Me, Myself, and AI

Anders Sjögren, Technical leader for a major automaker, explains Volvo's use of data and AI in manufacturing, driver experience, and safety. He discusses smart technology for keeping drivers alert, Volvo's approach to technology-driven innovation, and the intersection of AI and safety. Also, the guest expresses concerns about the development of super powerful language models and discusses the future of AI for the common good.

Matt Mahmoudi and Damini Satija discuss the importance of AI regulation in addressing harms caused by the technology. They highlight the dangers of AI tools and envision a future where power structures are dismantled. They emphasize the ethical responsibility of workers in relation to AI technology and call for continued support of the podcast.

Amnesty International researchers discuss the risks of AI tools for human rights and highlight examples like facial recognition tracking of social activists and automated decisions in public housing. They emphasize that fixing bias and discrimination requires human intervention and changes to public policy.

Pinterest's Jeremy King discusses the role of AI in their image-driven platform, including the use of generative AI and graph databases. They also explore how AI analyzes images and unstructured text, and the challenges and potential of language translation technologies. Rapid fire questions and a sponsorship mention wrap up this informative and entertaining episode.

When Zan Gilani came to the U.S. from Pakistan to complete his undergraduate studies, he chose to study Chinese because it was rumored to be a difficult language. At the time, the tech industry was booming, and he quickly became interested in applying his passion for foreign languages and learning more generally in a technology-rich environment.Those interests led Zan to Duolingo, where he has been working in product management for eight years and now oversees the app company’s experiential AI team. What excites him about working at the language-learning app company is his ability to help build solutions that enable personalized education at scale: The app boasts over 16 million daily active users, and AI-driven functionality motivates them through frequent notifications, personalizes learning experiences by adjusting the difficulty of questions in practice sessions, and observes and critiques learners’ performance.Zan joins our podcast to outline the specific ways Duolingo uses AI and machine learning to drive user engagement, and discuss how the technology can be used to support learning more generally. Read the episode transcript here.Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.Guest bio:Zan Gilani is a principal product manager at Duolingo. For the past eight years, he has helped grow the company’s learner base from 3 million to 16 million daily active users by working on retention, acquisition, growth in Asia, gamification, and the new-user experience.He currently leads Duolingo’s Experimental AI team, which uses generative AI to build features that teach learners more effectively. More broadly, Gilani is working on setting Duolingo up for success using generative AI, through external partnerships and internal education.Gilani grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, and is currently based in New York City. He has bachelor’s degrees in political science and East Asian studies from Columbia University.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Naba Banerjee’s identity as a “forever learner” led to her become the first female engineer in her family. That curiosity has informed her career choices as well, leading her to companies as varied as Tata, Cognizent, Walmart, and AAA. Now, as director of trust product and operations at vacation rental platform Airbnb, she is continuing let her curiosity be her guide as she applies her previous data science experience to the travel industry. On this episode, Naba joins Shervin and Sam to talk abouthow she and her team use AI and machine learning to increase the safety of the guests and hosts who use Airbnb’s platform. She also discusses collaboration between humans and machines and the importance of recognizing that neither is an infallible decision maker. Read the episode transcript here.Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.Guest bio:Naba Banerjee is the director of trust product and operations at Airbnb, overseeing the company’s efforts to combat fraud, build trust between hosts and guests, and stop bad actors from using the platform. Her most recent work includes the development of Airbnb’s reservation screening technology, which helps to identify users making potentially high-risk reservations and prevent them from taking advantage of the platform. Banerjee has over two decades of experience building products that deliver innovative, customer-centric solutions. She joined Airbnb after spending 13 years at Walmart.com, where she played an instrumental role in the evolution of product management, including shipping packages to customers more quickly and building mobile apps to enable customers to check out faster.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.

