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"content": "\u003cp>Class is back in session at OUSD schools this week, with one notable change: A strict phone-free policy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>KQED’s Katie DeBenedetti explains how a statewide mandate has pushed districts across the Bay to pass their own policies banning or restricting phones, and how it’s playing out in Oakland. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8565102522\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12094226/ousd-cellphone-ban-for-students-takes-effect-on-the-first-day-of-the-school-year\">OUSD Cellphone Ban for Students Takes Effect on the First Day of the School Year\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Episode transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This transcript is computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:00] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz-Gavarra and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. I remember about a year ago, I walked into a high school classroom and I was so shocked to find students with AirPods in, phones out on the desks, like so explicitly out. High school me could have never imagined that becoming the norm. But now, phone-free policies at schools have made a comeback. Oakland Unified has banned phones in schools across all grade levels. And districts across the state are banning or limiting phones as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:44] \u003c/em>Although it’s not a silver bullet, I think it is like a necessary condition for a focused classroom that phones are not stealing young people’s attention. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:54] \u003c/em>Today, California’s push towards phone-free schools and what that looks like in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:08] \u003c/em>So Katie, it’s the first week of school for Oakland Unified School District students and they came to school with a brand new cell phone policy. Oh, what is it exactly? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:20] \u003c/em>When kids walked into school on Monday, one of the first things that will now be part of every morning is putting their phones away for the whole day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:30] \u003c/em>Katie DeBenedetti is a reporter for KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:34] \u003c/em>That varies by school site, but in most elementary schools, they’ll have a lock box at the front of their classroom, and they’ll to put their phones in it for the day. And then in middle schools and high schools, they are going to be issued these pouches called Yondr pouches. They’re like canvas bags with a magnet at the top that locks during the day, their first period teacher, at least last year during the pilot phase was the person that kind of went around and made sure everyone. Had their pouch closed with their phone in it at the beginning of the day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:08] \u003c/em>This is something that is happening at other Bay Area schools in a bunch of different ways as well. Why is this happening? Why are we seeing this sort of wave of no phone policy that schools happening across California? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:21] \u003c/em>In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone Free School Act, which basically requires all school districts to restrict or prohibit cell phone use, and that went into effect this July. The reasoning behind that was there was research showing that less phones was better for learning, better for attention, and also for kids’ mental health. So… OUSD’s ban is on the stricter side. They’re gonna be a bell-to-bell ban for all students, but you’re right, a lot of Bay Area districts are adopting similar policies. The San Mateo Foster City School District has been using yonder pouches for a couple years, actually, and a couple of high schools on the peninsula have as well. Up in Marin and Tamm Unified School District, they’re introducing a very similar lockable box that are individual for students. And then there are a lot of other districts that don’t have these full bans. So San Francisco actually voted to kind of keep their existing cell phone policy, which is just that mobile communication devices have to be turned off, have to put away during instructional time and passing periods. A lot of Bay Area districts have also put in place these like similar less restrictive rules, though they vary. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>And you mentioned OUSD has one of the more stricter phone policies. What was their rationale behind this specific cell phone band that they went for with these Yondr pouches? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:52] \u003c/em>Yeah, so when administrators were explaining why, you know, full ban versus partial van, they said it’s first of all just for consistency. You know, it’s a little bit easier for kids to understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:03] \u003c/em>We want our students to be focused on learning in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:08] \u003c/em>Here’s what Superintendent Denise Saddler had to say about the phone policy. That was a clip from ABC 7. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:15] \u003c/em>We also see this policy as a way to deal with some of the social media issues that come up, particularly in middle and high school, quite frankly, you know, bullying and some of the issues that have caused challenges for our students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:30] \u003c/em>Also, it kind of keeps people interacting during passing periods, during lunch, connecting face-to-face throughout the school day, and it eliminates distractions. Even if you see a text while you’re heading to class or at the lunch table, you might be still thinking about it when you’re in class wondering, am I gonna be able to respond again? But if you just wait until after school to see it to begin with, it’s supposed to be less distracting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:56] \u003c/em>What has the reaction been from students and parents at OUSD so far? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:01] \u003c/em>I think it’s been somewhat mixed. I think, you know, parents on the first day of school kind of told us that they’re happy that their kids will hopefully be less distracted. What are your thoughts on this new no cell phone policy? One parent, Chris Connolly, spoke with our colleague Farida Jabvala-Romero on the first day at school. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Connolly: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:21] \u003c/em>Personally, I am quite happy about it. I think it will be great for the kids, especially the high schoolers, who can easily be distracted by phones all day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:33] \u003c/em>Some of them did have some safety concerns and that was really echoed by a student I talked to, Blake Rodgers. She’s an Oakland Tech senior. I do understand. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:43] \u003c/em>I understand that phones create distractions in classrooms, but I do think that the safety issues that have been like pretty prevalent recently outweigh that goal. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:58] \u003c/em>She went to Skyline High School last year where there was a shooting on campus in the fall and she says it’s scary to think about not having access to her phone if something like that happens again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:10] \u003c/em>Its really hard to get in contact with people, even with your phone, because we’re not always sure what’s going on without a phone. I think people will be completely left in the dark and that is a scary thing to be in. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:25] \u003c/em>That is kind of interesting and also a little chilling that sort of the main concern that you’re hearing against these bands is this idea of safety. And I have to imagine like school shootings are probably also top of mind for folks as well. How does OUSD respond to that criticism?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:44] \u003c/em>Yeah, so as part of the rule, OUSD says that students will be able to access their phones if there’s a genuine health or safety emergency or if a teacher or administrator or doctor authorizes it. So there are exceptions in emergencies. And also, administrators have said that the ban could actually help reduce misinformation spread during emergencies or even prevent conflict escalation that could be happening on social media or group messaging. So I think it could go, you know, a couple different ways. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>We’ll have more with KQED’s Katie DiBenedetti right after this break. By the way, if you appreciate the local deep dives that we bring you on the bay, consider becoming a KQED sustaining member. Sustaining members really are the backbone of what we do here at KQED. Just go to donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. And thank you so much. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:01] \u003c/em>I mean, the reaction seems a little mixed, but I just have to imagine it’s overall, maybe a good thing that kids don’t have access to their phones at schools, maybe. I mean do we know whether bands like these actually work? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:17] \u003c/em>The research is pretty new because a lot of these bans are just in the last couple of years. But one of the biggest studies that’s come out so far showed that schools that had these strict bans noticed a decrease in student phone use. But they haven’t seen all of the behavioral or academic results that they had kind of hoped for. So in some cases, suspensions actually went up in the immediate period after the ban. Test scores haven’t, you know, had a mark. Improvement. But again, these are still pretty new and teachers at least in Oakland seem pretty excited about it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:55] \u003c/em>Phones are engineered to take people’s attention and specifically young people’s intention. And so they really have no place in a focused classroom. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:04] \u003c/em>I talked to Gabriel Kahn, who teaches at Life Academy, and he said he and his colleagues have been really impressed. They’re noticing students are more attentive, they’re less distracted. One thing that he said that was funny to me is they’re using the bathroom a lot less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:21] \u003c/em>I would say bathroom use decreased in my classroom by 80%. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:26] \u003c/em>Because I guess that’s one of those places where teachers can’t be watching, so kids would often take their phone to the bathroom for a break. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:35] \u003c/em>We do a pretty good job of making sure kids aren’t on their phones in the room, but when they go to the bathroom, it’s an unmonitored space, and if their phone isn’t put away in a yonder pouch, you can best believe that they’re on their phone when they take their bathroom break. I believe there’s a direct correlation between our instigating the yonderpouch policy and the massive decrease in bathroom use that we saw because there was no phone motivation to go to bathroom. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:04] \u003c/em>I feel like adults banning something doesn’t always mean that that thing fully goes away. There’s often ways that young people will find work around. Have we seen anything like that when it comes to this no phone policy at schools? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:19] \u003c/em>Yeah, that’s definitely something I was curious about, and it did not take me long to find how students are getting around these bands. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tik Tok: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:27] \u003c/em>Alright guys so I just got back from school and guess what they’re making us put our phones in these little pouches right here. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:36] \u003c/em>You know, I just did a quick TikTok search and found that kids are already sharing ways to open their pouches. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tik Tok: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:43] \u003c/em>So today, we’re gonna be making a tutorial so everybody can have their phone at school. Everybody and their mom’s gonna have their phones, all right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:51] \u003c/em>One of them involves sticking two pencils on the sides of the magnet and like banging the pouch against something hard. And that has like a million views. So kids are learning pretty quickly how to get around these rules. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:06] \u003c/em>The irony of that also, of them recording themselves doing this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:13] \u003c/em>How does this compare to your experience with your phone in high school? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:17] \u003c/em>There were really no restrictions on it. Our school blocked like certain apps, but even then we knew how to get around that, VPN apps, whatever. So I think it’s a familiar sight to see. Yeah, totally. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:31] \u003c/em>Well, Katie, the school year is I guess just starting and we’ll have to kind of see how this goes, but what big questions are you thinking about around these bands going forward? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:42] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, I’m definitely interested to see, you know, how many kids are able to kind of get around the bands. But I’m also excited to see after a couple years, if there is any effect on test scores on how much students are learning and mental health. I think that would be really interesting to see if it really is better for kids not to be staring down at their screens during lunch. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:07] \u003c/em>Yeah and I don’t know, maybe one day our classrooms will go back to like pen and paper? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:13] \u003c/em>We have the option, we have all the tools to do that, so we’ll see. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:20] \u003c/em>Well, Katie, thank you so much for chatting with me about this. Appreciate it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:24] \u003c/em>Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12094226/ousd-cellphone-ban-for-students-takes-effect-on-the-first-day-of-the-school-year\">OUSD Cellphone Ban for Students Takes Effect on the First Day of the School Year\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This transcript is computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:00] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz-Gavarra and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. I remember about a year ago, I walked into a high school classroom and I was so shocked to find students with AirPods in, phones out on the desks, like so explicitly out. High school me could have never imagined that becoming the norm. But now, phone-free policies at schools have made a comeback. Oakland Unified has banned phones in schools across all grade levels. And districts across the state are banning or limiting phones as well. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:00] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz-Gavarra and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. I remember about a year ago, I walked into a high school classroom and I was so shocked to find students with AirPods in, phones out on the desks, like so explicitly out. High school me could have never imagined that becoming the norm. But now, phone-free policies at schools have made a comeback. Oakland Unified has banned phones in schools across all grade levels. And districts across the state are banning or limiting phones as well. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:44] \u003c/em>Although it’s not a silver bullet, I think it is like a necessary condition for a focused classroom that phones are not stealing young people’s attention. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:44] \u003c/em>Although it’s not a silver bullet, I think it is like a necessary condition for a focused classroom that phones are not stealing young people’s attention. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:54] \u003c/em>Today, California’s push towards phone-free schools and what that looks like in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:54] \u003c/em>Today, California’s push towards phone-free schools and what that looks like in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:08] \u003c/em>So Katie, it’s the first week of school for Oakland Unified School District students and they came to school with a brand new cell phone policy. Oh, what is it exactly? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:08] \u003c/em>So Katie, it’s the first week of school for Oakland Unified School District students and they came to school with a brand new cell phone policy. Oh, what is it exactly? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:20] \u003c/em>When kids walked into school on Monday, one of the first things that will now be part of every morning is putting their phones away for the whole day. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:20] \u003c/em>When kids walked into school on Monday, one of the first things that will now be part of every morning is putting their phones away for the whole day. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:30] \u003c/em>Katie DeBenedetti is a reporter for KQED. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:34] \u003c/em>That varies by school site, but in most elementary schools, they’ll have a lock box at the front of their classroom, and they’ll to put their phones in it for the day. And then in middle schools and high schools, they are going to be issued these pouches called Yondr pouches. They’re like canvas bags with a magnet at the top that locks during the day, their first period teacher, at least last year during the pilot phase was the person that kind of went around and made sure everyone. Had their pouch closed with their phone in it at the beginning of the day. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:34] \u003c/em>That varies by school site, but in most elementary schools, they’ll have a lock box at the front of their classroom, and they’ll to put their phones in it for the day. And then in middle schools and high schools, they are going to be issued these pouches called Yondr pouches. They’re like canvas bags with a magnet at the top that locks during the day, their first period teacher, at least last year during the pilot phase was the person that kind of went around and made sure everyone. Had their pouch closed with their phone in it at the beginning of the day. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:08] \u003c/em>This is something that is happening at other Bay Area schools in a bunch of different ways as well. Why is this happening? Why are we seeing this sort of wave of no phone policy that schools happening across California? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:08] \u003c/em>This is something that is happening at other Bay Area schools in a bunch of different ways as well. Why is this happening? Why are we seeing this sort of wave of no phone policy that schools happening across California? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:21] \u003c/em>In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone Free School Act, which basically requires all school districts to restrict or prohibit cell phone use, and that went into effect this July. The reasoning behind that was there was research showing that less phones was better for learning, better for attention, and also for kids’ mental health. So… OUSD’s ban is on the stricter side. They’re gonna be a bell-to-bell ban for all students, but you’re right, a lot of Bay Area districts are adopting similar policies. The San Mateo Foster City School District has been using yonder pouches for a couple years, actually, and a couple of high schools on the peninsula have as well. Up in Marin and Tamm Unified School District, they’re introducing a very similar lockable box that are individual for students. And then there are a lot of other districts that don’t have these full bans. So San Francisco actually voted to kind of keep their existing cell phone policy, which is just that mobile communication devices have to be turned off, have to put away during instructional time and passing periods. A lot of Bay Area districts have also put in place these like similar less restrictive rules, though they vary. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:21] \u003c/em>In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone Free School Act, which basically requires all school districts to restrict or prohibit cell phone use, and that went into effect this July. The reasoning behind that was there was research showing that less phones was better for learning, better for attention, and also for kids’ mental health. So… OUSD’s ban is on the stricter side. They’re gonna be a bell-to-bell ban for all students, but you’re right, a lot of Bay Area districts are adopting similar policies. The San Mateo Foster City School District has been using yonder pouches for a couple years, actually, and a couple of high schools on the peninsula have as well. Up in Marin and Tamm Unified School District, they’re introducing a very similar lockable box that are individual for students. And then there are a lot of other districts that don’t have these full bans. So San Francisco actually voted to kind of keep their existing cell phone policy, which is just that mobile communication devices have to be turned off, have to put away during instructional time and passing periods. A lot of Bay Area districts have also put in place these like similar less restrictive rules, though they vary. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>And you mentioned OUSD has one of the more stricter phone policies. What was their rationale behind this specific cell phone band that they went for with these Yondr pouches? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>And you mentioned OUSD has one of the more stricter phone policies. What was their rationale behind this specific cell phone band that they went for with these Yondr pouches? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:52] \u003c/em>Yeah, so when administrators were explaining why, you know, full ban versus partial van, they said it’s first of all just for consistency. You know, it’s a little bit easier for kids to understand.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:52] \u003c/em>Yeah, so when administrators were explaining why, you know, full ban versus partial van, they said it’s first of all just for consistency. You know, it’s a little bit easier for kids to understand.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:03] \u003c/em>We want our students to be focused on learning in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:03] \u003c/em>We want our students to be focused on learning in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:08] \u003c/em>Here’s what Superintendent Denise Saddler had to say about the phone policy. That was a clip from ABC 7. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:08] \u003c/em>Here’s what Superintendent Denise Saddler had to say about the phone policy. That was a clip from ABC 7. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:15] \u003c/em>We also see this policy as a way to deal with some of the social media issues that come up, particularly in middle and high school, quite frankly, you know, bullying and some of the issues that have caused challenges for our students. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:15] \u003c/em>We also see this policy as a way to deal with some of the social media issues that come up, particularly in middle and high school, quite frankly, you know, bullying and some of the issues that have caused challenges for our students. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:30] \u003c/em>Also, it kind of keeps people interacting during passing periods, during lunch, connecting face-to-face throughout the school day, and it eliminates distractions. Even if you see a text while you’re heading to class or at the lunch table, you might be still thinking about it when you’re in class wondering, am I gonna be able to respond again? But if you just wait until after school to see it to begin with, it’s supposed to be less distracting. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:30] \u003c/em>Also, it kind of keeps people interacting during passing periods, during lunch, connecting face-to-face throughout the school day, and it eliminates distractions. Even if you see a text while you’re heading to class or at the lunch table, you might be still thinking about it when you’re in class wondering, am I gonna be able to respond again? But if you just wait until after school to see it to begin with, it’s supposed to be less distracting. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:56] \u003c/em>What has the reaction been from students and parents at OUSD so far? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:56] \u003c/em>What has the reaction been from students and parents at OUSD so far? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:01] \u003c/em>I think it’s been somewhat mixed. I think, you know, parents on the first day of school kind of told us that they’re happy that their kids will hopefully be less distracted. What are your thoughts on this new no cell phone policy? One parent, Chris Connolly, spoke with our colleague Farida Jabvala-Romero on the first day at school. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:01] \u003c/em>I think it’s been somewhat mixed. I think, you know, parents on the first day of school kind of told us that they’re happy that their kids will hopefully be less distracted. What are your thoughts on this new no cell phone policy? One parent, Chris Connolly, spoke with our colleague Farida Jabvala-Romero on the first day at school. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Connolly: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:21] \u003c/em>Personally, I am quite happy about it. I think it will be great for the kids, especially the high schoolers, who can easily be distracted by phones all day. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Connolly: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:21] \u003c/em>Personally, I am quite happy about it. I think it will be great for the kids, especially the high schoolers, who can easily be distracted by phones all day. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:33] \u003c/em>Some of them did have some safety concerns and that was really echoed by a student I talked to, Blake Rodgers. She’s an Oakland Tech senior. I do understand. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:33] \u003c/em>Some of them did have some safety concerns and that was really echoed by a student I talked to, Blake Rodgers. She’s an Oakland Tech senior. I do understand. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:43] \u003c/em>I understand that phones create distractions in classrooms, but I do think that the safety issues that have been like pretty prevalent recently outweigh that goal. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:43] \u003c/em>I understand that phones create distractions in classrooms, but I do think that the safety issues that have been like pretty prevalent recently outweigh that goal. