems. When AI presents itself as an oracle that has "read everything on the internet," it claims omniscience while excluding vast amounts of human knowledge and experience.The discussion raises questions about expertise and process in an era of instant answers—in debugging code, navigating cities, or writing essays. John notes that we may be "working against evolution" by preserving slower, more effortful learning when our brains naturally seek efficiency. But what do we lose when we eliminate the struggle that builds deeper understanding?About John Pasmore: John Pasmore is founder and CEO of Latimer AI, a large language model built to provide accurate historical information and bias-free interaction for Black and Brown audiences and anyone who values precision in their data. Previously a partner at TRS Capital and Movita Organics, John serves on the Board of Directors of Outward Bound USA and holds degrees in Business Administration from SUNY and Computer Science from Columbia University. He is also an advisor to the Artificiality Institute.

In this enlightening conversation, De Kai, a pioneering AI researcher and creator of early machine translation systems, shares insights from his book, Raising AI. He challenges outdated views of AI as mere tools, emphasizing the significance of recognizing AI as artificial psychological entities that learn from us. De Kai introduces a parenting framework for our daily interactions with AIs, highlighting the responsibility we bear in shaping their behavior. He offers a thought-provoking perspective on how our digital habits can influence AI outcomes and drive cultural understanding.

In this conversation, we sit down with Adam Cutler, Distinguished Designer at IBM and pioneer in human-centered AI design, to explore how generative AI is reshaping creativity, reliance, and human experience. Adam reflects on the parallels between today’s AI moment and past technology shifts—from the rise of Web 2.0 to the early days of the internet—and why we may be living through a “mini singularity.” We discuss the risks of over-reliance, the importance of intentional design, and the opportunities for AI to augment curiosity, creativity, and community. As always, a conversation with Adam provides a thoughtful and caring view of possible futures with AI. And it's heartening to spend time with someone who is so central to the future of AI who consistenly thinks about humans first.Adam will be speaking (again) at the Artificiality Summit in Bend, Oregon on Oct 23-25, 2025. More info: https://artificialityinstitute.org/summit

Joscha Bach, a cognitive scientist and AI researcher, delivers a thought-provoking lecture at the Artificiality Summit. He dives into the intricate nature of intelligence and consciousness, proposing that our minds function like an orchestrated system. Bach explores the fascinating intersection of plant communication and AI, raising ethical questions about machine consciousness. He also discusses the dualities in expression and creativity, reflecting on the evolving relationship between AI-generated art and human perception.

In this conversation, we explore the shifts in human experience with Christine Rosen, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World." As a member of the "hybrid generation" of Gen X, Christine (like us) brings the perspective of having lived through the transition from an analog to a digital world and witnessed firsthand what we've gained and lost in the process.Christine frames our current moment through the lens of what naturalist Robert Michael Pyle called "the extinction of experience"—the idea that when something disappears from our environment, subsequent generations don't even know to mourn its absence. Drawing on over 20 years of studying technology's impact on human behavior, she argues that we're experiencing a mass migration from direct to mediated experience, often without recognizing the qualitative differences between them.Key themes we explore:The Archaeology of Lost Skills: How the abandonment of handwriting reveals the broader pattern of discarding embodied cognition—the physical practices that shape how we think, remember, and process the world around usMediation as Default: Why our increasing reliance on screens to understand experience is fundamentally different from direct engagement, and how this shift affects our ability to read emotions, tolerate friction, and navigate uncomfortable social situationsThe Machine Logic of Relationships: How technology companies treat our emotions "like the law used to treat wives as property"—as something to be controlled, optimized, and made efficient rather than experienced in their full complexityEmbodied Resistance: Why skills like cursive handwriting, face-to-face conversation, and the ability to sit with uncomfortable emotions aren't nostalgic indulgences but essential human capacities that require active preservationThe Keyboard Metaphor: How our technological interfaces—with their control buttons, delete keys, and escape commands—are reshaping our expectations for human relationships and emotional experiencesChristine challenges the Silicon Valley orthodoxy that frames every technological advancement as inevitable progress, instead advocating for what she calls "defending the human." This isn't a Luddite rejection of technology but a call for conscious choice about what we preserve, what we abandon, and what we allow machines to optimize out of existence.The conversation reveals how seemingly small decisions—choosing to handwrite a letter, putting phones in the center of the table during dinner, or learning to read cursive—become acts of resistance against a broader cultural shift toward treating humans as inefficient machines in need of optimization. As Christine observes, we're creating a world where the people designing our technological future live with "human nannies and human tutors and human massage therapists" while prescribing AI substitutes for everyone else.What emerges is both a warning and a manifesto: that preserving human experience requires actively choosing friction, inefficiency, and the irreducible messiness of being embodied creatures in a physical world. Christine's work serves as an essential field guide for navigating the tension between technological capability and human flourishing—showing us how to embrace useful innovations while defending the experiences that make us most fully human.About Christine Rosen: Christine Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on the intersection of technology, culture, and society. Previously the managing editor of The New Republic and founding editor of The Hedgehog Review, her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. "The Extinction of Experience" represents over two decades of research into how digital technologies are reshaping human behavior and social relationships.

