SHIFT

In this encore edition of our oral history project we meet a man trying to solve AI’s black box problem with symbolic AI, a subfield that communicates how decisions are made.We Meet:Casper Wilstrup, the Founder & CEO of AbzuCredits:SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

We learn why lawyers who help people seeking to legally expose corruption in the government and at private companies have decided to focus on big tech, in the latest installment of our oral history project.We Meet:Whistleblower Aid CEO Libby LiuCredits:The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

Hearing has a profound impact on a person’s emotional, mental and cognitive well-being and there’s also a long, rich history of cutting edge tech being used in devices that are meant to help us hear better.And yet, it’s not something we talk much about.We Meet:Stefan Launer, Sonova's Senior Vice President Science & TechnologyCredits:The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

In the latest installment of our oral history project, we meet a scientist who’s been supporting  deep investigative journalism projects for more than a decade. This collaboration between Neo4j and journalists helped to uncover Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Panama Papers - an investigation of one of the biggest ever global corruption scandals that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.We Meet:Neo4j Chief Scientist Dr. Jim WebberCredits:The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

We hop into the backseat of a police car and learn how officers in Rwanda have adopted and deployed AI on the streets of its capital city, Kigali.We Meet:Chief Inspector of Police Paul Ryamugwiza, director of traffic and road enforcement systems for Rwanda National PoliceCredits:The show is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

Potentially a quarter billion children worldwide lack access to an education. Advances in education tech and AI programs for learning can help students who have access to tools and internet. This episode, we bring you a conversation with members of the International Rescue Committee, an aid group developing tailored learning experiences for children in crisis. It was taped before a live audience at Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech conference, in Lisbon, Portugal.  This episode originally ran on November 29, 2023.We Meet:Atish Gonsalves, Global Lead for Research & Innovation in Education, International Rescue Committee (IRC)Morena Baccarin, Actor, IRC AmbassadorSara Wayne Callies, Actor, IRC AmbassadorCredits:SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

We meet Dr. Fei-Fei Li In the latest installment of our oral history project. She's a Chinese-American computer scientist and the creator of ImageNet - the dataset that made rapid advances possible in this field of AI that helps computers take meaningful information from things like photos and videos.We Meet: Stanford University's Fei-Fei Li, author of "The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI"Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

Smart TVs that track what people watch and how they watch it give political campaigns a new trove of data to exploit, with little transparency on how it’s happening.We meet: Investigative Reporter Maggie Severns speaking about her article:https://www.notus.org/2024-election/streaming-tv-campaign-adsCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

A live conversation about the state of the space industry with serial space entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian, a co-founder of Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines, Quantum Space, and more, from the mainstage at Collision Conference in Toronto, Canada.We meet: Dr. Kamal "Kam" GhaffarianCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.

How do we minimize the risk of mid-air collisions between aircraft? And how does that change in the era of artificial intelligence and things like drone swarms?Claire Tomlin works on questions like these, and her work is now the basis of a new field of AI in which a system automatically learns operational and control objectives from data, while maintaining things like flight safety.We Meet: University of California Berkeley’s Claire Tomlin, 2024 IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus Medal recipient recognized “for foundational work in the design and verification of cyber-physical systems with applications to safety in autonomous systems”Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Anthony Green.