

The Pulse of AI
Jason Stoughton
Real conversations with the founders, CEO's, AI pioneers and experts who are building the future of AI today.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 11, 2020 • 40min
The US needs an effective National AI Strategy and Congressman Will Hurd is helping lead the charge
For this discussion I am joined by Congressman Will Hurd of Texas and Bret Greenstein of Cognizant to talk about what a national AI strategy should look like here in the United States. Congressman Hurd (R-TX) along with Robin Kelly (D-IL), and working closely with the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), recently released a white paper on a national artificial intelligence strategy called “AI and the Workforce”. Recommendations of the white paper include: Calling on the US to take a larger role in AI Embracing an AI-driven economy Preparing the workforce for a transition to AI Bret Greenstein is the Senior Vice President and Global Head of the AI & Analytics Practice at Cognizant, leading over 26,000 associates worldwide focused on Data and AI based transformation Bringing together these two leading voices, one from government and the other from industry, gives us the opportunity uniquely explore issues that are central to developing an effective national AI strategy including: How do we develop a national AI strategy that allows us to compete against countries that have different views and restrictions around the collection and use of data? How should we protect data privacy? How do we address bias in AI algorithms? How do we encourage and develop public/private partnerships to further our national strategic AI goals? How do we train our workforce so that these goals can be realized? And much more.

Jul 20, 2020 • 46min
Deep Dive Discussion into Evolutionary AI
On this show I am joined by Stephanie Forrest and Risto Miikkulainen to talk about Evolutionary AI: What it is, how it is being used today, the challenges it faces, the opportunities it offers and what its future might entail. If you are at all interested in Evolutionary AI then you will find this discussion extremely informative and interesting. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Jul 9, 2020 • 1h 4min
Creativity and Open Endedness in AI
On this podcast I am joined by Kenneth Stanley, currently of OpenAI, and Babak Hodjat, VP of Evolutionary AI at Cognizant, to talk about creativity, novelty search, Evolutionary AI, open endedness and all things in between. I was absolutely blown away by the breadth and depth of the insights around these topics.

Jul 9, 2020 • 40min
AutoML and the Future of AI
On this podcast I am joined by Quoc Le and Risto Miikkulainen to talk about AutoML and the future direction of AI. Risto is an associate VP of Evolutionary AI at Cognizant and also a professor at the University of Texas. Quoc Le needs little introduction because he is one of the preeminent thought leaders in AI today and is known for many things including co-founding Google Brain and as the person behind AutoML.

Jul 9, 2020 • 45min
Demystifying AI
On this podcast I am joined by Dr. Jordan Pollack and Babak Hodjat to talk about the Demystification of AI. It is hard to find two people who add more value to this conversation than these two guests. Both are preeminent thought leaders in the field and in this wide ranging and lively conversation we cover a lot of ground that will be interesting to anyone involved in the field of AI generally and Evolutionary AI specifically. Our discussion range’s from the theoretical to the practical and the insights that are provided by both are invaluable.

Jun 29, 2020 • 47min
Trustworthiness in AI: Featuring Joydeep Ghosh and Risto Miikkulainen
World renowned AI thought leader’s Joydeep Ghosh and Risto Miikkulainen join me on this podcast in a wide ranging discussion centered around the issue of Trustworthiness in AI. As our businesses and society increasingly rely on AI the issues around trust and explainability have become much more important. And in fact, failure to successfully address the issue will hamper further adoption of AI. Whether you are a business leader, AI scientist, or a policy maker this podcast will help you understand the issues, both technical and philosophical, around explainability and trust in AI, and will give you insights into ways that top companies and scientists are successfully addressing this challenge. We also talk about how Evolutionary AI can be a key tool in helping create more trustworthy AI.

Jun 22, 2020 • 31min
People Have Asked “Where is AI in the Fight against Covid”? Cognizant has an Answer.
Ever since the Covid pandemic spread across the globe many have asked the question “where is AI in this fight”? And it is a valid question because many of the techniques used in AI require large amounts of training data, which a new pandemic like Covid simply lacks. However, a project developed by Babak Hodjat and Risto Miikulainen and their team at Cognizant has come the closest I have seen to answering this question. The system uses evolutionary AI which requires less data, utilizes creativity and goes beyond forecasting to basically providing advice. Babak gave me a demo last week and it is pretty exciting and so I wanted to bring them on the podcast so that they could share it with you and talk about what is under the hood. In addition to Babak and Risto I am also joined by Bret Greenstein who is the Senior Vice President and Global Head of the Ai and Analytics Practice at Cognizant to talk about how the amazing work they have done is also relevant for business leaders. This is a really interesting podcast and I hope you enjoy it.. Let’s get to it.

Jun 18, 2020 • 17min
Deep Dive into the Best Practices of a Data and AI Centered Enterprise
This podcast will help you successfully complete your journey to AI and data transformation. I am joined by Saket Malhotra of Takeda and Bret Greenstein of Cognizant to talk about the importance of data strategy, establishing KPI’s and Metrics, and the importance that change management plays in successful digital transformation efforts. Digital transformation is hard and it is exciting to hear from a company that is doing it right. Lots of great insights to say the least.

Jun 12, 2020 • 19min
Successful AI Journey’s Depend on Best Practices
Join me on this podcast as I speak with Bret Greenstein of Cognizant and Inder Kochar of Novartis Oncology about the challenges, opportunities and best practices around centering an enterprise around data and AI. Inder brings to light his “Journey to AI” experience over the past several years while Bret brings a cross-industry global perspective. We talk about data strategy, change management, using design thinking to understand and improve the customer journey and much more. If you are struggling with trying to successfully digitally transform your organization then this is a must listen! Note: The opinions expressed by Inder are his alone and do not reflect those of Novartis Oncology

May 14, 2020 • 23min
AI is Changing Healthcare and Pharma Fast
In this podcast I speak with Babak Hodjat, VP of Evolutionary AI at Cognizant, and his collegue Naveen Sharma who is Head of AI and Analytics for Life Sciences about the exciting and profound changes that are occuring in pharma and healthcare driven both by Covid and the opportunities presented by AI techniques like Evolutionary AI. I am a big believer that AI will enable innovation throughout the life sciences ecosystem from better and faster drug discovery to more efficient manufacturing to new business models that will change how patients interact with healthcare. All of which, in my opinion, will foster better health outcomes while lowering the cost curve. Which of course means treating more people better and cheaper. It is a really exciting time for this industry and Babak and Naveen really lay out the changes that are happening.