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:58] \u003c/em>She went to Skyline High School last year where there was a shooting on campus in the fall and she says it’s scary to think about not having access to her phone if something like that happens again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:58] \u003c/em>She went to Skyline High School last year where there was a shooting on campus in the fall and she says it’s scary to think about not having access to her phone if something like that happens again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:10] \u003c/em>Its really hard to get in contact with people, even with your phone, because we’re not always sure what’s going on without a phone. I think people will be completely left in the dark and that is a scary thing to be in. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:10] \u003c/em>Its really hard to get in contact with people, even with your phone, because we’re not always sure what’s going on without a phone. I think people will be completely left in the dark and that is a scary thing to be in. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:25] \u003c/em>That is kind of interesting and also a little chilling that sort of the main concern that you’re hearing against these bands is this idea of safety. And I have to imagine like school shootings are probably also top of mind for folks as well. How does OUSD respond to that criticism?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:25] \u003c/em>That is kind of interesting and also a little chilling that sort of the main concern that you’re hearing against these bands is this idea of safety. And I have to imagine like school shootings are probably also top of mind for folks as well. How does OUSD respond to that criticism?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:44] \u003c/em>Yeah, so as part of the rule, OUSD says that students will be able to access their phones if there’s a genuine health or safety emergency or if a teacher or administrator or doctor authorizes it. So there are exceptions in emergencies. And also, administrators have said that the ban could actually help reduce misinformation spread during emergencies or even prevent conflict escalation that could be happening on social media or group messaging. So I think it could go, you know, a couple different ways. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:44] \u003c/em>Yeah, so as part of the rule, OUSD says that students will be able to access their phones if there’s a genuine health or safety emergency or if a teacher or administrator or doctor authorizes it. So there are exceptions in emergencies. And also, administrators have said that the ban could actually help reduce misinformation spread during emergencies or even prevent conflict escalation that could be happening on social media or group messaging. So I think it could go, you know, a couple different ways. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>We’ll have more with KQED’s Katie DiBenedetti right after this break. By the way, if you appreciate the local deep dives that we bring you on the bay, consider becoming a KQED sustaining member. Sustaining members really are the backbone of what we do here at KQED. Just go to donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. And thank you so much. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>We’ll have more with KQED’s Katie DiBenedetti right after this break. By the way, if you appreciate the local deep dives that we bring you on the bay, consider becoming a KQED sustaining member. Sustaining members really are the backbone of what we do here at KQED. Just go to donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. And thank you so much. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:01] \u003c/em>I mean, the reaction seems a little mixed, but I just have to imagine it’s overall, maybe a good thing that kids don’t have access to their phones at schools, maybe. I mean do we know whether bands like these actually work? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:01] \u003c/em>I mean, the reaction seems a little mixed, but I just have to imagine it’s overall, maybe a good thing that kids don’t have access to their phones at schools, maybe. I mean do we know whether bands like these actually work? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:17] \u003c/em>The research is pretty new because a lot of these bans are just in the last couple of years. But one of the biggest studies that’s come out so far showed that schools that had these strict bans noticed a decrease in student phone use. But they haven’t seen all of the behavioral or academic results that they had kind of hoped for. So in some cases, suspensions actually went up in the immediate period after the ban. Test scores haven’t, you know, had a mark. Improvement. But again, these are still pretty new and teachers at least in Oakland seem pretty excited about it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:17] \u003c/em>The research is pretty new because a lot of these bans are just in the last couple of years. But one of the biggest studies that’s come out so far showed that schools that had these strict bans noticed a decrease in student phone use. But they haven’t seen all of the behavioral or academic results that they had kind of hoped for. So in some cases, suspensions actually went up in the immediate period after the ban. Test scores haven’t, you know, had a mark. Improvement. But again, these are still pretty new and teachers at least in Oakland seem pretty excited about it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:55] \u003c/em>Phones are engineered to take people’s attention and specifically young people’s intention. And so they really have no place in a focused classroom. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:04] \u003c/em>I talked to Gabriel Kahn, who teaches at Life Academy, and he said he and his colleagues have been really impressed. They’re noticing students are more attentive, they’re less distracted. One thing that he said that was funny to me is they’re using the bathroom a lot less.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:21] \u003c/em>I would say bathroom use decreased in my classroom by 80%. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:26] \u003c/em>Because I guess that’s one of those places where teachers can’t be watching, so kids would often take their phone to the bathroom for a break. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:35] \u003c/em>We do a pretty good job of making sure kids aren’t on their phones in the room, but when they go to the bathroom, it’s an unmonitored space, and if their phone isn’t put away in a yonder pouch, you can best believe that they’re on their phone when they take their bathroom break. I believe there’s a direct correlation between our instigating the yonderpouch policy and the massive decrease in bathroom use that we saw because there was no phone motivation to go to bathroom. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:04] \u003c/em>I feel like adults banning something doesn’t always mean that that thing fully goes away. There’s often ways that young people will find work around. Have we seen anything like that when it comes to this no phone policy at schools? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tik Tok: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:27] \u003c/em>Alright guys so I just got back from school and guess what they’re making us put our phones in these little pouches right here. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tik Tok: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:43] \u003c/em>So today, we’re gonna be making a tutorial so everybody can have their phone at school. Everybody and their mom’s gonna have their phones, all right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:06] \u003c/em>The irony of that also, of them recording themselves doing this. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:17] \u003c/em>There were really no restrictions on it. Our school blocked like certain apps, but even then we knew how to get around that, VPN apps, whatever. So I think it’s a familiar sight to see. Yeah, totally. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:31] \u003c/em>Well, Katie, the school year is I guess just starting and we’ll have to kind of see how this goes, but what big questions are you thinking about around these bands going forward? \u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Class is back in session at OUSD schools this week, with one notable change: A strict phone-free policy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>KQED’s Katie DeBenedetti explains how a statewide mandate has pushed districts across the Bay to pass their own policies banning or restricting phones, and how it’s playing out in Oakland. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8565102522\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12094226/ousd-cellphone-ban-for-students-takes-effect-on-the-first-day-of-the-school-year\">OUSD Cellphone Ban for Students Takes Effect on the First Day of the School Year\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Episode transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This transcript is computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:00] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz-Gavarra and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. I remember about a year ago, I walked into a high school classroom and I was so shocked to find students with AirPods in, phones out on the desks, like so explicitly out. High school me could have never imagined that becoming the norm. But now, phone-free policies at schools have made a comeback. Oakland Unified has banned phones in schools across all grade levels. And districts across the state are banning or limiting phones as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:44] \u003c/em>Although it’s not a silver bullet, I think it is like a necessary condition for a focused classroom that phones are not stealing young people’s attention. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:54] \u003c/em>Today, California’s push towards phone-free schools and what that looks like in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:08] \u003c/em>So Katie, it’s the first week of school for Oakland Unified School District students and they came to school with a brand new cell phone policy. Oh, what is it exactly? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:20] \u003c/em>When kids walked into school on Monday, one of the first things that will now be part of every morning is putting their phones away for the whole day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:30] \u003c/em>Katie DeBenedetti is a reporter for KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:34] \u003c/em>That varies by school site, but in most elementary schools, they’ll have a lock box at the front of their classroom, and they’ll to put their phones in it for the day. And then in middle schools and high schools, they are going to be issued these pouches called Yondr pouches. They’re like canvas bags with a magnet at the top that locks during the day, their first period teacher, at least last year during the pilot phase was the person that kind of went around and made sure everyone. Had their pouch closed with their phone in it at the beginning of the day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:08] \u003c/em>This is something that is happening at other Bay Area schools in a bunch of different ways as well. Why is this happening? Why are we seeing this sort of wave of no phone policy that schools happening across California? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:21] \u003c/em>In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone Free School Act, which basically requires all school districts to restrict or prohibit cell phone use, and that went into effect this July. The reasoning behind that was there was research showing that less phones was better for learning, better for attention, and also for kids’ mental health. So… OUSD’s ban is on the stricter side. They’re gonna be a bell-to-bell ban for all students, but you’re right, a lot of Bay Area districts are adopting similar policies. The San Mateo Foster City School District has been using yonder pouches for a couple years, actually, and a couple of high schools on the peninsula have as well. Up in Marin and Tamm Unified School District, they’re introducing a very similar lockable box that are individual for students. And then there are a lot of other districts that don’t have these full bans. So San Francisco actually voted to kind of keep their existing cell phone policy, which is just that mobile communication devices have to be turned off, have to put away during instructional time and passing periods. A lot of Bay Area districts have also put in place these like similar less restrictive rules, though they vary. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>And you mentioned OUSD has one of the more stricter phone policies. What was their rationale behind this specific cell phone band that they went for with these Yondr pouches? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:52] \u003c/em>Yeah, so when administrators were explaining why, you know, full ban versus partial van, they said it’s first of all just for consistency. You know, it’s a little bit easier for kids to understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:03] \u003c/em>We want our students to be focused on learning in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:08] \u003c/em>Here’s what Superintendent Denise Saddler had to say about the phone policy. That was a clip from ABC 7. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Denise Saddler: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:15] \u003c/em>We also see this policy as a way to deal with some of the social media issues that come up, particularly in middle and high school, quite frankly, you know, bullying and some of the issues that have caused challenges for our students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:30] \u003c/em>Also, it kind of keeps people interacting during passing periods, during lunch, connecting face-to-face throughout the school day, and it eliminates distractions. Even if you see a text while you’re heading to class or at the lunch table, you might be still thinking about it when you’re in class wondering, am I gonna be able to respond again? But if you just wait until after school to see it to begin with, it’s supposed to be less distracting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:04:56] \u003c/em>What has the reaction been from students and parents at OUSD so far? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:01] \u003c/em>I think it’s been somewhat mixed. I think, you know, parents on the first day of school kind of told us that they’re happy that their kids will hopefully be less distracted. What are your thoughts on this new no cell phone policy? One parent, Chris Connolly, spoke with our colleague Farida Jabvala-Romero on the first day at school. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Connolly: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:21] \u003c/em>Personally, I am quite happy about it. I think it will be great for the kids, especially the high schoolers, who can easily be distracted by phones all day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:33] \u003c/em>Some of them did have some safety concerns and that was really echoed by a student I talked to, Blake Rodgers. She’s an Oakland Tech senior. I do understand. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:43] \u003c/em>I understand that phones create distractions in classrooms, but I do think that the safety issues that have been like pretty prevalent recently outweigh that goal. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:58] \u003c/em>She went to Skyline High School last year where there was a shooting on campus in the fall and she says it’s scary to think about not having access to her phone if something like that happens again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Rodgers: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:10] \u003c/em>Its really hard to get in contact with people, even with your phone, because we’re not always sure what’s going on without a phone. I think people will be completely left in the dark and that is a scary thing to be in. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:25] \u003c/em>That is kind of interesting and also a little chilling that sort of the main concern that you’re hearing against these bands is this idea of safety. And I have to imagine like school shootings are probably also top of mind for folks as well. How does OUSD respond to that criticism?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:44] \u003c/em>Yeah, so as part of the rule, OUSD says that students will be able to access their phones if there’s a genuine health or safety emergency or if a teacher or administrator or doctor authorizes it. So there are exceptions in emergencies. And also, administrators have said that the ban could actually help reduce misinformation spread during emergencies or even prevent conflict escalation that could be happening on social media or group messaging. So I think it could go, you know, a couple different ways. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>We’ll have more with KQED’s Katie DiBenedetti right after this break. By the way, if you appreciate the local deep dives that we bring you on the bay, consider becoming a KQED sustaining member. Sustaining members really are the backbone of what we do here at KQED. Just go to donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. And thank you so much. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:01] \u003c/em>I mean, the reaction seems a little mixed, but I just have to imagine it’s overall, maybe a good thing that kids don’t have access to their phones at schools, maybe. I mean do we know whether bands like these actually work? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:17] \u003c/em>The research is pretty new because a lot of these bans are just in the last couple of years. But one of the biggest studies that’s come out so far showed that schools that had these strict bans noticed a decrease in student phone use. But they haven’t seen all of the behavioral or academic results that they had kind of hoped for. So in some cases, suspensions actually went up in the immediate period after the ban. Test scores haven’t, you know, had a mark. Improvement. But again, these are still pretty new and teachers at least in Oakland seem pretty excited about it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:55] \u003c/em>Phones are engineered to take people’s attention and specifically young people’s intention. And so they really have no place in a focused classroom. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:04] \u003c/em>I talked to Gabriel Kahn, who teaches at Life Academy, and he said he and his colleagues have been really impressed. They’re noticing students are more attentive, they’re less distracted. One thing that he said that was funny to me is they’re using the bathroom a lot less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:21] \u003c/em>I would say bathroom use decreased in my classroom by 80%. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:26] \u003c/em>Because I guess that’s one of those places where teachers can’t be watching, so kids would often take their phone to the bathroom for a break. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Khan: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:35] \u003c/em>We do a pretty good job of making sure kids aren’t on their phones in the room, but when they go to the bathroom, it’s an unmonitored space, and if their phone isn’t put away in a yonder pouch, you can best believe that they’re on their phone when they take their bathroom break. I believe there’s a direct correlation between our instigating the yonderpouch policy and the massive decrease in bathroom use that we saw because there was no phone motivation to go to bathroom. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:04] \u003c/em>I feel like adults banning something doesn’t always mean that that thing fully goes away. There’s often ways that young people will find work around. Have we seen anything like that when it comes to this no phone policy at schools? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:19] \u003c/em>Yeah, that’s definitely something I was curious about, and it did not take me long to find how students are getting around these bands. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tik Tok: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:27] \u003c/em>Alright guys so I just got back from school and guess what they’re making us put our phones in these little pouches right here. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:36] \u003c/em>You know, I just did a quick TikTok search and found that kids are already sharing ways to open their pouches. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tik Tok: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:43] \u003c/em>So today, we’re gonna be making a tutorial so everybody can have their phone at school. Everybody and their mom’s gonna have their phones, all right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:51] \u003c/em>One of them involves sticking two pencils on the sides of the magnet and like banging the pouch against something hard. And that has like a million views. So kids are learning pretty quickly how to get around these rules. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:06] \u003c/em>The irony of that also, of them recording themselves doing this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:13] \u003c/em>How does this compare to your experience with your phone in high school? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:17] \u003c/em>There were really no restrictions on it. Our school blocked like certain apps, but even then we knew how to get around that, VPN apps, whatever. So I think it’s a familiar sight to see. Yeah, totally. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:31] \u003c/em>Well, Katie, the school year is I guess just starting and we’ll have to kind of see how this goes, but what big questions are you thinking about around these bands going forward? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:42] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, I’m definitely interested to see, you know, how many kids are able to kind of get around the bands. But I’m also excited to see after a couple years, if there is any effect on test scores on how much students are learning and mental health. I think that would be really interesting to see if it really is better for kids not to be staring down at their screens during lunch. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:07] \u003c/em>Yeah and I don’t know, maybe one day our classrooms will go back to like pen and paper? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:13] \u003c/em>We have the option, we have all the tools to do that, so we’ll see. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:20] \u003c/em>Well, Katie, thank you so much for chatting with me about this. Appreciate it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katie DeBenedetti: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:24] \u003c/em>Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://transcript\">View full episode \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As AI tools spread through classrooms, many educators see a “cheating factory.” Kellogg Professor \u003ca href=\"https://sebastienmartin.info/\">\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> 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.)\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Further Reading: \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-is-teaching-the-next-generation-of-m-b-a-s-the-classic-case-study-a4eb4227\">AI Is Teaching the Next Generation of M.B.A.s the Classic Case Study\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show that explores how to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. By now, I’m sure you’re aware education has been hit hard by AI. It’s not exactly a secret why. You remember being a student. Maybe you are still a student. You work, you learn, you get your grade, your degree, and then you leave school better prepared for life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or at least that was the deal. Today’s students essentially have the world’s greatest cheating machine right at their fingertips, and that part about needing to learn to prepare for life, says who? If AI can do it, will you ever even need to? So maybe it’s no surprise that students are some of the heaviest adopters of AI, a trend that AI companies are very happy to facilitate, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this puts educators in a tough place. I want to be upfront about this. Education is changing in ways we still don’t understand, and educators in universities, high schools, middle schools, are on the front lines. Many are not happy about AI. They didn’t ask for it, and they have real concerns that it will harm their students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Next episode, we’ll go deep into the challenges they face. But today, something different. Today, we’ll be talking to someone who looks at generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, and sees mostly opportunities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sébastien Martin is a colleague of mine here at Kellogg, an associate professor of operations. He studies AI, he teaches MBA students about AI, and in his operations management classroom, he’s replaced a lot of pen and paper-based activities with AI-powered simulations. In these simulations, rather than AI making it easier for students to finish whatever assignment is on hand, it slows them down, makes them work even harder.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I got to experience this firsthand. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I feel like maybe you’re not doing your part. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Oh, she’s not happy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s a job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sébastien believes that AI has already made him not just a better instructor, but a happier, more creative, more inspired one, and his students agree.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Kellogg’s graduating class chose him as the winner of the 2026 David Bisenko Outstanding Professor of the Year Award. I’ve come to see Sébastien as a virtuoso of a strange new art form. And amidst the big, even existential challenges facing education, I think it’s important to tell these kinds of stories, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a project from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My conversation with Sébastien began with him telling me how, as soon as ChatGPT came on the scene, he got busy experimenting, trying to see if it could help him improve his operations management class. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> In a way, you know, when you have 140 students at the same time, for example, or even more, 200, it’s hard to have individualized conversations with everyone with my time, and I only have this time where it’s me with all the students at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if they all talk to an AI that personalize the conversation to their own background, I can task the AI to connect the class content with their background. