In Machines We Trust

A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?

This episode we go behind the scenes of an investigation that uncovered how sensitive photos taken by an AI powered vacuum were leaked and landed on the internet. 

Reporting:

A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?

Roomba testers feel misled after intimate images ended up on Facebook

We Meet:

Eileen Guo, MIT T...

Our reporting about farming, AI and satellites turned into three episodes of this podcast, which you can find linked here in the show notes, and as part of this reporting we also toured a satellite factory in downtown San Francisco, called Planet Labs. This week we bring you along for one of our audio postcards to hear how these satellites are built and tested.

We meet: 

Jacob Stern, director of test engineering at Planet Labs

Credits...

A panel of luminaries join us live on stage at MIT Technology Review’s flagship conference, EmTech MIT, and discuss the path forward for AI research.

We Meet:

Will Douglas Heaven, Senior Editor of AI at MIT Technology Review

Ashley Llorens, Vice President & Managing Director at Microsoft Research

Raia Hadsell, Senior Director of Research and Robotics at DeepMind

Yann LeCun, NYU Professor, VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta

Credits:

T...

From chess to Jeopardy to e-sports, AI is increasingly beating humans at their own games. But that was never the ultimate goal. In this episode we dig into the symbiotic relationship between games and AI. We meet the big players in the space, and we take a trip to an arcade.

We Meet: 

Julian Togelius

Will Douglas-Heaven

David Silver 

David Fahri 

We Talked To: 

Julian Togelius

Will Douglas-Heaven

Karen Hao

David Silver 

David Fahri 

Na...

AI is used in farming in some ways you might not expect, like for tracking the health of crops—from space. We travel from test farms to labs in the second installment of our series on agriculture, AI, and satellites. 

We Meet:

Joseph Liefer, senior product manager of autonomy at John Deere

Julian Sanchez, director of emerging technology at John Deere

Shely Aranov, CEO of InnerPlant

Rod Kumimoto, CSO of InnerPlant

Credits:

This episode was...

AI is used in agriculture to precisely target weeds and optimize irrigation practices. It’s also being used in ways you might not expect, like for tracking the health of cow pastures—from space. We travel from test farms to orchards in the first of a two-part series on agriculture, AI, and satellites. 

We Meet: 

Greg Brickner, Veterinarian and grazing specialist at Organic Valley

Geoff Klein, irrigation manager of Bullseye Farms

John B...

We’re in the middle of another major disruption in retail—one that’s been accelerated by the pandemic, and looks to take the convenience of e-commerce and apply it to physical environments. In this episode, we examine how AI is at the center of this transition.

We meet:

Prakhar Mehrotra, VP, Machine Learning, Walmart Global Tech

Jordan Fisher, Chief Executive Officer, Standard AI

Terrence Griffin, Quality Control Specialist, Standard A...

Face mapping and other tracking systems are changing the sports experience in the stands and on the court. In part-three of this latest series on facial recognition, Jennifer Strong and the team at MIT Technology Review jump on the court to unpack just how much things are changing. This episode was originally published December 8, 2020.

We meet: 

Donnie Scott, senior vice president of public security, IDEMIA

Michael D'Auria, vice ...

Algorithms now determine how much things cost. It’s called dynamic pricing and it adjusts according to current market conditions in order to increase profits. The rise of ecommerce has propelled pricing algorithms into an everyday occurrence—whether you’re shopping on Amazon, booking a flight, hotel or ordering an Uber. 

We Meet: 

In the past, hiring decisions were made by people. Today, some key decisions that lead to whether someone gets a job or not are made by algorithms. The use of AI-based job interviews has increased since the pandemic. As demand increases, so too do questions about whether these algorithms make fair and unbiased hiring decisions, or find the most qualified applicant. In this second episode of a four-part series on AI in hiring, we me...

Shortages of everything from seeds to fertilizer might accelerate the adoption of technologies that can help supplies go further in war-torn Ukraine.

We meet: 

Roman Tarasevich, Farmer, Ukraine

Morten Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer, OneSoil

Inbal Reshef, Program Director, NASA Harvest

Olekssi Misiura, Head of Research and Development, IMC

Credits: This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong, Emma Cillekens and Anthony Gre...

The International Space Station hosts scores of experiments that can’t be done on Earth. But it’s also showing its age—with repairs and safety concerns becoming increasingly common as it draws nearer to its end of life. In this episode, we bring you a conversation with Astronaut Michael López-Alegría about the path forward for research in low Earth orbit, from MIT Technology Review’s flagship conference, EmTech MIT.

CREDITS:

This epi...

A look at how AI and other tech is being used to help predict, detect, and pinpoint the location of wildfires in the second of a two-part series.

We Meet:

Tricia Small, Television Producer, Small Fox Films

George Whitesides, Space Executive

Brittany Zajic, Disaster Response, Planet Labs

Dave Winnacker, Fire Chief, Moraga-Orinda Fire District

Arvind Satyam, Chief Commercial Officer, Pano

Credits:

This episode was reported and produced by Je...

A look at how AI and other tech is being used to help predict, detect, and pinpoint the location of wildfires in the first of a two-part series.

We meet: 

Dustin Tetrault, Deputy Fire Chief, Big Sky Fire Department

Sankar Narayanan, Chief Practice Officer, Fractal Analytics

Credits:

This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong, Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Mat Honan and contains original music from Ga...

I Was There When is an oral history project that’s part of the In Machines We Trust podcast. It features stories of how breakthroughs and watershed moments in artificial intelligence and computing happened, as told by the people who witnessed them.

In this episode we meet Alex Serdiuk, founder and CEO of Respeecher. 

CREDITS: This project was produced by Jennifer Strong, Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Mat Honan an...

Synthetic voice technologies are increasingly passing as human. But today’s voice assistants are still a far cry from the hyper-intelligent thinking machines we’ve been musing about for decades. In this episode, we explore how machines learn to communicate—and what it means for the humans on the other end of the conversation.

In this encore edition we revisit an episode from last year.

Links to our reporting:

https://www.technologyrev...

I Was There When is an oral history project that’s part of the In Machines We Trust podcast. It features stories of how breakthroughs and watershed moments in artificial intelligence and computing happened, as told by the people who witnessed them.

In this episode we meet one of the world's greatest chess players, Garry Kasparov.

CREDITS: This project was produced by Jennifer Strong, Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edite...

Digital twins of humans capture the physical look and expressions of real humans. Increasingly these replicas are showing up in the entertainment industry and beyond and it gives rise to some interesting opportunities as well as thorny questions. 

We speak to:

Greg Cross, CEO and co-founder of Soul Machines

Credits: This episode was produced by Anthony Green with help from Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Jennifer Strong and Mat Honan...

Who wants to take a walk around a California vineyard to explore how it’s deploying sensors and other forms of AI? Join us for a field trip as we do something a little bit different this week.

We meet: 

Dirk Heuvel, vice president of vineyard operations, McManis Family Vineyards

Credits:

This episode was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Mat Honan and mixed by Garret Lang, wi...