As CEO of Aboitiz Data Innovation, David Hardoon oversees the operations of a technology conglomerate focused on using data science and AI to support its businesses in a range of sectors, including banking, financial services, utilities, agriculture, and construction in Singapore and the Philippines. In his role, David is leading some unexpected — but practical — uses of artificial intelligence, including using voice and image recognition to detect stress in livestock, and analyzing internet-of-things data to reduce waste and CO2 emissions in the cement R&D process.David joins this episode to discuss the broad scope of the organizations he’s responsible for, the role of AI regulation and governance in helping to spur innovation, humans’ sometimes problematic role in shaping AI outputs, and how a high school detention led to a career in artificial intelligence. Read the episode transcript here.Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.Guest bio:David Hardoon is the CEO of Aboitiz Data Innovation and chief data and AI officer of Union Bank of the Philippines. He is concurrently the chief data and innovation officer of the Aboitiz Group and chief data officer of UnionDigital Bank. Previously, he was the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s first appointed chief data officer and head of the Data Analytics Group, as well as a special adviser on AI. Hardoon has a doctorate in computer science (machine learning) from the University of Southampton and a bachelor’s degree from Royal Holloway, University of London, in computer science and AI.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.

When Elizabeth Anne Watkins started her doctoral program, she landed a research role studying journalists’ use of security and privacy technologies — but she found the security tools confusing and difficult to use. Today, as a research scientist in the social science of AI at Intel Labs, she advocates for other end users faced with understanding and working with new technologies.Elizabeth employs social science to understand the concerns of technicians performing complex chip manufacturing processes so that new AI systems will be developed to better serve those human experts. During this process, she also helps the technicians recognize AI’s role as a supporting technology — even a coworker — rather than a human replacement.She joins this episode to discuss her role as a social scientist working in tech and some of the ways Intel is applying AI technologies like computer vision and natural language processing to improve semiconductor manufacturing processes. Read the episode transcript here.Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.Guest bio:Elizabeth Anne Watkins is a research scientist in the Social Science of Artificial Intelligence at Intel Labs and a member of Intel’s Responsible AI Advisory Council, where she applies social science methods to amplify human potential in human-AI collaboration. Her research on the design, deployment, and governance of AI tools has been published in leading academic journals and has been featured in Wired, MIT Technology Review, and Harvard Business Review. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton and has a doctorate from Columbia University and a master’s degree from MIWe encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.

Hina Dixit’s interest in supporting people and solving problems has its roots in her family’s call office business, where she helped people place telephone calls when she was growing up in India. Later, after earning her bachelor’s degree in computer science, she was quickly recruited into the tech space, where her problem-solving and customer service skills have served her well as both a software engineer and tech investor. From a developer role at Symantec, to project leader at Apple, to an AI investor role at Samsung Next, Hina continues to leverage her communication and connection skills in seeking out and supporting innovations in artificial intelligence, as well as robotics, Web3, and other tech sectors.On this episode, Hina shares the criteria she considers when making investments in new entrepreneurial ventures. She also highlights the focus areas that are of most interest right now, explains why she enjoys mentoring other technologists, and shares her views on what the future of AI looks like. Read the episode transcript here.Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.Guest bio:Naba Banerjee is the director of trust product and operations at Airbnb, overseeing the company’s efforts to combat fraud, build trust between hosts and guests, and stop bad actors from using the platform. Her most recent work includes the development of Airbnb’s reservation screening technology, which helps to identify users making potentially high-risk reservations and prevent them from taking advantage of the platform. Banerjee has over two decades of experience building products that deliver innovative, customer-centric solutions. She joined Airbnb after spending 13 years at Walmart.com, where she played an instrumental role in the evolution of product management, including shipping packages to customers more quickly and building mobile apps to enable customers to check out faster.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.

Shelia Anderson parlayed a love of learning into studying the emerging field of engineering when she began her undergraduate education. After gaining experience leading IT teams in the technology, airline, and insurance industries, she joined Aflac in the summer of 2022.Shelia joins Sam and Shervin to share how using artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the processing of somewhat routine insurance claims frees up staff members to spend more time serving customers and processing more complex, higher-value claims. She also discusses the types of skills she looks for in data science and engineering talent beyond technical capabilities, and why she believes the insurance industry offers a great opportunity for people interested in a career working with AI and machine learning. Read the episode transcript here.Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.*NEW! For specific takeaways from this episode and guidance on how you can implement them in your own work, download our episode toolkit here.Guest bio:Shelia Anderson joined Aflac in July 2022 as senior vice president and CIO. She is responsible for overseeing the company’s digital services division and driving technology strategy in support of the insurer’s U.S. business. Anderson has a rich history as an executive leading the IT functions at Fortune 500 global organizations, including Liberty Mutual, USAA, HP, and Electronic Data Systems.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.