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The idea is that a student could feed their CV into an AI chatbot that had been trained on Sébastien’s course materials, and the AI would ask some probing questions, ultimately connecting the dots between a student’s individual work experience and interests and what the course would cover.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this was kind of, was it to just get the student excited about the class? Was that kind of the point of this exercise? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So the point was for them to know even before they take it why we think it’s good for them to be there. Which changes everything because if you have the attention of people as you even just get started, then communication just flows a little bit better. And if you think about it, there’s no way for me to do this without AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien was such an early adopter of the technology that he was using it before most of his students to solve problems that had nothing to do with AI at all. But it didn’t take too long for AI to start causing problems, too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know, AI came like a wrecking ball. And, you know, like, what’s even the meaning of a take-home exam anymore? You know, you can trust the students not to use ChatGPT, but we are at the point where you can just take a screenshot of the exam on your phone and get A+ for everything technical. And so it’s just unfair to ask the students to do it this way. And because, like, how do you even grade it, because some students would respect the rule and maybe a few will run out of time and ask the help of AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>It’s been well over three years since Sébastien started experimenting with AI in his classroom. And these days, nearly everything about his course looks pretty different. Some of these changes have been spurred by AI making it really, really easy for students to cheat. But Sébastien says that other changes are more about problems with the old ways of doing things. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Think about our old ways to evaluate, right? I have students coming from so many different backgrounds that care about so many different things, and I have to have one exam that’s graded by people that don’t necessarily understand their background. And so what does it push us to do? It pushes us to standardization, to always asking, like, very abstract questions about things, or to focus on math instead of, like, deeper understanding about the world, because these can be evaluated more easily. I love math, but it becomes just an exercise in itself, like, almost like a Sudoku. At the end of the day, the exam is just asking them to manipulate numbers because this is what I can evaluate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So let’s get concrete here. With simple problem sets basically out the window, what does Sébastien’s class look like today? Well, for homework, Sébastien might require his students to converse with an AI tutor for maybe 30 minutes, walking through concepts and connecting them to their own experiences. That tutor might be trained in the Socratic method so that rather than giving answers like a standard chatbot, it pushes students to do the thinking themselves. Then, instead of turning in answers, students would upload a log of their chat to be graded pass or fail. Or maybe the tutoring goes the other way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> The homework I just gave, like, a few weeks ago is the, student has to teach the AI what they learn in the last class. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Ah, interesting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You see that we say learning by teaching is, like, one of the best ways to learn. And as a professor, I can say that’s very true because I created a new class on AI and I learned a lot just by teaching it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Of course, this technology is changing fast, and there’s really nothing stopping students from building their own AI agent or autonomous AI tool to interact with Sébastien’s AI, and turning in a log of that conversation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>That’s one of the main obstacles our instructors want to get into AI, because it just feels it’s constantly evolving, and whatever I do now, I fix a problem, another problem will appear later. So it’s a very, very real concern.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and this is hard because I’ve done, you know, way back in the day I taught some classes myself, and the first time you teach something, it can be kind of a train wreck, right? And then you kinda get better over time, and you learn what works. So how do you as a professor or a teacher keep up?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> I would turn the question around, and this is why I try to put my students in the loop as much as possible. It’s like, “Here’s the deal,” like, “What is good for you?” You know? “Why are we doing this homework? Why are we doing all of that?” The goal is not just to go for the grade. That would be the mistake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, the goal is at the end of the day, you know, you learn something. And, you know, if AI is becoming more and more of a commodity that can do anything for us, our deep expertise and our personal thoughts and what makes us unique has even more value, because that’s what differentiates all of it, rather than the things that AI can just automate, you know?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think at the end of the day, the answer to this question is also, it’s not only on the professor’s side, it’s also on the students. Like, why are you at Kellogg? What do you wanna get out of all of this? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Some of the changes that Sébastien has made to his class, they aren’t planned. He’ll be in the middle of teaching, he’ll get an idea for how to make something better, and just use AI to make it happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For example, just a week before our interview, his students were in small breakout groups using class time to discuss a case study, that staple of business school education. The time was flying by. Sure, the students were having wonderful discussions in their small groups, but Sébastien was getting frustrated, realizing there would not be enough time for the entire class to reflect on the ideas that the individual groups had generated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So while the students were still in their breakout groups, Sébastien explained the dilemma to Claude Code, a popular AI coding tool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so Claude Code was like, “No problem. Let’s do it,” and created something, and by the time students had sent their reply, we had a custom-made software, which was kind of like a constellation of ideas that popped up on the board, and we could see quotes from all the students and the ideas that they had in common and not in common, and this enabled a much deeper conversation because I was able to share all this information instead of just, like, talking to, you know, like, three, four students that were willing to share their ideas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, it’s just a small thing, but it’s changed the way I taught this class, and it did use AI, and at the end of the day, it’s just about your creativity. Like, it’s a tool that is so powerful that, you know, sometimes, you know, as an instructor, you go, “Oh, it’d be so good to have this,” and then you just use it, and it creates a much better experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you see here in that case, it increased the communications between humans. Like, of course, AI can sometimes take away from what we do, but in that case, I think it added to what we do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Now, there are tools already on the market that can do this kind of thing. But what was unique was that Sébastien was able to create them on the fly, in that moment for that class. And the best example of how AI has changed Sébastien’s course has to do with the experience of reading the case itself. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So we turned it into, instead of me giving them a PDF, I tell them that they can interview, “People” from the company and ask any question they want. And I give them access to the CEO, to the CFO, to, like, a frontline worker, to anyone, and then they have to understand the company deeply, kind of like consulting. You interview people, and you understand their relationship, and they all have very different point of views, and some of them don’t even wanna talk to you, and so on. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Well, and “people” are, of course, chatbots with, like, personalities and information that you’ve given them. This is the activity that has gotten Sébastien the most attention, including a big write-up in The Wall Street Journal. I wanted to try it, and Sébastien was kind enough to mentor me through his simulation. We pull it up on his desktop. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, so I am a consultant at Proxima Health Systems?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you’re an AI expert, and they called you because they wanna have a big AI project, and they want it to be successful. And your point of contact is Maya Chen. She’s the leader of this After Visit AI program. Like, she has an AI agent she wants you to build. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and so I can just start talking to her and say, like, “Hey.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, she’s just waiting for you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There’s a whole bunch of little avatars representing different people at the company, and I can pick one to have a text chat with. I see the avatar for Maya, my point of contact, and I begin to type. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘\u003c/strong>Hi there. I’d love some clarification on what you want me to accomplish.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maya tells me that I, the AI expert consultant, will be building her company an AI tool that helps automate the after-visit forms that sales reps fill out after they visit their customers’ hospitals. And after a bit of back and forth with Maya about some of the players involved, including Marcus, a sales manager, and a bit of help from Sébastien, I start to get a sense of the nitty-gritty details involved in my assignment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so for this, we have a CRM system, a customer relationship management system, which is like this big database where rep have to enter information. But they hate it. It has to be formatted, made in a very specific way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ah, I hate it already. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>They spend hours every week. And then so this is why, like, there is this sort of tension because Marcus needs them to enter this information, but they’re like, “Yeah, it doesn’t represent what we see on the ground. Why do you want me to spend all my time on this instead of with the customer?” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay, got it. Maya, Marcus, and others in the company want to automate the after-visit forms that the salespeople fill out, apparently to make things easier on the sales team. But then I chat with a member of the sales team, Dana, and Dana doesn’t necessarily think AI will help. She thinks the whole customer relationship system is messed up. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘Dana makes a number of points. She says it’s like whiplash. She can spend 30 minutes in a unit with a nurse manager who’s stressed out of her mind. She catches the real issue. They come to a conclusion, and then she’s supposed to translate that into 12 little CRM boxes that don’t fit how hospitals actually talk, and then the managers wonder why the notes are vague.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Dana is a little suspicious of \u003cem>me\u003c/em>, the AI consultant. Here’s how she puts it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“What exactly are you trying to solve? Time, accuracy, or the manager chasing us for missing fields?”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Ooh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You’re in the middle of it right now. I am in the middle of it. It’s hard to help her without more information, understanding everything.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I decide to try to get Dana in line with some tough talk. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘All right, Dana. I hear what you’re saying, but you do realize that you are part of this big organization that has a lot of really important goals? I feel like maybe you’re not doing your part.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Oh, she’s not happy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s the job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>How dare you question that I’m doing my job? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Thanks, Dana. I appreciate the straight talk. I love straight talk. What would you like to see?’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And now I’m really starting to understand this scenario. It’s not just about coming up with some kind of AI-powered solution to data collection. It’s about understanding the social dynamics in the company. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>‘Cause she’s very afraid. She says, “Not cutting heads.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Not cutting heads. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>She’s really afraid that you’re coming with AI trying to take over her job. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, yeah. That’s a good point. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know? Because we’re automating a part of the job that she and her teams do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Once I understand that there’s anxiety in this company about AI taking jobs, and that this anxiety is driving so many problems, I start having more productive chats with the different characters, and we start making progress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is what Sebastien says this kind of AI-driven exercise is designed to explore. How to keep asking questions until you understand what’s actually going on, the problems behind the problem, the stuff that only rarely ends up on any official brief. I think there is a risk in education where I’m like, “This is the truth.” This is the answer to this problem.” And, you know, like, for example, if you go on Instagram and you have your newsfeed, you’re not asking for the next thing you wanna see. We’re just so used to just information being provided to us and not to have to think. And then you get into the middle of this and you have a “real person” you talk to, you actually need to decide what’s your next step.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But this is actually where all the thinking happens, right? You’re like, you need to be aware of what you understand and what you don’t understand. You need to, like, plan ahead. You need to also manage your relationship with them. And I think this is where I think the most. Actually, it’s what I feel like it’s the most important thing to think about, in life, you know, in general.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think we don’t have many tools that are not meant to just, like, provide us with the answer, but are meant for us to ask the right question and for us to learn more. And I think AI is a wonderful tool for that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Here, the AI tool isn’t being used to make things easier on students. It’s not making it faster to read the case or offering up a streamlined summary. It’s slowing students down, making them think more. Or that’s the idea. So are his students learning more using this AI-powered simulation than they would’ve the old way, discussing PDFs or writing short essays? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>It’s hard to answer this question for sure. You can only capture it with exams and stuff like that. But AI cases, in the context of this class, were not something that was graded. They were something meant for conversations in the classroom. So then the second best I can give you is I had the most fun I’ve ever had teaching a case. Like, the participation of the students was through the roof.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They had so many ideas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien acknowledges that it’s hard to know for sure. Just because students enjoy an activity, recognize it with a teaching award, doesn’t always mean that they’re learning more. But the students tell him they’re learning more because the scenarios feel real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>The students say that it was very useful to them, especially the students who came from consulting. They say it’s exactly the type of thing I had to be good at. It’s great to see it in the context of AI and so on. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>After the break, this strikes me as the dream scenario for AI in the classroom. But just how common is this dream scenario? Is it limited to the classrooms of super AI savvy teachers, or does Sébastien’s optimism extend to other classrooms, too?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I, like a lot of people, think about this technology as having the ability to both empower people and to disempower or overwhelm them. And it seems like for you, the primary experience has been one of empowerment. But I wanna point out, you are kind of a special case. You are somebody who studies AI, is very, very familiar with using algorithms, and was even before ChatGPT came on the scene, and you also teach highly motivated students at a top business school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this is not true of most educators. So my husband teaches high school at Chicago Public Schools, and he assures me that the general consensus among public high school teachers is not one of empowerment. I think a lot of schools are strapped for resources. They don’t always have the opportunity to train instructors in how to manage this technology, and a lot of them have just come to see this as a widespread cheating factory. And so I’m just kind of curious how you think about that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, first, thank you so much for asking this question. Something I think about a lot, and first it’s very important to highlight that I come from a place of privilege in so many dimensions, as you mentioned. And, you know, because I, so I speak more and more publicly, like right now, about this topic, and I’m always like, “What should you say?” Because, you know, as you saw in this conversation, I choose to highlight the positive because I know that people are very aware of the negative. And I think seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel can help. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it is true, you know, that I was lucky to start early and lucky to be in the position I was, and to iterate over time, and I made many, many mistakes. There are things that worked, things that didn’t work. I would say the message, and I really don’t wanna deny at all what public education is going through. I’ve worked a lot also with public education and I know how hard a job it can be, but also how rewarding. What I wanna say is give it a chance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, this technology, for good or bad reason, is most likely here to stay. And if you iterate a little bit with Claude, ChatGPT, whatever, you’ll quickly realize after you overcome this barrier of, you know, not resentment, but this barrier or, like, this technology is really making my job complicated, you quickly realize that it’s a neutral technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, it can do a lot of harm, but it can also allow you as an instructor to create new things and to solve some of the problems. And at first you start very small. You know, you have all of this, like, I forgot how you were saying, like, this cheating factory thing. But then you’re like, “Oh, I can maybe use it that way.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And actually that had a small positive impact. And it looks like a drop in the ocean. But then because you open this door, then curiosity gets in. What if I could do this? And what if I could do that? And all I can say, I know it’s a very minimal point, is there are good things. And yes, they take time, and they take trial and error, and all I can do is show examples. But I think there is value in just knowing that you can use this technology for good. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I am a parent. My kids are a little younger than the students we’ve been talking about, two elementary school-aged kids. And I personally do not want them using AI right now, partly because I think they already spend enough of their lives staring at screens. That is the perennial parenting battle of our age. But also because I want them to learn some really core skills about how to go through the world, and think about problems themselves before I provide them with the scaffolding that AI would provide. And so I wanna ask you, do you think there are some skills that people should have before they turn to AI to learn something?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, of course take everything that I’m about to say with a grain of salt, because I’m not an expert in that. You’re way more of an expert than me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>We’ll bring in some folks to rebut you point by point. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>But, you know, and also, I wanna highlight that we hear so much about AI these days. I think what’s super, super important to say is we don’t know. You know, like they say, wisdom is to know when you don’t know. Nobody knows where AI is going, okay? Like, but then it’s still good to talk about scenarios, and your analogy with the screens or the smartphone is a great one. You know, there has been a lot of debates, on not allowing screen times and, like, this leading to, children learning more to interact with the world and with each other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think it could be great to do this with AI. I mean, that sounds like a great strategy to me. Then, the one caveat I wanna say on this is one pet peeve that I have is I don’t think AI means anything. It’s kind of you saying humans or electricity. Like, is electricity good or bad? Should we forbid kids to access electricity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think there are ways to use AI that could be net positives and there are ways to use AI that could be a disaster. So when we say allow kids to access AI, often we think ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, like the basic thing you can ask all your questions. But for example, I was just talking to a parent and they were playing with their children to create their own song for a story that they invented.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And they used AI to like, put their lyrics that they co-created into a nice song and they were singing it together. Is it a bad use of AI or does it increase creativity? I heard another parent has ChatGPT to, you know, create like, these frames of drawing that you can draw into on things that were very personal. Like they just went on vacation somewhere and let’s actually draw what we went through. And you know you cannot buy a book that’s so personalized. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like a coloring book of their exact vacation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Exactly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, that’s, that is kind of cool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You see? Like another example and maybe more the fringe of what’s acceptable is there’s a lot of, there are ways to turn ChatGPT into something that don’t think for you. So the way AI works is there are hidden instructions, and AI follows these hidden instructions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>That’s right. If you didn’t know, most chatbots have some version of hidden instructions to guide their use; and as a user, you can change the default settings for these instructions, specify how the AI should respond to prompts, including how much information it should provide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>In the hidden instructions called a system message, you can ask the AI, “Look, you’re talking to a child. Here’s what we really want to avoid. We want them to feel for, to think for themselves. We want them to learn how to be independent. We don’t want them to learn how to rely on you instead of thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But maybe you can encourage their curiosity. And then you let the children talk to this version of ChatGPT, and the AI will just reply to their questions with other questions, and what do you think about this, and what do you think about that? Maybe it’s better than just staring at an iPad on YouTube, you know? Maybe it actually leads you to, to think a bit deeper. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>For the record, I will not be tasking ChatGPT to chat with my children anytime soon, even in appropriately Socratic only ask questions mode. But that coloring book idea, it’s actually kind of a good one, and I take his point. We really don’t know. We don’t know how helpful or harmful AI will ultimately be as an educational tool. Stepping back a bit though, I wanted to know what advice he would have for students, the people on the other end of the educational process. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, the first one, which is, you know, the one thing I want us to remember from this podcast is, like, stay hopeful. Because, you know, there are reasons to despair from time to time, and especially as humans, we are really not good at dealing with uncertainty. Like, second, staying hopeful and being aware that we tend to only see the downside instead of all the unexpected upside that can come later.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Everyone is in the same boat. Like, it feels like it’s me that doesn’t know what the next step to choose and so on, like what studies should I go for, how should I learn and so on. But it’s not only me, it’s the whole society that has to adapt at the same time. And I think that at least for me, it helps me feel a bit better about it, like, the idea that it’s not me that doesn’t know what to do next and it’s all of us together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s like we’re all collectively gonna go through this crazy period together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Exactly. And so the more we can, you know, like help each other and so on, the better it is. And, finally, what do you do? You have this huge uncertainty. I’m saying, okay, take it with a grain of salt with all the feedback you receive about what you think you should do and so on, and all of us together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think a flip side of that is, if you’re, it’s pure uncertainty and we don’t exactly know where things are going, maybe the best thing to do is to follow your heart. I know it sounds a bit cheesy, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it’s better, like, try for all of us to maybe not conform as much as possible and what’s expected of us and follow more, like, our instinct. Maybe there has never been a better time to do that because the uncertainty of the system is the system is gonna change so much that maybe the best path to follow is just what we really like to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Thank you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>AI is forcing students and educators to adapt. And while a lot of attention has been focused on cheating and outsourcing thinking, I think Sébastien makes a compelling case that this adaptation will have some real upsides, that new kinds of learning experiences are now possible, including ones that ask more of students, not less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But of course, AI is not the first technology to barge into schools. Next episode, we’ll look at how previous technologies have changed education, particularly for younger students, what those technologies delivered, what they failed to deliver, and what this could mean for today’s high schoolers, middle schoolers, elementary school kids growing up alongside AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. A special thanks to today’s guest, Sébastien Martin. