Life, Automated

Live AI translation tools are making it easier to converse across languages without a human translator, a phrasebook, or years of study. So will we all just stop taking Spanish or Mandarin classes? Sociolinguist Abby Walker doesn’t think so. She shares the many reasons we learn new languages, some of which have little to do with functional communication at all. We also hear how one AI-assisted conversation brought two future in-laws together, why machine translation is still so darn buggy, and why some languages are attracting a resurgence of new learners even in the age of translation apps. Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED. Producer:  Jesse Dukes Music: Steven Jackson Recording: George Christensen, Will Feeney Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada Editorial guidance from Laura Pavin Special thanks to Larry Berliner and Georgi Demirev for their help testing out live translation tools

Generative AI is able to conjure new images, stories, and songs at lightning speed. So what does this mean for humans artists, storytellers, and musicians? In this special Labor Day episode, we speak with economists Ben Jones and Sam Goldberg, as well as artist Yevgenia Nayberg, to find out what happens when AI enters creative markets. We learn that, at least today, key bottlenecks prevent AI from replicating some aspects of creativity. But there’s no guarantee those bottlenecks will exist tomorrow, raising vital questions about what we value in human labor. Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED. Producer:  Steven Jackson Senior Producer: Jesse Dukes Music: Steven Jackson Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger Recording: George Christensen, Will Feeney Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

“AI will revolutionize education!” “No, it will destroy it!” Well, which is it? If history is any guide, the impact will be limited in either direction. In this episode, MIT education researcher Justin Reich walks through a century of hype cycles — from filmstrips and radio to MOOCs and smartphones — to show what actually changed in classrooms, and what didn’t.  Drawing on interviews with 120 teachers and students across the U.S., he explains why new tools tend to extend old habits, why gains from new technology are usually modest, and why they tend to benefit affluent schools most. (Part 2/2 in our back-to-school series.) Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED. Producer: Jesse Dukes Music: Steven Jackson Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger Recording: George Christensen and Will Feeney Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

As AI tools spread through classrooms, many educators see a “cheating factory.” Kellogg Professor Sébastien Martin sees things differently: as a chance to reinvent how and what we teach. In his operations management class, students trade PDFs for lifelike chatbots, log conversations with Socratic AI tutors, and use AI to explore the kinds of social and political dynamics that students normally have to learn on the job. But Martin also grapples with harder questions: What about public schools with fewer resources? When should kids use AI at all? And how can students stay hopeful and true to their own interests in a wildly uncertain future? (Part 1/2 in our back-to-school series.) Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED Producer: Jesse Dukes Music: Steven Jackson Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger Additional Production: Nathan Ray Recording: George Christensen and Will Feeney Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons. 

What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? Pat Pataranutaporn, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, explores how chatbots can either support or undermine human flourishing. Pat explains why it’s so easy to imagine a “someone” behind the screen and why chatbots that never push back are dangerous. He ultimately makes the case that AI should be evaluated based not on short-term engagement or productivity but on how well it improves the lives of humans. Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED. Producer: Jesse Dukes Music: Steven Jackson Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger Additional Production: Nathan Ray Recording: George Christensen and Will FeeneyPromotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician Joshua Jay says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic. Further Reading: Joshua Jay's book: How Magician's Think   Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED.  Producer: Jesse Dukes Music: Steven Jackson Administrative and Editorial Support: Stacia Sliger Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons. Produced in partnership with KQED, Jen Chien, director of podcasts. 

Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? Economist Meghan Busse suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it. Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED. Production: Jesse Dukes Music: Steven Jackson Administration and Recording: Stacia Sliger Recording Engineering: George Christensen and Will Feeney Marketing: Ananya Mallapragada Featured Guests:  Meghan Busse  Further Reading: Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment — AP-NORC Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash — Jack Healy, New York Times

Will AI actually take over every job ever? Economist Ben Jones doesn't think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers everything — it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one nightmare scenario where this historical pattern breaks down entirely. And it doesn’t involve superintelligence. It involves mediocre AI. Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distribution by KQED.  Senior Producer: Jesse Dukes Additional Production and music: Steven Jackson Administrative and editorial support: Stacia Sliger Thanks to Laura Pavin, Jen Chien, and Alexandra Salomon. Additional music for this episode from Cue Shop Moby Gratis Neutral Propulsion Laboratory Ben Jones recent article, How AI Could Benefit Workers, Even If It Displaces Most Jobs.

Life, Automated explores the surreal, exciting, and occasionally terrifying ways AI and automation are reshaping our daily lives.Through thoughtful conversations with researchers, practitioners, artists, and more, we do our best to make sense of how technology is changing—and how it is changing us. We ask: What does the economy look like if AI can do much of what humans can? Will AI tools isolate us further, or steer us back toward community and common ground? Can the average person expect to be better off a decade from now? And what the heck should we tell a sixteen year old who wants to know whether learning German (or design, or coding, or the piano) is still worth it? Life, Automated is grounded and non-ideological, going deep without getting too technical. Because you shouldn’t need to be an “AI person” to understand the future we’re collectively building. The show is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, distributed by KQED. You can reach us at lifeautomatedpod@gmail.com. Production note: We relied on the Freesound Project for many of the sound effects used in this trailer. Including: Alarm clock School Bus Air break Computer mouse All made available through Creative Commons licenses.