Join Beth Rudden at the Artificiality Summit in Bend, Oregon—October 23-25, 2025—to imagine a meaningful life with synthetic intelligence for me, we and us. Learn more here: www.artificialityinstitute.org/summitIn this thought-provoking conversation, we explore the intersection of archaeological thinking and artificial intelligence with Beth Rudden, former IBM Distinguished Engineer and CEO of Bast AI. Beth brings a unique interdisciplinary perspective—combining her training as an archaeologist with over 20 years of enterprise AI experience—to challenge fundamental assumptions about how we build and deploy artificial intelligence systems.Beth describes her work as creating "the trust layer for civilization," arguing that current AI systems reflect what Hannah Arendt called the "banality of evil"—not malicious intent, but thoughtlessness embedded at scale. As she puts it, "AI is an excavation tool, not a villain," surfacing patterns and biases that humanity has already normalized in our data and language.Key themes we explore:Archaeological AI: How treating AI as an excavation tool reveals embedded human thoughtlessness, and why scraping random internet data fundamentally misunderstands the nature of knowledge and contextOntological Scaffolding: Beth's approach to building AI systems using formal knowledge graphs and ontologies—giving AI the scaffolding to understand context rather than relying on statistical pattern matching divorced from meaningData Sovereignty in Healthcare: A detailed exploration of Bast AI's platform for explainable healthcare AI, where patients control their data and can trace every decision back to its source—from emergency logistics to clinical communicationThe Economics of Expertise: Moving beyond the "humans as resources" paradigm to imagine economic models that compete to support and amplify human expertise rather than eliminate itEmbodied Knowledge and Community: Why certain forms of knowledge—surgical skill, caregiving, craftsmanship—are irreducibly embodied, and how AI should scale this expertise rather than replace itHopeful Rage: Beth's vision for reclaiming humanist spaces and community healing as essential infrastructure for navigating technological transformationBeth challenges the dominant narrative that AI will simply replace human workers, instead proposing systems designed to "augment and amplify human expertise." Her work at Bast AI demonstrates how explainable AI can maintain full provenance and transparency while reducing cognitive load—allowing healthcare providers to spend more time truly listening to patients rather than wrestling with bureaucratic systems.The conversation reveals how archaeological thinking—with its attention to context, layers of meaning, and long-term patterns—offers essential insights for building trustworthy AI systems. As Beth notes, "You can fake reading. You cannot fake swimming"—certain forms of embodied knowledge remain irreplaceable and should be the foundation for human-AI collaboration.About Beth Rudden: Beth Rudden is CEO and Chairwoman of Bast AI, building explainable artificial intelligence systems with full provenance and data sovereignty. A former IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Data Officer, she's been recognized as one of the 100 most brilliant leaders in AI Ethics. With her background spanning archaeology, cognitive science, and decades of enterprise AI development, Beth offers a grounded perspective on technology that serves human flourishing rather than replacing it.This interview was recorded as part of the lead-up to the Artificiality Summit 2025 (October 23-25 in Bend, Oregon), where Beth will be speaking about the future of trustworthy AI.

Steve Sloman, a Brown University professor and author renowned for his works on cognition, delves into our evolving understanding of knowledge in a machine-driven world. He questions how AI might shape belief systems, exploring the complex role of narratives in decision-making and the impact of community values on personal beliefs. The conversation challenges our perceptions of information and highlights AI's potential in persuasive communication, all while emphasizing the importance of ethical guidelines in technology.

Jamer Hunt, a professor at the Parsons School of Design and author of 'Not to Scale', shares insights on the transformative power of scale in design and AI. He discusses how different perspectives shape our understanding of intelligence and consciousness, highlighting the importance of cultural contexts. The conversation humorously juxtaposes the micro and macro views of scale, likening insights to a picnic and global perspectives. Hunt also examines how urban complexities and social narratives influence technology, encouraging a reflective dialogue on the role of models in creating meaningful change.