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, additional production by Nathan Ray, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney, marketing help from Ananya Mallapragada, administrative support, recording help, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-is-teaching-the-next-generation-of-m-b-a-s-the-classic-case-study-a4eb4227\">AI Is Teaching the Next Generation of M.B.A.s the Classic Case Study\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show that explores how to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. By now, I’m sure you’re aware education has been hit hard by AI. It’s not exactly a secret why. You remember being a student. Maybe you are still a student. You work, you learn, you get your grade, your degree, and then you leave school better prepared for life.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show that explores how to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. By now, I’m sure you’re aware education has been hit hard by AI. It’s not exactly a secret why. You remember being a student. Maybe you are still a student. You work, you learn, you get your grade, your degree, and then you leave school better prepared for life.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Or at least that was the deal. Today’s students essentially have the world’s greatest cheating machine right at their fingertips, and that part about needing to learn to prepare for life, says who? If AI can do it, will you ever even need to? So maybe it’s no surprise that students are some of the heaviest adopters of AI, a trend that AI companies are very happy to facilitate, thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Or at least that was the deal. Today’s students essentially have the world’s greatest cheating machine right at their fingertips, and that part about needing to learn to prepare for life, says who? If AI can do it, will you ever even need to? So maybe it’s no surprise that students are some of the heaviest adopters of AI, a trend that AI companies are very happy to facilitate, thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And this puts educators in a tough place. I want to be upfront about this. Education is changing in ways we still don’t understand, and educators in universities, high schools, middle schools, are on the front lines. Many are not happy about AI. They didn’t ask for it, and they have real concerns that it will harm their students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And this puts educators in a tough place. I want to be upfront about this. Education is changing in ways we still don’t understand, and educators in universities, high schools, middle schools, are on the front lines. Many are not happy about AI. They didn’t ask for it, and they have real concerns that it will harm their students.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Next episode, we’ll go deep into the challenges they face. But today, something different. Today, we’ll be talking to someone who looks at generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, and sees mostly opportunities.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Next episode, we’ll go deep into the challenges they face. But today, something different. Today, we’ll be talking to someone who looks at generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, and sees mostly opportunities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sébastien Martin is a colleague of mine here at Kellogg, an associate professor of operations. He studies AI, he teaches MBA students about AI, and in his operations management classroom, he’s replaced a lot of pen and paper-based activities with AI-powered simulations. In these simulations, rather than AI making it easier for students to finish whatever assignment is on hand, it slows them down, makes them work even harder.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sébastien Martin is a colleague of mine here at Kellogg, an associate professor of operations. He studies AI, he teaches MBA students about AI, and in his operations management classroom, he’s replaced a lot of pen and paper-based activities with AI-powered simulations. In these simulations, rather than AI making it easier for students to finish whatever assignment is on hand, it slows them down, makes them work even harder.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I feel like maybe you’re not doing your part. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s a job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s a job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sébastien believes that AI has already made him not just a better instructor, but a happier, more creative, more inspired one, and his students agree.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Kellogg’s graduating class chose him as the winner of the 2026 David Bisenko Outstanding Professor of the Year Award. I’ve come to see Sébastien as a virtuoso of a strange new art form. And amidst the big, even existential challenges facing education, I think it’s important to tell these kinds of stories, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Kellogg’s graduating class chose him as the winner of the 2026 David Bisenko Outstanding Professor of the Year Award. I’ve come to see Sébastien as a virtuoso of a strange new art form. And amidst the big, even existential challenges facing education, I think it’s important to tell these kinds of stories, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a project from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>My conversation with Sébastien began with him telling me how, as soon as ChatGPT came on the scene, he got busy experimenting, trying to see if it could help him improve his operations management class. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> In a way, you know, when you have 140 students at the same time, for example, or even more, 200, it’s hard to have individualized conversations with everyone with my time, and I only have this time where it’s me with all the students at the same time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> In a way, you know, when you have 140 students at the same time, for example, or even more, 200, it’s hard to have individualized conversations with everyone with my time, and I only have this time where it’s me with all the students at the same time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But if they all talk to an AI that personalize the conversation to their own background, I can task the AI to connect the class content with their background. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The idea is that a student could feed their CV into an AI chatbot that had been trained on Sébastien’s course materials, and the AI would ask some probing questions, ultimately connecting the dots between a student’s individual work experience and interests and what the course would cover.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The idea is that a student could feed their CV into an AI chatbot that had been trained on Sébastien’s course materials, and the AI would ask some probing questions, ultimately connecting the dots between a student’s individual work experience and interests and what the course would cover.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And this was kind of, was it to just get the student excited about the class? Was that kind of the point of this exercise? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So the point was for them to know even before they take it why we think it’s good for them to be there. Which changes everything because if you have the attention of people as you even just get started, then communication just flows a little bit better. And if you think about it, there’s no way for me to do this without AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So the point was for them to know even before they take it why we think it’s good for them to be there. Which changes everything because if you have the attention of people as you even just get started, then communication just flows a little bit better. And if you think about it, there’s no way for me to do this without AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien was such an early adopter of the technology that he was using it before most of his students to solve problems that had nothing to do with AI at all. But it didn’t take too long for AI to start causing problems, too. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien was such an early adopter of the technology that he was using it before most of his students to solve problems that had nothing to do with AI at all. But it didn’t take too long for AI to start causing problems, too. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know, AI came like a wrecking ball. And, you know, like, what’s even the meaning of a take-home exam anymore? You know, you can trust the students not to use ChatGPT, but we are at the point where you can just take a screenshot of the exam on your phone and get A+ for everything technical. And so it’s just unfair to ask the students to do it this way. And because, like, how do you even grade it, because some students would respect the rule and maybe a few will run out of time and ask the help of AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know, AI came like a wrecking ball. And, you know, like, what’s even the meaning of a take-home exam anymore? You know, you can trust the students not to use ChatGPT, but we are at the point where you can just take a screenshot of the exam on your phone and get A+ for everything technical. And so it’s just unfair to ask the students to do it this way. And because, like, how do you even grade it, because some students would respect the rule and maybe a few will run out of time and ask the help of AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>It’s been well over three years since Sébastien started experimenting with AI in his classroom. And these days, nearly everything about his course looks pretty different. Some of these changes have been spurred by AI making it really, really easy for students to cheat. But Sébastien says that other changes are more about problems with the old ways of doing things. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>It’s been well over three years since Sébastien started experimenting with AI in his classroom. And these days, nearly everything about his course looks pretty different. Some of these changes have been spurred by AI making it really, really easy for students to cheat. But Sébastien says that other changes are more about problems with the old ways of doing things. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Think about our old ways to evaluate, right? I have students coming from so many different backgrounds that care about so many different things, and I have to have one exam that’s graded by people that don’t necessarily understand their background. And so what does it push us to do? It pushes us to standardization, to always asking, like, very abstract questions about things, or to focus on math instead of, like, deeper understanding about the world, because these can be evaluated more easily. I love math, but it becomes just an exercise in itself, like, almost like a Sudoku. At the end of the day, the exam is just asking them to manipulate numbers because this is what I can evaluate. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Think about our old ways to evaluate, right? I have students coming from so many different backgrounds that care about so many different things, and I have to have one exam that’s graded by people that don’t necessarily understand their background. And so what does it push us to do? It pushes us to standardization, to always asking, like, very abstract questions about things, or to focus on math instead of, like, deeper understanding about the world, because these can be evaluated more easily. I love math, but it becomes just an exercise in itself, like, almost like a Sudoku. At the end of the day, the exam is just asking them to manipulate numbers because this is what I can evaluate. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So let’s get concrete here. With simple problem sets basically out the window, what does Sébastien’s class look like today? Well, for homework, Sébastien might require his students to converse with an AI tutor for maybe 30 minutes, walking through concepts and connecting them to their own experiences. That tutor might be trained in the Socratic method so that rather than giving answers like a standard chatbot, it pushes students to do the thinking themselves. Then, instead of turning in answers, students would upload a log of their chat to be graded pass or fail. Or maybe the tutoring goes the other way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> The homework I just gave, like, a few weeks ago is the, student has to teach the AI what they learn in the last class. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Ah, interesting. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You see that we say learning by teaching is, like, one of the best ways to learn. And as a professor, I can say that’s very true because I created a new class on AI and I learned a lot just by teaching it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You see that we say learning by teaching is, like, one of the best ways to learn. And as a professor, I can say that’s very true because I created a new class on AI and I learned a lot just by teaching it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Of course, this technology is changing fast, and there’s really nothing stopping students from building their own AI agent or autonomous AI tool to interact with Sébastien’s AI, and turning in a log of that conversation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>That’s one of the main obstacles our instructors want to get into AI, because it just feels it’s constantly evolving, and whatever I do now, I fix a problem, another problem will appear later. So it’s a very, very real concern.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and this is hard because I’ve done, you know, way back in the day I taught some classes myself, and the first time you teach something, it can be kind of a train wreck, right? And then you kinda get better over time, and you learn what works. So how do you as a professor or a teacher keep up?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and this is hard because I’ve done, you know, way back in the day I taught some classes myself, and the first time you teach something, it can be kind of a train wreck, right? And then you kinda get better over time, and you learn what works. So how do you as a professor or a teacher keep up?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> I would turn the question around, and this is why I try to put my students in the loop as much as possible. It’s like, “Here’s the deal,” like, “What is good for you?” You know? “Why are we doing this homework? Why are we doing all of that?” The goal is not just to go for the grade. That would be the mistake.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> I would turn the question around, and this is why I try to put my students in the loop as much as possible. It’s like, “Here’s the deal,” like, “What is good for you?” You know? “Why are we doing this homework? Why are we doing all of that?” The goal is not just to go for the grade. That would be the mistake.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, the goal is at the end of the day, you know, you learn something. And, you know, if AI is becoming more and more of a commodity that can do anything for us, our deep expertise and our personal thoughts and what makes us unique has even more value, because that’s what differentiates all of it, rather than the things that AI can just automate, you know?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I think at the end of the day, the answer to this question is also, it’s not only on the professor’s side, it’s also on the students. Like, why are you at Kellogg? What do you wanna get out of all of this? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so I think at the end of the day, the answer to this question is also, it’s not only on the professor’s side, it’s also on the students. Like, why are you at Kellogg? What do you wanna get out of all of this? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Some of the changes that Sébastien has made to his class, they aren’t planned. He’ll be in the middle of teaching, he’ll get an idea for how to make something better, and just use AI to make it happen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For example, just a week before our interview, his students were in small breakout groups using class time to discuss a case study, that staple of business school education. The time was flying by. Sure, the students were having wonderful discussions in their small groups, but Sébastien was getting frustrated, realizing there would not be enough time for the entire class to reflect on the ideas that the individual groups had generated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>For example, just a week before our interview, his students were in small breakout groups using class time to discuss a case study, that staple of business school education. The time was flying by. Sure, the students were having wonderful discussions in their small groups, but Sébastien was getting frustrated, realizing there would not be enough time for the entire class to reflect on the ideas that the individual groups had generated.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So while the students were still in their breakout groups, Sébastien explained the dilemma to Claude Code, a popular AI coding tool. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so Claude Code was like, “No problem. Let’s do it,” and created something, and by the time students had sent their reply, we had a custom-made software, which was kind of like a constellation of ideas that popped up on the board, and we could see quotes from all the students and the ideas that they had in common and not in common, and this enabled a much deeper conversation because I was able to share all this information instead of just, like, talking to, you know, like, three, four students that were willing to share their ideas.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so Claude Code was like, “No problem. Let’s do it,” and created something, and by the time students had sent their reply, we had a custom-made software, which was kind of like a constellation of ideas that popped up on the board, and we could see quotes from all the students and the ideas that they had in common and not in common, and this enabled a much deeper conversation because I was able to share all this information instead of just, like, talking to, you know, like, three, four students that were willing to share their ideas.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, it’s just a small thing, but it’s changed the way I taught this class, and it did use AI, and at the end of the day, it’s just about your creativity. Like, it’s a tool that is so powerful that, you know, sometimes, you know, as an instructor, you go, “Oh, it’d be so good to have this,” and then you just use it, and it creates a much better experience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, it’s just a small thing, but it’s changed the way I taught this class, and it did use AI, and at the end of the day, it’s just about your creativity. Like, it’s a tool that is so powerful that, you know, sometimes, you know, as an instructor, you go, “Oh, it’d be so good to have this,” and then you just use it, and it creates a much better experience.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And you see here in that case, it increased the communications between humans. Like, of course, AI can sometimes take away from what we do, but in that case, I think it added to what we do. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And you see here in that case, it increased the communications between humans. Like, of course, AI can sometimes take away from what we do, but in that case, I think it added to what we do. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Now, there are tools already on the market that can do this kind of thing. But what was unique was that Sébastien was able to create them on the fly, in that moment for that class. And the best example of how AI has changed Sébastien’s course has to do with the experience of reading the case itself. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Now, there are tools already on the market that can do this kind of thing. But what was unique was that Sébastien was able to create them on the fly, in that moment for that class. And the best example of how AI has changed Sébastien’s course has to do with the experience of reading the case itself. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So we turned it into, instead of me giving them a PDF, I tell them that they can interview, “People” from the company and ask any question they want. And I give them access to the CEO, to the CFO, to, like, a frontline worker, to anyone, and then they have to understand the company deeply, kind of like consulting. You interview people, and you understand their relationship, and they all have very different point of views, and some of them don’t even wanna talk to you, and so on. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So we turned it into, instead of me giving them a PDF, I tell them that they can interview, “People” from the company and ask any question they want. And I give them access to the CEO, to the CFO, to, like, a frontline worker, to anyone, and then they have to understand the company deeply, kind of like consulting. You interview people, and you understand their relationship, and they all have very different point of views, and some of them don’t even wanna talk to you, and so on. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Well, and “people” are, of course, chatbots with, like, personalities and information that you’ve given them. This is the activity that has gotten Sébastien the most attention, including a big write-up in The Wall Street Journal. I wanted to try it, and Sébastien was kind enough to mentor me through his simulation. We pull it up on his desktop. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Well, and “people” are, of course, chatbots with, like, personalities and information that you’ve given them. This is the activity that has gotten Sébastien the most attention, including a big write-up in The Wall Street Journal. I wanted to try it, and Sébastien was kind enough to mentor me through his simulation. We pull it up on his desktop. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Okay, so I am a consultant at Proxima Health Systems?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Okay, so I am a consultant at Proxima Health Systems?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you’re an AI expert, and they called you because they wanna have a big AI project, and they want it to be successful. And your point of contact is Maya Chen. She’s the leader of this After Visit AI program. Like, she has an AI agent she wants you to build. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you’re an AI expert, and they called you because they wanna have a big AI project, and they want it to be successful. And your point of contact is Maya Chen. She’s the leader of this After Visit AI program. Like, she has an AI agent she wants you to build. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and so I can just start talking to her and say, like, “Hey.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and so I can just start talking to her and say, like, “Hey.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, she’s just waiting for you. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, she’s just waiting for you. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There’s a whole bunch of little avatars representing different people at the company, and I can pick one to have a text chat with. I see the avatar for Maya, my point of contact, and I begin to type. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There’s a whole bunch of little avatars representing different people at the company, and I can pick one to have a text chat with. I see the avatar for Maya, my point of contact, and I begin to type. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘\u003c/strong>Hi there. I’d love some clarification on what you want me to accomplish.’\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘\u003c/strong>Hi there. I’d love some clarification on what you want me to accomplish.’\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Maya tells me that I, the AI expert consultant, will be building her company an AI tool that helps automate the after-visit forms that sales reps fill out after they visit their customers’ hospitals. And after a bit of back and forth with Maya about some of the players involved, including Marcus, a sales manager, and a bit of help from Sébastien, I start to get a sense of the nitty-gritty details involved in my assignment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Maya tells me that I, the AI expert consultant, will be building her company an AI tool that helps automate the after-visit forms that sales reps fill out after they visit their customers’ hospitals. And after a bit of back and forth with Maya about some of the players involved, including Marcus, a sales manager, and a bit of help from Sébastien, I start to get a sense of the nitty-gritty details involved in my assignment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so for this, we have a CRM system, a customer relationship management system, which is like this big database where rep have to enter information. But they hate it. It has to be formatted, made in a very specific way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so for this, we have a CRM system, a customer relationship management system, which is like this big database where rep have to enter information. But they hate it. It has to be formatted, made in a very specific way. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ah, I hate it already. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ah, I hate it already. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>They spend hours every week. And then so this is why, like, there is this sort of tension because Marcus needs them to enter this information, but they’re like, “Yeah, it doesn’t represent what we see on the ground. Why do you want me to spend all my time on this instead of with the customer?” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>They spend hours every week. And then so this is why, like, there is this sort of tension because Marcus needs them to enter this information, but they’re like, “Yeah, it doesn’t represent what we see on the ground. Why do you want me to spend all my time on this instead of with the customer?” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay, got it. Maya, Marcus, and others in the company want to automate the after-visit forms that the salespeople fill out, apparently to make things easier on the sales team. But then I chat with a member of the sales team, Dana, and Dana doesn’t necessarily think AI will help. She thinks the whole customer relationship system is messed up. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay, got it. Maya, Marcus, and others in the company want to automate the after-visit forms that the salespeople fill out, apparently to make things easier on the sales team. But then I chat with a member of the sales team, Dana, and Dana doesn’t necessarily think AI will help. She thinks the whole customer relationship system is messed up. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>‘Dana makes a number of points. She says it’s like whiplash. She can spend 30 minutes in a unit with a nurse manager who’s stressed out of her mind. She catches the real issue. They come to a conclusion, and then she’s supposed to translate that into 12 little CRM boxes that don’t fit how hospitals actually talk, and then the managers wonder why the notes are vague.’\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>‘Dana makes a number of points. She says it’s like whiplash. She can spend 30 minutes in a unit with a nurse manager who’s stressed out of her mind. She catches the real issue. They come to a conclusion, and then she’s supposed to translate that into 12 little CRM boxes that don’t fit how hospitals actually talk, and then the managers wonder why the notes are vague.’\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And Dana is a little suspicious of \u003cem>me\u003c/em>, the AI consultant. Here’s how she puts it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And Dana is a little suspicious of \u003cem>me\u003c/em>, the AI consultant. Here’s how she puts it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“What exactly are you trying to solve? Time, accuracy, or the manager chasing us for missing fields?”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“What exactly are you trying to solve? Time, accuracy, or the manager chasing us for missing fields?”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Ooh.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You’re in the middle of it right now. I am in the middle of it. It’s hard to help her without more information, understanding everything.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You’re in the middle of it right now. I am in the middle of it. It’s hard to help her without more information, understanding everything.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I decide to try to get Dana in line with some tough talk. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I decide to try to get Dana in line with some tough talk. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>‘All right, Dana. I hear what you’re saying, but you do realize that you are part of this big organization that has a lot of really important goals? I feel like maybe you’re not doing your part.’\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>‘All right, Dana. I hear what you’re saying, but you do realize that you are part of this big organization that has a lot of really important goals? I feel like maybe you’re not doing your part.’\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Oh, she’s not happy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Oh, she’s not happy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s the job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s the job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>How dare you question that I’m doing my job? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>How dare you question that I’m doing my job? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Thanks, Dana. I appreciate the straight talk. I love straight talk. What would you like to see?’ \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Thanks, Dana. I appreciate the straight talk. I love straight talk. What would you like to see?’ \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And now I’m really starting to understand this scenario. It’s not just about coming up with some kind of AI-powered solution to data collection. It’s about understanding the social dynamics in the company. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And now I’m really starting to understand this scenario. It’s not just about coming up with some kind of AI-powered solution to data collection. It’s about understanding the social dynamics in the company. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>‘Cause she’s very afraid. She says, “Not cutting heads.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>‘Cause she’s very afraid. She says, “Not cutting heads.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Not cutting heads. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Not cutting heads. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>She’s really afraid that you’re coming with AI trying to take over her job. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>She’s really afraid that you’re coming with AI trying to take over her job. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, yeah. That’s a good point. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, yeah. That’s a good point. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know? Because we’re automating a part of the job that she and her teams do. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know? Because we’re automating a part of the job that she and her teams do. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Once I understand that there’s anxiety in this company about AI taking jobs, and that this anxiety is driving so many problems, I start having more productive chats with the different characters, and we start making progress.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Once I understand that there’s anxiety in this company about AI taking jobs, and that this anxiety is driving so many problems, I start having more productive chats with the different characters, and we start making progress.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is what Sebastien says this kind of AI-driven exercise is designed to explore. How to keep asking questions until you understand what’s actually going on, the problems behind the problem, the stuff that only rarely ends up on any official brief. I think there is a risk in education where I’m like, “This is the truth.” This is the answer to this problem.” And, you know, like, for example, if you go on Instagram and you have your newsfeed, you’re not asking for the next thing you wanna see. We’re just so used to just information being provided to us and not to have to think. And then you get into the middle of this and you have a “real person” you talk to, you actually need to decide what’s your next step.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This is what Sebastien says this kind of AI-driven exercise is designed to explore. How to keep asking questions until you understand what’s actually going on, the problems behind the problem, the stuff that only rarely ends up on any official brief. I think there is a risk in education where I’m like, “This is the truth.” This is the answer to this problem.” And, you know, like, for example, if you go on Instagram and you have your newsfeed, you’re not asking for the next thing you wanna see. We’re just so used to just information being provided to us and not to have to think. And then you get into the middle of this and you have a “real person” you talk to, you actually need to decide what’s your next step.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But this is actually where all the thinking happens, right? You’re like, you need to be aware of what you understand and what you don’t understand. You need to, like, plan ahead. You need to also manage your relationship with them. And I think this is where I think the most. Actually, it’s what I feel like it’s the most important thing to think about, in life, you know, in general.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But this is actually where all the thinking happens, right? You’re like, you need to be aware of what you understand and what you don’t understand. You need to, like, plan ahead. You need to also manage your relationship with them. And I think this is where I think the most. Actually, it’s what I feel like it’s the most important thing to think about, in life, you know, in general.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think we don’t have many tools that are not meant to just, like, provide us with the answer, but are meant for us to ask the right question and for us to learn more. And I think AI is a wonderful tool for that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think we don’t have many tools that are not meant to just, like, provide us with the answer, but are meant for us to ask the right question and for us to learn more. And I think AI is a wonderful tool for that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Here, the AI tool isn’t being used to make things easier on students. It’s not making it faster to read the case or offering up a streamlined summary. It’s slowing students down, making them think more. Or that’s the idea. So are his students learning more using this AI-powered simulation than they would’ve the old way, discussing PDFs or writing short essays? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Here, the AI tool isn’t being used to make things easier on students. It’s not making it faster to read the case or offering up a streamlined summary. It’s slowing students down, making them think more. Or that’s the idea. So are his students learning more using this AI-powered simulation than they would’ve the old way, discussing PDFs or writing short essays? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>It’s hard to answer this question for sure. You can only capture it with exams and stuff like that. But AI cases, in the context of this class, were not something that was graded. They were something meant for conversations in the classroom. So then the second best I can give you is I had the most fun I’ve ever had teaching a case. Like, the participation of the students was through the roof.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>It’s hard to answer this question for sure. You can only capture it with exams and stuff like that. But AI cases, in the context of this class, were not something that was graded. They were something meant for conversations in the classroom. So then the second best I can give you is I had the most fun I’ve ever had teaching a case. Like, the participation of the students was through the roof.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They had so many ideas. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien acknowledges that it’s hard to know for sure. Just because students enjoy an activity, recognize it with a teaching award, doesn’t always mean that they’re learning more. But the students tell him they’re learning more because the scenarios feel real. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien acknowledges that it’s hard to know for sure. Just because students enjoy an activity, recognize it with a teaching award, doesn’t always mean that they’re learning more. But the students tell him they’re learning more because the scenarios feel real. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>The students say that it was very useful to them, especially the students who came from consulting. They say it’s exactly the type of thing I had to be good at. It’s great to see it in the context of AI and so on. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>The students say that it was very useful to them, especially the students who came from consulting. They say it’s exactly the type of thing I had to be good at. It’s great to see it in the context of AI and so on. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>After the break, this strikes me as the dream scenario for AI in the classroom. But just how common is this dream scenario? Is it limited to the classrooms of super AI savvy teachers, or does Sébastien’s optimism extend to other classrooms, too?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>After the break, this strikes me as the dream scenario for AI in the classroom. But just how common is this dream scenario? Is it limited to the classrooms of super AI savvy teachers, or does Sébastien’s optimism extend to other classrooms, too?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I, like a lot of people, think about this technology as having the ability to both empower people and to disempower or overwhelm them. And it seems like for you, the primary experience has been one of empowerment. But I wanna point out, you are kind of a special case. You are somebody who studies AI, is very, very familiar with using algorithms, and was even before ChatGPT came on the scene, and you also teach highly motivated students at a top business school.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I, like a lot of people, think about this technology as having the ability to both empower people and to disempower or overwhelm them. And it seems like for you, the primary experience has been one of empowerment. But I wanna point out, you are kind of a special case. You are somebody who studies AI, is very, very familiar with using algorithms, and was even before ChatGPT came on the scene, and you also teach highly motivated students at a top business school.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And this is not true of most educators. So my husband teaches high school at Chicago Public Schools, and he assures me that the general consensus among public high school teachers is not one of empowerment. I think a lot of schools are strapped for resources. They don’t always have the opportunity to train instructors in how to manage this technology, and a lot of them have just come to see this as a widespread cheating factory. And so I’m just kind of curious how you think about that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And this is not true of most educators. So my husband teaches high school at Chicago Public Schools, and he assures me that the general consensus among public high school teachers is not one of empowerment. I think a lot of schools are strapped for resources. They don’t always have the opportunity to train instructors in how to manage this technology, and a lot of them have just come to see this as a widespread cheating factory. And so I’m just kind of curious how you think about that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, first, thank you so much for asking this question. Something I think about a lot, and first it’s very important to highlight that I come from a place of privilege in so many dimensions, as you mentioned. And, you know, because I, so I speak more and more publicly, like right now, about this topic, and I’m always like, “What should you say?” Because, you know, as you saw in this conversation, I choose to highlight the positive because I know that people are very aware of the negative. And I think seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel can help. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, first, thank you so much for asking this question. Something I think about a lot, and first it’s very important to highlight that I come from a place of privilege in so many dimensions, as you mentioned. And, you know, because I, so I speak more and more publicly, like right now, about this topic, and I’m always like, “What should you say?” Because, you know, as you saw in this conversation, I choose to highlight the positive because I know that people are very aware of the negative. And I think seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel can help. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it is true, you know, that I was lucky to start early and lucky to be in the position I was, and to iterate over time, and I made many, many mistakes. There are things that worked, things that didn’t work. I would say the message, and I really don’t wanna deny at all what public education is going through. I’ve worked a lot also with public education and I know how hard a job it can be, but also how rewarding. What I wanna say is give it a chance.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it is true, you know, that I was lucky to start early and lucky to be in the position I was, and to iterate over time, and I made many, many mistakes. There are things that worked, things that didn’t work. I would say the message, and I really don’t wanna deny at all what public education is going through. I’ve worked a lot also with public education and I know how hard a job it can be, but also how rewarding. What I wanna say is give it a chance.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, this technology, for good or bad reason, is most likely here to stay. And if you iterate a little bit with Claude, ChatGPT, whatever, you’ll quickly realize after you overcome this barrier of, you know, not resentment, but this barrier or, like, this technology is really making my job complicated, you quickly realize that it’s a neutral technology.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, this technology, for good or bad reason, is most likely here to stay. And if you iterate a little bit with Claude, ChatGPT, whatever, you’ll quickly realize after you overcome this barrier of, you know, not resentment, but this barrier or, like, this technology is really making my job complicated, you quickly realize that it’s a neutral technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, it can do a lot of harm, but it can also allow you as an instructor to create new things and to solve some of the problems. And at first you start very small. You know, you have all of this, like, I forgot how you were saying, like, this cheating factory thing. But then you’re like, “Oh, I can maybe use it that way.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, it can do a lot of harm, but it can also allow you as an instructor to create new things and to solve some of the problems. And at first you start very small. You know, you have all of this, like, I forgot how you were saying, like, this cheating factory thing. But then you’re like, “Oh, I can maybe use it that way.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And actually that had a small positive impact. And it looks like a drop in the ocean. But then because you open this door, then curiosity gets in. What if I could do this? And what if I could do that? And all I can say, I know it’s a very minimal point, is there are good things. And yes, they take time, and they take trial and error, and all I can do is show examples. But I think there is value in just knowing that you can use this technology for good. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And actually that had a small positive impact. And it looks like a drop in the ocean. But then because you open this door, then curiosity gets in. What if I could do this? And what if I could do that? And all I can say, I know it’s a very minimal point, is there are good things. And yes, they take time, and they take trial and error, and all I can do is show examples. But I think there is value in just knowing that you can use this technology for good. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I am a parent. My kids are a little younger than the students we’ve been talking about, two elementary school-aged kids. And I personally do not want them using AI right now, partly because I think they already spend enough of their lives staring at screens. That is the perennial parenting battle of our age. But also because I want them to learn some really core skills about how to go through the world, and think about problems themselves before I provide them with the scaffolding that AI would provide. And so I wanna ask you, do you think there are some skills that people should have before they turn to AI to learn something?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I am a parent. My kids are a little younger than the students we’ve been talking about, two elementary school-aged kids. And I personally do not want them using AI right now, partly because I think they already spend enough of their lives staring at screens. That is the perennial parenting battle of our age. But also because I want them to learn some really core skills about how to go through the world, and think about problems themselves before I provide them with the scaffolding that AI would provide. And so I wanna ask you, do you think there are some skills that people should have before they turn to AI to learn something?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, of course take everything that I’m about to say with a grain of salt, because I’m not an expert in that. You’re way more of an expert than me. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, of course take everything that I’m about to say with a grain of salt, because I’m not an expert in that. You’re way more of an expert than me. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>We’ll bring in some folks to rebut you point by point. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>We’ll bring in some folks to rebut you point by point. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>But, you know, and also, I wanna highlight that we hear so much about AI these days. I think what’s super, super important to say is we don’t know. You know, like they say, wisdom is to know when you don’t know. Nobody knows where AI is going, okay? Like, but then it’s still good to talk about scenarios, and your analogy with the screens or the smartphone is a great one. You know, there has been a lot of debates, on not allowing screen times and, like, this leading to, children learning more to interact with the world and with each other.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>But, you know, and also, I wanna highlight that we hear so much about AI these days. I think what’s super, super important to say is we don’t know. You know, like they say, wisdom is to know when you don’t know. Nobody knows where AI is going, okay? Like, but then it’s still good to talk about scenarios, and your analogy with the screens or the smartphone is a great one. You know, there has been a lot of debates, on not allowing screen times and, like, this leading to, children learning more to interact with the world and with each other.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think it could be great to do this with AI. I mean, that sounds like a great strategy to me. Then, the one caveat I wanna say on this is one pet peeve that I have is I don’t think AI means anything. It’s kind of you saying humans or electricity. Like, is electricity good or bad? Should we forbid kids to access electricity?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think it could be great to do this with AI. I mean, that sounds like a great strategy to me. Then, the one caveat I wanna say on this is one pet peeve that I have is I don’t think AI means anything. It’s kind of you saying humans or electricity. Like, is electricity good or bad? Should we forbid kids to access electricity?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think there are ways to use AI that could be net positives and there are ways to use AI that could be a disaster. So when we say allow kids to access AI, often we think ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, like the basic thing you can ask all your questions. But for example, I was just talking to a parent and they were playing with their children to create their own song for a story that they invented.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think there are ways to use AI that could be net positives and there are ways to use AI that could be a disaster. So when we say allow kids to access AI, often we think ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, like the basic thing you can ask all your questions. But for example, I was just talking to a parent and they were playing with their children to create their own song for a story that they invented.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And they used AI to like, put their lyrics that they co-created into a nice song and they were singing it together. Is it a bad use of AI or does it increase creativity? I heard another parent has ChatGPT to, you know, create like, these frames of drawing that you can draw into on things that were very personal. Like they just went on vacation somewhere and let’s actually draw what we went through. And you know you cannot buy a book that’s so personalized. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And they used AI to like, put their lyrics that they co-created into a nice song and they were singing it together. Is it a bad use of AI or does it increase creativity? I heard another parent has ChatGPT to, you know, create like, these frames of drawing that you can draw into on things that were very personal. Like they just went on vacation somewhere and let’s actually draw what we went through. And you know you cannot buy a book that’s so personalized. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like a coloring book of their exact vacation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Exactly. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, that’s, that is kind of cool. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, that’s, that is kind of cool. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You see? Like another example and maybe more the fringe of what’s acceptable is there’s a lot of, there are ways to turn ChatGPT into something that don’t think for you. So the way AI works is there are hidden instructions, and AI follows these hidden instructions. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>That’s right. If you didn’t know, most chatbots have some version of hidden instructions to guide their use; and as a user, you can change the default settings for these instructions, specify how the AI should respond to prompts, including how much information it should provide.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>That’s right. If you didn’t know, most chatbots have some version of hidden instructions to guide their use; and as a user, you can change the default settings for these instructions, specify how the AI should respond to prompts, including how much information it should provide.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>In the hidden instructions called a system message, you can ask the AI, “Look, you’re talking to a child. Here’s what we really want to avoid. We want them to feel for, to think for themselves. We want them to learn how to be independent. We don’t want them to learn how to rely on you instead of thinking.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>In the hidden instructions called a system message, you can ask the AI, “Look, you’re talking to a child. Here’s what we really want to avoid. We want them to feel for, to think for themselves. We want them to learn how to be independent. We don’t want them to learn how to rely on you instead of thinking.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But maybe you can encourage their curiosity. And then you let the children talk to this version of ChatGPT, and the AI will just reply to their questions with other questions, and what do you think about this, and what do you think about that? Maybe it’s better than just staring at an iPad on YouTube, you know? Maybe it actually leads you to, to think a bit deeper. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But maybe you can encourage their curiosity. And then you let the children talk to this version of ChatGPT, and the AI will just reply to their questions with other questions, and what do you think about this, and what do you think about that? Maybe it’s better than just staring at an iPad on YouTube, you know? Maybe it actually leads you to, to think a bit deeper. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>For the record, I will not be tasking ChatGPT to chat with my children anytime soon, even in appropriately Socratic only ask questions mode. But that coloring book idea, it’s actually kind of a good one, and I take his point. We really don’t know. We don’t know how helpful or harmful AI will ultimately be as an educational tool. Stepping back a bit though, I wanted to know what advice he would have for students, the people on the other end of the educational process. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>For the record, I will not be tasking ChatGPT to chat with my children anytime soon, even in appropriately Socratic only ask questions mode. But that coloring book idea, it’s actually kind of a good one, and I take his point. We really don’t know. We don’t know how helpful or harmful AI will ultimately be as an educational tool. Stepping back a bit though, I wanted to know what advice he would have for students, the people on the other end of the educational process. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, the first one, which is, you know, the one thing I want us to remember from this podcast is, like, stay hopeful. Because, you know, there are reasons to despair from time to time, and especially as humans, we are really not good at dealing with uncertainty. Like, second, staying hopeful and being aware that we tend to only see the downside instead of all the unexpected upside that can come later.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, the first one, which is, you know, the one thing I want us to remember from this podcast is, like, stay hopeful. Because, you know, there are reasons to despair from time to time, and especially as humans, we are really not good at dealing with uncertainty. Like, second, staying hopeful and being aware that we tend to only see the downside instead of all the unexpected upside that can come later.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Everyone is in the same boat. Like, it feels like it’s me that doesn’t know what the next step to choose and so on, like what studies should I go for, how should I learn and so on. But it’s not only me, it’s the whole society that has to adapt at the same time. And I think that at least for me, it helps me feel a bit better about it, like, the idea that it’s not me that doesn’t know what to do next and it’s all of us together.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Everyone is in the same boat. Like, it feels like it’s me that doesn’t know what the next step to choose and so on, like what studies should I go for, how should I learn and so on. But it’s not only me, it’s the whole society that has to adapt at the same time. And I think that at least for me, it helps me feel a bit better about it, like, the idea that it’s not me that doesn’t know what to do next and it’s all of us together.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s like we’re all collectively gonna go through this crazy period together. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s like we’re all collectively gonna go through this crazy period together. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Exactly. And so the more we can, you know, like help each other and so on, the better it is. And, finally, what do you do? You have this huge uncertainty. I’m saying, okay, take it with a grain of salt with all the feedback you receive about what you think you should do and so on, and all of us together.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Exactly. And so the more we can, you know, like help each other and so on, the better it is. And, finally, what do you do? You have this huge uncertainty. I’m saying, okay, take it with a grain of salt with all the feedback you receive about what you think you should do and so on, and all of us together.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But of course, AI is not the first technology to barge into schools. Next episode, we’ll look at how previous technologies have changed education, particularly for younger students, what those technologies delivered, what they failed to deliver, and what this could mean for today’s high schoolers, middle schoolers, elementary school kids growing up alongside AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. A special thanks to today’s guest, Sébastien Martin. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, additional production by Nathan Ray, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney, marketing help from Ananya Mallapragada, administrative support, recording help, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://transcript\">View full episode \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As AI tools spread through classrooms, many educators see a “cheating factory.” Kellogg Professor \u003ca href=\"https://sebastienmartin.info/\">\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> 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.)\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Further Reading: \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-is-teaching-the-next-generation-of-m-b-a-s-the-classic-case-study-a4eb4227\">AI Is Teaching the Next Generation of M.B.A.s the Classic Case Study\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show that explores how to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. By now, I’m sure you’re aware education has been hit hard by AI. It’s not exactly a secret why. You remember being a student. Maybe you are still a student. You work, you learn, you get your grade, your degree, and then you leave school better prepared for life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or at least that was the deal. Today’s students essentially have the world’s greatest cheating machine right at their fingertips, and that part about needing to learn to prepare for life, says who? If AI can do it, will you ever even need to? So maybe it’s no surprise that students are some of the heaviest adopters of AI, a trend that AI companies are very happy to facilitate, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this puts educators in a tough place. I want to be upfront about this. Education is changing in ways we still don’t understand, and educators in universities, high schools, middle schools, are on the front lines. Many are not happy about AI. They didn’t ask for it, and they have real concerns that it will harm their students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Next episode, we’ll go deep into the challenges they face. But today, something different. Today, we’ll be talking to someone who looks at generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, and sees mostly opportunities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sébastien Martin is a colleague of mine here at Kellogg, an associate professor of operations. He studies AI, he teaches MBA students about AI, and in his operations management classroom, he’s replaced a lot of pen and paper-based activities with AI-powered simulations. In these simulations, rather than AI making it easier for students to finish whatever assignment is on hand, it slows them down, makes them work even harder.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I got to experience this firsthand. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I feel like maybe you’re not doing your part. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Oh, she’s not happy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s a job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sébastien believes that AI has already made him not just a better instructor, but a happier, more creative, more inspired one, and his students agree.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Kellogg’s graduating class chose him as the winner of the 2026 David Bisenko Outstanding Professor of the Year Award. I’ve come to see Sébastien as a virtuoso of a strange new art form. And amidst the big, even existential challenges facing education, I think it’s important to tell these kinds of stories, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a project from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My conversation with Sébastien began with him telling me how, as soon as ChatGPT came on the scene, he got busy experimenting, trying to see if it could help him improve his operations management class. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> In a way, you know, when you have 140 students at the same time, for example, or even more, 200, it’s hard to have individualized conversations with everyone with my time, and I only have this time where it’s me with all the students at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if they all talk to an AI that personalize the conversation to their own background, I can task the AI to connect the class content with their background. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The idea is that a student could feed their CV into an AI chatbot that had been trained on Sébastien’s course materials, and the AI would ask some probing questions, ultimately connecting the dots between a student’s individual work experience and interests and what the course would cover.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this was kind of, was it to just get the student excited about the class? Was that kind of the point of this exercise? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So the point was for them to know even before they take it why we think it’s good for them to be there. Which changes everything because if you have the attention of people as you even just get started, then communication just flows a little bit better. And if you think about it, there’s no way for me to do this without AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien was such an early adopter of the technology that he was using it before most of his students to solve problems that had nothing to do with AI at all. But it didn’t take too long for AI to start causing problems, too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know, AI came like a wrecking ball. And, you know, like, what’s even the meaning of a take-home exam anymore? You know, you can trust the students not to use ChatGPT, but we are at the point where you can just take a screenshot of the exam on your phone and get A+ for everything technical. And so it’s just unfair to ask the students to do it this way. And because, like, how do you even grade it, because some students would respect the rule and maybe a few will run out of time and ask the help of AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>It’s been well over three years since Sébastien started experimenting with AI in his classroom. And these days, nearly everything about his course looks pretty different. Some of these changes have been spurred by AI making it really, really easy for students to cheat. But Sébastien says that other changes are more about problems with the old ways of doing things. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Think about our old ways to evaluate, right? I have students coming from so many different backgrounds that care about so many different things, and I have to have one exam that’s graded by people that don’t necessarily understand their background. And so what does it push us to do? It pushes us to standardization, to always asking, like, very abstract questions about things, or to focus on math instead of, like, deeper understanding about the world, because these can be evaluated more easily. I love math, but it becomes just an exercise in itself, like, almost like a Sudoku. At the end of the day, the exam is just asking them to manipulate numbers because this is what I can evaluate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So let’s get concrete here. With simple problem sets basically out the window, what does Sébastien’s class look like today? Well, for homework, Sébastien might require his students to converse with an AI tutor for maybe 30 minutes, walking through concepts and connecting them to their own experiences. That tutor might be trained in the Socratic method so that rather than giving answers like a standard chatbot, it pushes students to do the thinking themselves. Then, instead of turning in answers, students would upload a log of their chat to be graded pass or fail. Or maybe the tutoring goes the other way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> The homework I just gave, like, a few weeks ago is the, student has to teach the AI what they learn in the last class. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Ah, interesting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You see that we say learning by teaching is, like, one of the best ways to learn. And as a professor, I can say that’s very true because I created a new class on AI and I learned a lot just by teaching it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Of course, this technology is changing fast, and there’s really nothing stopping students from building their own AI agent or autonomous AI tool to interact with Sébastien’s AI, and turning in a log of that conversation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>That’s one of the main obstacles our instructors want to get into AI, because it just feels it’s constantly evolving, and whatever I do now, I fix a problem, another problem will appear later. So it’s a very, very real concern.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and this is hard because I’ve done, you know, way back in the day I taught some classes myself, and the first time you teach something, it can be kind of a train wreck, right? And then you kinda get better over time, and you learn what works. So how do you as a professor or a teacher keep up?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> I would turn the question around, and this is why I try to put my students in the loop as much as possible. It’s like, “Here’s the deal,” like, “What is good for you?” You know? “Why are we doing this homework? Why are we doing all of that?” The goal is not just to go for the grade. That would be the mistake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, the goal is at the end of the day, you know, you learn something. And, you know, if AI is becoming more and more of a commodity that can do anything for us, our deep expertise and our personal thoughts and what makes us unique has even more value, because that’s what differentiates all of it, rather than the things that AI can just automate, you know?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think at the end of the day, the answer to this question is also, it’s not only on the professor’s side, it’s also on the students. Like, why are you at Kellogg? What do you wanna get out of all of this? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Some of the changes that Sébastien has made to his class, they aren’t planned. He’ll be in the middle of teaching, he’ll get an idea for how to make something better, and just use AI to make it happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For example, just a week before our interview, his students were in small breakout groups using class time to discuss a case study, that staple of business school education. The time was flying by. Sure, the students were having wonderful discussions in their small groups, but Sébastien was getting frustrated, realizing there would not be enough time for the entire class to reflect on the ideas that the individual groups had generated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So while the students were still in their breakout groups, Sébastien explained the dilemma to Claude Code, a popular AI coding tool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so Claude Code was like, “No problem. Let’s do it,” and created something, and by the time students had sent their reply, we had a custom-made software, which was kind of like a constellation of ideas that popped up on the board, and we could see quotes from all the students and the ideas that they had in common and not in common, and this enabled a much deeper conversation because I was able to share all this information instead of just, like, talking to, you know, like, three, four students that were willing to share their ideas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, it’s just a small thing, but it’s changed the way I taught this class, and it did use AI, and at the end of the day, it’s just about your creativity. Like, it’s a tool that is so powerful that, you know, sometimes, you know, as an instructor, you go, “Oh, it’d be so good to have this,” and then you just use it, and it creates a much better experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you see here in that case, it increased the communications between humans. Like, of course, AI can sometimes take away from what we do, but in that case, I think it added to what we do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Now, there are tools already on the market that can do this kind of thing. But what was unique was that Sébastien was able to create them on the fly, in that moment for that class. And the best example of how AI has changed Sébastien’s course has to do with the experience of reading the case itself. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> So we turned it into, instead of me giving them a PDF, I tell them that they can interview, “People” from the company and ask any question they want. And I give them access to the CEO, to the CFO, to, like, a frontline worker, to anyone, and then they have to understand the company deeply, kind of like consulting. You interview people, and you understand their relationship, and they all have very different point of views, and some of them don’t even wanna talk to you, and so on. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Well, and “people” are, of course, chatbots with, like, personalities and information that you’ve given them. This is the activity that has gotten Sébastien the most attention, including a big write-up in The Wall Street Journal. I wanted to try it, and Sébastien was kind enough to mentor me through his simulation. We pull it up on his desktop. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, so I am a consultant at Proxima Health Systems?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you’re an AI expert, and they called you because they wanna have a big AI project, and they want it to be successful. And your point of contact is Maya Chen. She’s the leader of this After Visit AI program. Like, she has an AI agent she wants you to build. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and so I can just start talking to her and say, like, “Hey.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, she’s just waiting for you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There’s a whole bunch of little avatars representing different people at the company, and I can pick one to have a text chat with. I see the avatar for Maya, my point of contact, and I begin to type. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘\u003c/strong>Hi there. I’d love some clarification on what you want me to accomplish.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maya tells me that I, the AI expert consultant, will be building her company an AI tool that helps automate the after-visit forms that sales reps fill out after they visit their customers’ hospitals. And after a bit of back and forth with Maya about some of the players involved, including Marcus, a sales manager, and a bit of help from Sébastien, I start to get a sense of the nitty-gritty details involved in my assignment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> And so for this, we have a CRM system, a customer relationship management system, which is like this big database where rep have to enter information. But they hate it. It has to be formatted, made in a very specific way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ah, I hate it already. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>They spend hours every week. And then so this is why, like, there is this sort of tension because Marcus needs them to enter this information, but they’re like, “Yeah, it doesn’t represent what we see on the ground. Why do you want me to spend all my time on this instead of with the customer?” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay, got it. Maya, Marcus, and others in the company want to automate the after-visit forms that the salespeople fill out, apparently to make things easier on the sales team. But then I chat with a member of the sales team, Dana, and Dana doesn’t necessarily think AI will help. She thinks the whole customer relationship system is messed up. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘Dana makes a number of points. She says it’s like whiplash. She can spend 30 minutes in a unit with a nurse manager who’s stressed out of her mind. She catches the real issue. They come to a conclusion, and then she’s supposed to translate that into 12 little CRM boxes that don’t fit how hospitals actually talk, and then the managers wonder why the notes are vague.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Dana is a little suspicious of \u003cem>me\u003c/em>, the AI consultant. Here’s how she puts it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“What exactly are you trying to solve? Time, accuracy, or the manager chasing us for missing fields?”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Ooh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> You’re in the middle of it right now. I am in the middle of it. It’s hard to help her without more information, understanding everything.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I decide to try to get Dana in line with some tough talk. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘All right, Dana. I hear what you’re saying, but you do realize that you are part of this big organization that has a lot of really important goals? I feel like maybe you’re not doing your part.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin:\u003c/strong> Oh, she’s not happy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>She says, “I am doing my part. That’s the job. What I’m not gonna do is pretend the existing system works the way headquarters imagines.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>How dare you question that I’m doing my job? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Thanks, Dana. I appreciate the straight talk. I love straight talk. What would you like to see?’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And now I’m really starting to understand this scenario. It’s not just about coming up with some kind of AI-powered solution to data collection. It’s about understanding the social dynamics in the company. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>‘Cause she’s very afraid. She says, “Not cutting heads.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Not cutting heads. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>She’s really afraid that you’re coming with AI trying to take over her job. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, yeah. That’s a good point. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You know? Because we’re automating a part of the job that she and her teams do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Once I understand that there’s anxiety in this company about AI taking jobs, and that this anxiety is driving so many problems, I start having more productive chats with the different characters, and we start making progress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is what Sebastien says this kind of AI-driven exercise is designed to explore. How to keep asking questions until you understand what’s actually going on, the problems behind the problem, the stuff that only rarely ends up on any official brief. I think there is a risk in education where I’m like, “This is the truth.” This is the answer to this problem.” And, you know, like, for example, if you go on Instagram and you have your newsfeed, you’re not asking for the next thing you wanna see. We’re just so used to just information being provided to us and not to have to think. And then you get into the middle of this and you have a “real person” you talk to, you actually need to decide what’s your next step.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But this is actually where all the thinking happens, right? You’re like, you need to be aware of what you understand and what you don’t understand. You need to, like, plan ahead. You need to also manage your relationship with them. And I think this is where I think the most. Actually, it’s what I feel like it’s the most important thing to think about, in life, you know, in general.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think we don’t have many tools that are not meant to just, like, provide us with the answer, but are meant for us to ask the right question and for us to learn more. And I think AI is a wonderful tool for that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Here, the AI tool isn’t being used to make things easier on students. It’s not making it faster to read the case or offering up a streamlined summary. It’s slowing students down, making them think more. Or that’s the idea. So are his students learning more using this AI-powered simulation than they would’ve the old way, discussing PDFs or writing short essays? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>It’s hard to answer this question for sure. You can only capture it with exams and stuff like that. But AI cases, in the context of this class, were not something that was graded. They were something meant for conversations in the classroom. So then the second best I can give you is I had the most fun I’ve ever had teaching a case. Like, the participation of the students was through the roof.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They had so many ideas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Sébastien acknowledges that it’s hard to know for sure. Just because students enjoy an activity, recognize it with a teaching award, doesn’t always mean that they’re learning more. But the students tell him they’re learning more because the scenarios feel real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>The students say that it was very useful to them, especially the students who came from consulting. They say it’s exactly the type of thing I had to be good at. It’s great to see it in the context of AI and so on. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>After the break, this strikes me as the dream scenario for AI in the classroom. But just how common is this dream scenario? Is it limited to the classrooms of super AI savvy teachers, or does Sébastien’s optimism extend to other classrooms, too?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I, like a lot of people, think about this technology as having the ability to both empower people and to disempower or overwhelm them. And it seems like for you, the primary experience has been one of empowerment. But I wanna point out, you are kind of a special case. You are somebody who studies AI, is very, very familiar with using algorithms, and was even before ChatGPT came on the scene, and you also teach highly motivated students at a top business school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this is not true of most educators. So my husband teaches high school at Chicago Public Schools, and he assures me that the general consensus among public high school teachers is not one of empowerment. I think a lot of schools are strapped for resources. They don’t always have the opportunity to train instructors in how to manage this technology, and a lot of them have just come to see this as a widespread cheating factory. And so I’m just kind of curious how you think about that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, first, thank you so much for asking this question. Something I think about a lot, and first it’s very important to highlight that I come from a place of privilege in so many dimensions, as you mentioned. And, you know, because I, so I speak more and more publicly, like right now, about this topic, and I’m always like, “What should you say?” Because, you know, as you saw in this conversation, I choose to highlight the positive because I know that people are very aware of the negative. And I think seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel can help. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it is true, you know, that I was lucky to start early and lucky to be in the position I was, and to iterate over time, and I made many, many mistakes. There are things that worked, things that didn’t work. I would say the message, and I really don’t wanna deny at all what public education is going through. I’ve worked a lot also with public education and I know how hard a job it can be, but also how rewarding. What I wanna say is give it a chance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, this technology, for good or bad reason, is most likely here to stay. And if you iterate a little bit with Claude, ChatGPT, whatever, you’ll quickly realize after you overcome this barrier of, you know, not resentment, but this barrier or, like, this technology is really making my job complicated, you quickly realize that it’s a neutral technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, it can do a lot of harm, but it can also allow you as an instructor to create new things and to solve some of the problems. And at first you start very small. You know, you have all of this, like, I forgot how you were saying, like, this cheating factory thing. But then you’re like, “Oh, I can maybe use it that way.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And actually that had a small positive impact. And it looks like a drop in the ocean. But then because you open this door, then curiosity gets in. What if I could do this? And what if I could do that? And all I can say, I know it’s a very minimal point, is there are good things. And yes, they take time, and they take trial and error, and all I can do is show examples. But I think there is value in just knowing that you can use this technology for good. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I am a parent. My kids are a little younger than the students we’ve been talking about, two elementary school-aged kids. And I personally do not want them using AI right now, partly because I think they already spend enough of their lives staring at screens. That is the perennial parenting battle of our age. But also because I want them to learn some really core skills about how to go through the world, and think about problems themselves before I provide them with the scaffolding that AI would provide. And so I wanna ask you, do you think there are some skills that people should have before they turn to AI to learn something?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, of course take everything that I’m about to say with a grain of salt, because I’m not an expert in that. You’re way more of an expert than me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>We’ll bring in some folks to rebut you point by point. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>But, you know, and also, I wanna highlight that we hear so much about AI these days. I think what’s super, super important to say is we don’t know. You know, like they say, wisdom is to know when you don’t know. Nobody knows where AI is going, okay? Like, but then it’s still good to talk about scenarios, and your analogy with the screens or the smartphone is a great one. You know, there has been a lot of debates, on not allowing screen times and, like, this leading to, children learning more to interact with the world and with each other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think it could be great to do this with AI. I mean, that sounds like a great strategy to me. Then, the one caveat I wanna say on this is one pet peeve that I have is I don’t think AI means anything. It’s kind of you saying humans or electricity. Like, is electricity good or bad? Should we forbid kids to access electricity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think there are ways to use AI that could be net positives and there are ways to use AI that could be a disaster. So when we say allow kids to access AI, often we think ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, like the basic thing you can ask all your questions. But for example, I was just talking to a parent and they were playing with their children to create their own song for a story that they invented.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And they used AI to like, put their lyrics that they co-created into a nice song and they were singing it together. Is it a bad use of AI or does it increase creativity? I heard another parent has ChatGPT to, you know, create like, these frames of drawing that you can draw into on things that were very personal. Like they just went on vacation somewhere and let’s actually draw what we went through. And you know you cannot buy a book that’s so personalized. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like a coloring book of their exact vacation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Exactly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, that’s, that is kind of cool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>You see? Like another example and maybe more the fringe of what’s acceptable is there’s a lot of, there are ways to turn ChatGPT into something that don’t think for you. So the way AI works is there are hidden instructions, and AI follows these hidden instructions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>That’s right. If you didn’t know, most chatbots have some version of hidden instructions to guide their use; and as a user, you can change the default settings for these instructions, specify how the AI should respond to prompts, including how much information it should provide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>In the hidden instructions called a system message, you can ask the AI, “Look, you’re talking to a child. Here’s what we really want to avoid. We want them to feel for, to think for themselves. We want them to learn how to be independent. We don’t want them to learn how to rely on you instead of thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But maybe you can encourage their curiosity. And then you let the children talk to this version of ChatGPT, and the AI will just reply to their questions with other questions, and what do you think about this, and what do you think about that? Maybe it’s better than just staring at an iPad on YouTube, you know? Maybe it actually leads you to, to think a bit deeper. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>For the record, I will not be tasking ChatGPT to chat with my children anytime soon, even in appropriately Socratic only ask questions mode. But that coloring book idea, it’s actually kind of a good one, and I take his point. We really don’t know. We don’t know how helpful or harmful AI will ultimately be as an educational tool. Stepping back a bit though, I wanted to know what advice he would have for students, the people on the other end of the educational process. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>I mean, the first one, which is, you know, the one thing I want us to remember from this podcast is, like, stay hopeful. Because, you know, there are reasons to despair from time to time, and especially as humans, we are really not good at dealing with uncertainty. Like, second, staying hopeful and being aware that we tend to only see the downside instead of all the unexpected upside that can come later.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Everyone is in the same boat. Like, it feels like it’s me that doesn’t know what the next step to choose and so on, like what studies should I go for, how should I learn and so on. But it’s not only me, it’s the whole society that has to adapt at the same time. And I think that at least for me, it helps me feel a bit better about it, like, the idea that it’s not me that doesn’t know what to do next and it’s all of us together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s like we’re all collectively gonna go through this crazy period together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Exactly. And so the more we can, you know, like help each other and so on, the better it is. And, finally, what do you do? You have this huge uncertainty. I’m saying, okay, take it with a grain of salt with all the feedback you receive about what you think you should do and so on, and all of us together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think a flip side of that is, if you’re, it’s pure uncertainty and we don’t exactly know where things are going, maybe the best thing to do is to follow your heart. I know it sounds a bit cheesy, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it’s better, like, try for all of us to maybe not conform as much as possible and what’s expected of us and follow more, like, our instinct. Maybe there has never been a better time to do that because the uncertainty of the system is the system is gonna change so much that maybe the best path to follow is just what we really like to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sébastien Martin: \u003c/strong>Thank you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>AI is forcing students and educators to adapt. And while a lot of attention has been focused on cheating and outsourcing thinking, I think Sébastien makes a compelling case that this adaptation will have some real upsides, that new kinds of learning experiences are now possible, including ones that ask more of students, not less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But of course, AI is not the first technology to barge into schools. Next episode, we’ll look at how previous technologies have changed education, particularly for younger students, what those technologies delivered, what they failed to deliver, and what this could mean for today’s high schoolers, middle schoolers, elementary school kids growing up alongside AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. A special thanks to today’s guest, Sébastien Martin. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, additional production by Nathan Ray, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney, marketing help from Ananya Mallapragada, administrative support, recording help, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Language, Landscapes and Robot Minds with Annalee Newitz",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> has been at the center of successive waves of technological and cultural change — from the literal Gold Rush days to the current gold rush-like AI boom. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/dreammachines\">Dream Machines\u003c/a> hosts Alexis Madrigal and Robin Sloan talk to author, longtime San Francisco resident, and “chronicler of other minds” Annalee Newitz about the difference between this boom and previous ones, the pleasures and dangers of anthropomorphizing tech tools, and whether or not AI is embodied. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>Guest: \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.techsploitation.com/\">Annalee Newitz\u003c/a>, journalist and author of Automatic Noodle and other books\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://youtu.be/v8FdJur2RJ4\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Episode transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (00:00):\u003cbr>What if it turns out language is just kind of nothing big? What if it’s just like, oh, the reason why LLMs can do this so easily is because it turns out language is no big deal. And it’s actually not what makes us cool. What makes us cool is something else. Because think about how bullshit written language really is. As somebody who I write a lot –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:19):\u003cbr>Hold on. McMillan, we have a new strap line to print across the front of all of Annalee Newitz’s novels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (00:27):\u003cbr>I’m Alexis Madrigal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:30):\u003cbr>I’m Robin Sloan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (00:31):\u003cbr>And this is KQED’s Dream Machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:34):\u003cbr>A podcast about AI, how it works, what it means. How it feels. Yeah, how it feels. And importantly, it’s rooted here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (00:45):\u003cbr>So of course, first episode of Dream Machines, we are talking about how AI took root here in San Francisco, Anthropic, OpenAI, and like 400 million other companies between here and Hayes Valley. The dream of San Francisco and the broader Bay Area as the place that is this incredible mechanism for bringing these audacious dreams forward, whether or not you kind of want them to, whether or not you think they’re a good idea or a bad idea, just incontrovertibly going back in time, this is the place. Semiconductors all the way through the PC, all the different components of the PC are happening here. The internet, of course, social media, the great horrors of social media, as well as all the Uber for everything companies. Each one of these things has these roots in this area. And it is one of those times where you’re like, was it just the gold rush?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(01:39):\u003cbr>Did the gold rush somehow imbue some magic dust?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:42):\u003cbr>So for our first conversation, we wanted to find the ultimate\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (01:47):\u003cbr>San\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:48):\u003cbr>Franciscan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (01:48):\u003cbr>The avatar\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:50):\u003cbr>Of\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (01:50):\u003cbr>San Francisco. Who\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:51):\u003cbr>Can speak? Who can speak about this place in the long run? And across all these dimensions we’re talking about, cultural and economic and technical and everything else. And\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (02:00):\u003cbr>That would be Annalee Newitz, of course, a nonfiction writer who really in their nonfiction works on this kind of civilizational scale. In fiction too, books like Automatic Noodle is creating dream machines. It’s creating these kind of other minds. And I do think Annalee is a figure that is just so San Francisco in this mix of being tech forward, being politics forward, being wild and free along dimensions other people in other regions of country maybe have never even imagined.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (02:31):\u003cbr>Thinking creatively and critically about the future, right? It’s those two things together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (02:35):\u003cbr>Without further ado, here is our interview with Annalee Newitz, the first on dream machines. One of the questions that I think we’ve been asking ourselves is why San Francisco over and over for these booms? I mean, the Bay Area broadly, but also San Francisco quite specifically in this case and certainly over the last 20 years, what do you think? What do you make of it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (02:57):\u003cbr>Because it’s easy to say, you want to say, oh, it’s a boom town. That’s the nature of it. But you’re like, okay, you’ve told me nothing. Over all these years, what’s your read of that tendency, that power?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (03:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it is true that this is a town of boom and bust, but more than that, it’s a town of booms motivated by engineering breakthroughs. And we’ve always had in the Bay Area, if you include things like Silicon Valley in the kind of greater Bay Area, we’ve always had innovators and industrialists coming together. And one of the things I think that’s so interesting about San Francisco is this weird alchemy of oftentimes very conservative proto-oligarchs of industry. Whether it’s the railway tycoons of the late 19th century or people like Peter Thiel now or Sam Altman now, you have these people who are just dumping money into the economy and they’re not interested in the public good really. I mean, or they have sort of a thin scrim of care for the public good. They just want to make money, but they’re dumping that money into a city that’s full of radicals and subversives, people who’ve been kicked out of every decent city in the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(04:15):\u003cbr>People who are too queer for their families, too leftist for their political parties. And they come together, they meet that money, and then something fricking weird happens. That’s San Francisco. And I think that’s why San Francisco has such weird politics too. You’d think we’d be a city that would be like Arcada up north, that we’d have an all green city council. We’d be run by socialists. But no, we’re a city where the socialists somehow are hanging out with these industrialists.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (04:48):\u003cbr>Right, right, right. So Annalee, I know your origin story and I have read a lot of your wired.com articles and other things and following in your trail once I arrived here. I am curious, as you have watched this city change so much and through these different eras, but particularly this kind of AI boom, which is like trillion dollar companies suddenly implanting into San Francisco, how has that changed the city for you? And do you think that’s changed the way that you write about the city or write about technology?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (05:25):\u003cbr>A hundred percent it has. I think one of the big differences between the AI boom and say the dot-com boom, which was the turn of the century, is that there’s a real nihilism to this tech boom. I felt like during the dot-com boom, yes, it was bonkers and there was way too much money, but there was a kind of exuberance and delight and silliness to it. Whereas I feel like the AI boom is associated with politics like the network state or very regressive sort of Peter Thiel style, let’s return to monarchy type politics. And so the politics are very reactionary and very anti-democratic. And that has really shifted my understanding of San Francisco, which I always though of as a very anarchic, freewheeling, happy town that maybe was a little too rich, always a little too rich, but also kind of spent money freely on sex and drugs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(06:29):\u003cbr>And now I feel like what I want to reflect in my writing about the city is this dark turn toward a kind of self-denial and anti-hedonism and pro-authoritarianism. And so the city is a darker place, but ironically, it’s made me want to write happier, cozier, more friendly stories about it to encourage people to remember, you can have some fun and you don’t need a lot of money to do it and the city could be beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (07:03):\u003cbr>We’ve talked about this quite a bit that among your many virtues and great strengths as a writer, you are perhaps the foremost chronicler or imaginer of other minds, including machine minds.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (07:17):\u003cbr>It’s really both.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(07:18):\u003cbr>I definitely got the inspiration. I get the inspiration from my non-human characters from the world around me and from the machines I interact with. And I am a ruthless anthropomorphizer and I do make fun of myself for this. And I realize that it’s kind of a character flaw, especially if you write about science. But I can’t help but see the personhood in everything, including machines. Although not so much in ChatGPT, maybe we’ll talk about that later. We need to get to that. Interestingly. But this microphone, I could easily have compassion for this microphone. How many times has it been breathed on? And what’s it thinking about that? Does it have opinions about different smells that it encounters? And what’s it going to do about it? So I think that’s part of what happens to me is that I’ll be writing a story that’s fact-based and evidence-based.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(08:12):\u003cbr>And a part of my brain is like, “Oh, but what if this was alive? What would it be thinking right now?” Because what is human consciousness, but this thin little layer around a bunch of just survival imperative.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (08:26):\u003cbr>Why don’t you briefly set up the world of Automatic Noodle and we’ll use that to kind of think about some of these robots that you’ve created.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (08:33):\u003cbr>Yeah. It’s the first book I’ve ever written that was set in San Francisco. And it’s about what happens in California after the state has won a war of independence against the United States. So it’s set five years after the war has been won. So things are being rebuilt and resettled. And one of the things that’s happened in the wake of the war is that some of the robots who were used in the fighting have been given limited civil rights in the nation of California. And that’s partly because the nation of California thinks of itself as very futuristic and wants to kind of be the first nation that joins the UN having these kinds of rights for sentient AI. But also it’s because it’s kind of undeniable that some of these robots are people. And so my main characters are four robots who have these limited rights.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(09:25):\u003cbr>They’re free to work, but not to own property. They are free to associate with each other, but not form unions. And so they’re struggling with a lot of the same things that many people in the states have struggled with and now in the nation of California. So they decide through kind of skirting the laws that they will open a noodle restaurant to survive. And the book is really about them learning to get along with their human neighbors, cope with robophobia, and kind of find a home together in the new San Francisco. I just started writing the sequel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (10:03):\u003cbr>Oh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:03):\u003cbr>Yeah. So you’re going to find out a lot about California politics in the sequel. It’s going\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:08):\u003cbr>To be another sort of slim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it’s going to be another novella. So it’s called Noodle Union. So that gives you a hint of what I might be thinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:18):\u003cbr>I mean, there’s so many ways we can get into this, but I would say primarily first as a writer, as someone who’s thinking about minds and voices and characters, do you look at this new creature before us with curiosity, with interest? Can you imagine a language model on the pages of an Annalee novel or just how does it all strike you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:40):\u003cbr>I am super curious about it. I’m very curious about humans’ reactions to it as well and seeing how many other anthropomorphizers are out there. And people are feeling anxious about whether these are people that we’re building, whether they’re just tools that will destroy our lives as people. What do we do with them ethically? I think all of that stuff is super interesting. And I’m glad we’re thinking about it, even though I am not convinced that the LLMs we have now are people. We absolutely should be thinking about what the heck happens if it turns out that they are. Because as I’ve said many times, the business model of most of these LLM companies is to build people and then buy and sell them. So we’re trying to reinvent slavery. Well, we are not, but captains of industry are. They love slavery. Oh, those guys are so crazy about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(11:34):\u003cbr>But what I would say is that when you’re thinking about LLMs or you’re thinking about AI, what we’re calling AI more broadly, they do have bodies. We think of them as disembodied, but here we are in the middle of huge debates over data centers. Data centers are the bodies of these creatures, of these programs and algorithms and models. So it’s very late capitalism to have something whose body is remote and can’t be seen. And then you’re interacting with it as something that appears to be out of thin air.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (12:11):\u003cbr>A bright, friendly, chirpy presence.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (12:13):\u003cbr>Right. Right. And all of the secondary effects that that thing is having on people’s lives and the environment is somewhere else, usually somewhere that is a have not state or a have not region. And so it’s very colonial. And many people have written about this, about the kind of colonial model of AI. And so I’m always interested in reminding people all of this stuff is embodied. There’s no such thing as an AI that’s like here in the air floating around as my first boss at the Bay Guardian said like, oh, the internet, it’s in the air. No, it’s actually not, dude. It’s in a server form.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (12:51):\u003cbr>Right though. Except that the thing itself, the voice, whatever it is, in a sense, I would argue it doesn’t care that it’s in the data center. It matters a lot that it is, but it doesn’t care. What it cares is that it’s in language. I mean, it’s terrain, it’s landscape. If you think of the robots of your novel, they’re hiking up hills and skating down the other side. The landscape, the literal environment of all these language models is language itself. And of course\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:22):\u003cbr>The – Is\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:22):\u003cbr>It though? It absolutely is. And the –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:25):\u003cbr>Don’t you think its landscape is circuitry and the wires it travels through and the ether that it travels through that it’s part of a radio wave and it’s part of an electrical current. It has a physical embodiment. Stop denying that it has a body\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:40):\u003cbr>Robin. I shouldn’t have better than try to outplay Analynus. It’s just a normal physical body like the vast micorrhisal mat that connects all trees in the forest. Thank\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:52):\u003cbr>You. See, you understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:53):\u003cbr>Outplay it again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:54):\u003cbr>Listen, you’re the one that wrote about sentient sourdough bread, so you started it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (14:00):\u003cbr>Fair enough. Do you think that this boom that’s been driven by this technology, do you think it’s different in scale or kinder character from the San Francisco booms before? Do you think it’s kind of just of a piece or how does it strike you as a longtime\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (14:16):\u003cbr>Chronicler? Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think it’s the same. So if it’s gold, if it’s microchips, if it’s models, LLMs, it’s all kind of the same thing because what ends up happening here in San Francisco is we get just crazy investment and huge levels of investment. I think $200 billion have been spent investing in AI in San Francisco alone over the last six years. It’s\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (14:44):\u003cbr>Like half the money that’s gone into it in the world.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (14:47):\u003cbr>Yeah. Imagine if we put even part of that money into say, I don’t know, public transit or a smart grid, which actually is AI. A smart grid is AI. Why don’t we invest in that? So I think that is the part that’s very San Francisco. We’re just going to put billions and billions of dollars into this thing that we don’t really know what it is. It’s like a tulip or maybe it’s gold or maybe it’s some other thing. Yeah, it’s definitely in character for this city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (15:16):\u003cbr>I have to say I find it a little more thrilling than the couple previous booms. The kind of Uber for everything boom was really kind of sad in a labor exploitation hustle kind of situation. And then before that you had social media, which Rob and I have talked about as being maybe one of the great oxbow lakes in technological history. Eventually people will move on in some crucial ways. In fact, they kind of already have, at least from that kind of Mark Zuckerberg social network kind of sense of social media.That’s gone for most people now. And yet San Francisco was the heart and soul of that and the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(15:55):\u003cbr>This one, I guess I find it interesting because I am really interested both in language and consciousness. And it seems to be just driving stakes through kind of cherished ideas that maybe I had about these things, that you couldn’t get this kind of linguistic performance without a conscious thing there. And it just turns out actually that does work. And I think the slippage between what you might expect and what actually happened is way more interesting than if you say, “What if we got rid of taxi medallions and anyone could drive around and pick you up?” That you could kind of imagine. It’s just kind of like a ground game logistics operations thing. And this has some mystery at the center of it where even the people working on it don’t totally get it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (16:46):\u003cbr>I mean, you’ve put your finger on an important distinction there and that is a difference. It’s organic. It’s a technology that I don’t know if it’s fair to say for the first time is kind of as much organic as engineered or technical.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (17:01):\u003cbr>But sort of like an organism, it’s how those things on the multi-scale things work to generate the thing is still, that part is kind of mysterious. So that part of it I find very interesting. And at the same time, it’s also occurring against this socioeconomic and political backdrop that is so much more grim than when you first arrived in San Francisco in the 1990s, which was the survey data bears it out. It’s not just our vibes. People basically thought the world was getting better. And that is not across the political spectrum how people feel in 2026 as we’re staring down whatever is happening inside these models.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (17:42):\u003cbr>Is the mystery compelling to you, Annalee? Or are you kind of like, “No, I’m okay.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (17:51):\u003cbr>I know what you mean by the mystery. It’s that we have this technology where you’ll talk to a developer and they’re like, “Actually, we put in these inputs. We get some outputs. We don’t fully understand what’s happening in between.” I mean, people say that about Microsoft products all the time too. You know what I mean? They’re like, “Oh, this product is so big. Thousands of engineers contributed to it. No one person understands Windows.That ship has sailed. No one person understands a video game, like a premier video game because again, thousands of people have contributed to it. So calling it a mystery, sure, it’s a mystery. But the other thing about that is, as you guys were talking, and I think we all fall into this because we’re writers and we deal in language and we’re like, but language is the coolest, most awesome thing that makes us human.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(18:42):\u003cbr>And that’s what we have over all of the other animals. We’re an animal, but we’re special because we have language. What if it turns out language is just kind of nothing big? What if it’s just like, oh, the reason why LLMs can do this so easily is because it turns out language is no big deal. And it’s actually not what makes us cool. What makes us cool is something else. That\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (19:05):\u003cbr>Would be one of the great kind of recalibrations of all of history, actually. I welcome it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (19:11):\u003cbr>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (19:12):\u003cbr>Especially written language.Because think about how bullshit written language really is. As somebody who I write a lot –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (19:19):\u003cbr>Hold on. McMillan, we have a new strap line for to print across the front of all of Annalee Newitz’s novels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (19:26):\u003cbr>Just get the audiobook people. But we think of written language as being this. It was this amazing technology. It has a mystery at the heart of it because oftentimes you can come across language without knowing where it came from. And you’re like, who wrote this? What even is this? Linear A, still trying to figure it out. And I write a lot about archeology in my science journalism life. And it really is the case that ancient civilizations that left writing behind are often harder to understand than ones that did not. And the reason why is because we get so tricked by the language and we’re like, “Oh, well, this culture was just all about King Jaya Varman.” Yeah. That’s all they though about all the time. And it’s like, no.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (20:08):\u003cbr>The one segment they found in the trb. Woodscriribe.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:11):\u003cbr>Yeah. It was like the king had the money and the power to make people write stuff. But then there’s all these other people that we’re not even thinking about because we get so enchanted by this one piece of writing that we have. Or in Rome where it’s like the only people writing are the guys with power. And they’re saying all kinds of nasty stuff about freed slaves and sex workers. And it’s like, but we don’t know what the truth was. So the writing often hides the truth is what I’m saying. So writing is cool. I love it. I’m so grateful for it. It’s something I am good at. But maybe it’s just kind of yet another – The fact that it can\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (20:50):\u003cbr>Reproduce those patterns of our language to you does not impress you as much as it might some other people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:58):\u003cbr>Well, I think, like I said, maybe that’s the recalibration is maybe we need to say, maybe it’s not impressive. Maybe it shows us that actually writing wasn’t really that cool of an invention in the first place. And we love writing, keep writing, but let’s keep going. Yeah, but\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:12):\u003cbr>Let’s talk about some other better inventions like the noodle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (21:17):\u003cbr>Like cooking. It\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:18):\u003cbr>Turns out\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (21:19):\u003cbr>That cooking might actually be a better\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:21):\u003cbr>Invention than writing. I have to say, sometimes I feel like our conversations about this, and it comes back to humanness and the things that we love and sort of are proud of in almost a species level. And they feel like these bullworks, and then you set them up and they do kind of get challenged or even knocked down. In my novel Sourdough, I make a big deal about the egg test and how these amazing agile robot arms and they can do all these great things, but they cannot crack an egg with the grace of a human cook just knocking it with one hand. There is a robot arm company down in Palo Alto. They got these new robot arms. Now I don’t –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:01):\u003cbr>CEO emails\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (22:01):\u003cbr>You check this\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:02):\u003cbr>Out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (22:03):\u003cbr>I don’t know if they read sourdough. I don’t know if they read sourdough, but they’ve got some really slick new demos and they are cracking some eggs. And I will tell you sincerely, I found it kind of both delightful and disturbing because I’ve thought about that so much. And I did. I sort of believed in it. And I think that’s one of the challenges of this time.This has been happening for the last 10 years with these technologies. There have been these really easy ways to say, yeah, yeah, nice, but it can’t X. And then it X’s. And how do we think about that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:35):\u003cbr>I mean, I’m also curious about this, Annalee. I would say in your fiction, you come across to me as pro robot. You would like to have robots here in this room with us and you could interact and hang out with them and\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (22:48):\u003cbr>Run on the\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:48):\u003cbr>Streets of San Francisco. But how do we get from here to there minus, I don’t know, some trillions of dollars worth of investment into LLMs and other things? Is there a preferred route of AI development for you that would somehow go around some of these kind of economic and political issues that you’re thinking about? That’s such a good question.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (23:11):\u003cbr>It is a really good question. I think that one possibility is that we think about this as an economic problem. There’s way too much money going into the development of LLMs. And we’ve seen the results, which is that it’s getting stuffed into every product, into every service, places where we don’t want it, where we don’t need it, where it’s actually hindering productivity rather than bolstering it. And so that’s a very bad side effect of this huge amount of investment. I don’t think we should invest no money in it. I’ve heard lots of accounts that Anthropics products really do help with the development process and software. I heard a lot of people crying about that like, oh, all the things I was trained to do, I don’t have to do anymore. But at the same time, it’s exciting. It is a tool. It’s like a calculator would’ve been back in the 19th century.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(24:04):\u003cbr>It’s like, oh, this can help us get to a certain point and then now we can develop on top of it. I would love to see more involvement of the humanities and social sciences in the development of LLMs. What if we poured some of that AI money into universities where we study the human impacts of this? Because all of these companies are claiming we are going to build humans, but we’re not going to consult the humanities, which is literally the study of humans and culture. It’s like, how do you make humans? How do you make people without understanding society? And I’m sorry, but software development, love it. It’s great. It’s not the study of culture and society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (24:49):\u003cbr>I do think that a lot of the people who work in this field who now are scattered throughout the streets of San Francisco, more or less think like humans suck at figuring stuff out. That the way to do it is to just plow all the information into the machine and have it find the patterns of what is human? Well, this thing is going to figure it out. We’re just going to keep feeding it every word ever put out by humans, every video, every uploaded by human. Every podcast episode. Every podcast. And then out at the other end, they’re just going to say, what is a human? And something will emerge. Some pattern will be there. And that’s to me, the sort of bounce on effect of this for the city of San Francisco is we’re now like, there’s tons of people here who now think in the terms of these large language models and think in the terms of AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(25:44):\u003cbr>And I’m not sure what that’s going to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:46):\u003cbr>The term of art for that in the industry and in academia is the bitter lesson. It’s literally called the bitter lesson of data, which also sounds like the title of a good novel that I would read. Yeah, bitter\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (25:57):\u003cbr>Lesson. I would\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:57):\u003cbr>Read that. Yeah,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (25:59):\u003cbr>Yeah,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:59):\u003cbr>Yeah. Totally. So yeah, people are walking around basically bitter lesson pilled. And it’s like, we’re not going to reason our way – We’re not going to figure anything out. Or puzzle our way out. We’re just going to. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (26:09):\u003cbr>It’s very nihilistic and it is very anti-human. I think that it’s as much a reflection of contemporary politics as it is of any kind of technology. And again, all of the money going into this technology is a political choice. Saying that this is the primary technology that’s going to drive our understanding of ourselves. That’s again, a political choice. The technology is just going along doing sentence completion or whatever. It really is, as Emily and Bender has said, a stochastic parrot. It says horoscope or something. But the idea that we’ll shovel all of this data into a machine and get answers about people or about society, I think is a symptom of a culture where we’re moving toward authoritarianism, where the idea is that some single centralized entity will figure everything out and make decisions for us. And then we don’t have to worry about what actual people say that they want because the machine says, “Well, what you need is X.” Asking the machine what humans are is a way of avoiding democracy, avoiding voting, asking the actual humans who they are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(27:23):\u003cbr>We don’t want to hear from them. They don’t know. And it’s like, actually, it turns out we know best what’s good for us. And our voices should be heard, not filtered through a machine, through a model that distorts what we mean. Actually just talk to us. Ask us what we want. I just want trans people to be free. And I just want to have public transit that works. And you’re not going to get an AI to explain that to anyone. You have to do it at the voting booth. You have to do it in the streets.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (27:56):\u003cbr>Hearing you describe that, it kind of creates a paradox. It’s a very vivid paradox of this Titanic effort. I mean, sort of a construction effort, an infrastructural effort, a financial effort driven at least in part by exhaustion and sort of a community, a society saying, “I give up. We can’t figure this out. We’re not going to try anymore. Let’s just build a machine God that can\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (28:21):\u003cbr>Do it for\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (28:22):\u003cbr>Us.” So what’s the next five years look like right here in San Francisco? Forget the world. Just think about this. We’re in the hot crucible of this weird new\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (28:31):\u003cbr>Thing. Just crash out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (28:31):\u003cbr>Yeah. Yeah. What do you think it looks like, Annalee? That’s the first question. And then we’ll finally close out with what should we do? But what do you think? What do you think is just ahead of us now?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (28:42):\u003cbr>I mean, there’s a couple of pathways. I mean, there’s many pathways. This is a city that loves to burn itself down. We are right near a massive earthquake fault. Bad things could happen. We could be on fire. We could be recovering from all kinds of – Are\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (28:58):\u003cbr>These the hopeful scenarios or are they\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (28:59):\u003cbr>Not helpful? I’m just saying – Did you ask for hopeful scenarios?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (29:02):\u003cbr>No, no, no, I wasn’t. I was just\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (29:03):\u003cbr>Curious.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(29:03):\u003cbr>I think we’re going to see a backlash to that investment model. We’re also going to see, and Robin, you and I were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, and a backlash against just the internet, information and language that we receive from places that we think of as kind of polluted by AI slop. I hear a lot of people talking about cozy technology. How do you create the feeling of coziness that was torn away from us when Twitter turned into X? So I think we’re going to see new kinds of community spaces, for example, like local economy, which Alexis, you’ve worked on so hard in Oakland, and I just think is absolutely a model of the future. And we’re going to see more and more of that. We’re going to see more new types of community gatherings in older spaces like bars or libraries or schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(29:59):\u003cbr>And I’m more focused on authenticity being associated with something being physical. But I think that we are associating people just talking to each other and writing things down with human connection versus if you do it on the internet, you never know if an AI wrote it. Did a person write it? But if I give you a zine that’s all scribbled and weird and I’ve cut things up, you’re like, “That’s definitely Annalee.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (30:29):\u003cbr>I mean, I do think you’re right though, Annalee. I think that there’s a bonus that’s now accruing to the physical world and anything that is. I mean, the problem is the words now can be printed from an AI, but just real actual three-dimensional IRL, real-time interaction suddenly has a bonus that it didn’t have before, which is you know you’re not interacting with AI slop of any kind. Wait, before we let you go, do you want to tell us about your new book just before you\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (30:58):\u003cbr>Want to do that? Yeah. So I’m working on two things right now. One is I have a new book coming out in October, which is called A Wall Is Also a Road, and it is about a cellular slime mold who is a grad student. Classic. And the other thing I’m working on is I’m helping to reboot the magazine Star Log as a print publication.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:18):\u003cbr>As discussed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (31:19):\u003cbr>No AI slop, nothing. It will be only print and that’s coming in November. So I’m very excited.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:27):\u003cbr>Amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:27):\u003cbr>So much to look forward to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:29):\u003cbr>Yeah. Annalee Newitz, the great chronicler of other minds. Thanks for bringing your real mind here with us\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:35):\u003cbr>Of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:36):\u003cbr>Yeah,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:36):\u003cbr>What a pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (31:37):\u003cbr>Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, the fandom is very mutual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:40):\u003cbr>Annalee Newitz, thank you so much. Thanks for the book and the future books and everything else.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (31:46):\u003cbr>Thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> has been at the center of successive waves of technological and cultural change — from the literal Gold Rush days to the current gold rush-like AI boom. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/dreammachines\">Dream Machines\u003c/a> hosts Alexis Madrigal and Robin Sloan talk to author, longtime San Francisco resident, and “chronicler of other minds” Annalee Newitz about the difference between this boom and previous ones, the pleasures and dangers of anthropomorphizing tech tools, and whether or not AI is embodied. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (00:00):\u003cbr>What if it turns out language is just kind of nothing big? What if it’s just like, oh, the reason why LLMs can do this so easily is because it turns out language is no big deal. And it’s actually not what makes us cool. What makes us cool is something else. Because think about how bullshit written language really is. As somebody who I write a lot –\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:19):\u003cbr>Hold on. McMillan, we have a new strap line to print across the front of all of Annalee Newitz’s novels.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:34):\u003cbr>A podcast about AI, how it works, what it means. How it feels. Yeah, how it feels. And importantly, it’s rooted here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (00:45):\u003cbr>So of course, first episode of Dream Machines, we are talking about how AI took root here in San Francisco, Anthropic, OpenAI, and like 400 million other companies between here and Hayes Valley. The dream of San Francisco and the broader Bay Area as the place that is this incredible mechanism for bringing these audacious dreams forward, whether or not you kind of want them to, whether or not you think they’re a good idea or a bad idea, just incontrovertibly going back in time, this is the place. Semiconductors all the way through the PC, all the different components of the PC are happening here. The internet, of course, social media, the great horrors of social media, as well as all the Uber for everything companies. Each one of these things has these roots in this area. And it is one of those times where you’re like, was it just the gold rush?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (02:00):\u003cbr>That would be Annalee Newitz, of course, a nonfiction writer who really in their nonfiction works on this kind of civilizational scale. In fiction too, books like Automatic Noodle is creating dream machines. It’s creating these kind of other minds. And I do think Annalee is a figure that is just so San Francisco in this mix of being tech forward, being politics forward, being wild and free along dimensions other people in other regions of country maybe have never even imagined.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (02:35):\u003cbr>Without further ado, here is our interview with Annalee Newitz, the first on dream machines. One of the questions that I think we’ve been asking ourselves is why San Francisco over and over for these booms? I mean, the Bay Area broadly, but also San Francisco quite specifically in this case and certainly over the last 20 years, what do you think? What do you make of it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (02:57):\u003cbr>Because it’s easy to say, you want to say, oh, it’s a boom town. That’s the nature of it. But you’re like, okay, you’ve told me nothing. Over all these years, what’s your read of that tendency, that power?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (03:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it is true that this is a town of boom and bust, but more than that, it’s a town of booms motivated by engineering breakthroughs. And we’ve always had in the Bay Area, if you include things like Silicon Valley in the kind of greater Bay Area, we’ve always had innovators and industrialists coming together. And one of the things I think that’s so interesting about San Francisco is this weird alchemy of oftentimes very conservative proto-oligarchs of industry. Whether it’s the railway tycoons of the late 19th century or people like Peter Thiel now or Sam Altman now, you have these people who are just dumping money into the economy and they’re not interested in the public good really. I mean, or they have sort of a thin scrim of care for the public good. They just want to make money, but they’re dumping that money into a city that’s full of radicals and subversives, people who’ve been kicked out of every decent city in the country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (03:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it is true that this is a town of boom and bust, but more than that, it’s a town of booms motivated by engineering breakthroughs. And we’ve always had in the Bay Area, if you include things like Silicon Valley in the kind of greater Bay Area, we’ve always had innovators and industrialists coming together. And one of the things I think that’s so interesting about San Francisco is this weird alchemy of oftentimes very conservative proto-oligarchs of industry. Whether it’s the railway tycoons of the late 19th century or people like Peter Thiel now or Sam Altman now, you have these people who are just dumping money into the economy and they’re not interested in the public good really. I mean, or they have sort of a thin scrim of care for the public good. They just want to make money, but they’re dumping that money into a city that’s full of radicals and subversives, people who’ve been kicked out of every decent city in the country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(04:15):\u003cbr>People who are too queer for their families, too leftist for their political parties. And they come together, they meet that money, and then something fricking weird happens. That’s San Francisco. And I think that’s why San Francisco has such weird politics too. You’d think we’d be a city that would be like Arcada up north, that we’d have an all green city council. We’d be run by socialists. But no, we’re a city where the socialists somehow are hanging out with these industrialists.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(04:15):\u003cbr>People who are too queer for their families, too leftist for their political parties. And they come together, they meet that money, and then something fricking weird happens. That’s San Francisco. And I think that’s why San Francisco has such weird politics too. You’d think we’d be a city that would be like Arcada up north, that we’d have an all green city council. We’d be run by socialists. But no, we’re a city where the socialists somehow are hanging out with these industrialists.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (04:48):\u003cbr>Right, right, right. So Annalee, I know your origin story and I have read a lot of your wired.com articles and other things and following in your trail once I arrived here. I am curious, as you have watched this city change so much and through these different eras, but particularly this kind of AI boom, which is like trillion dollar companies suddenly implanting into San Francisco, how has that changed the city for you? And do you think that’s changed the way that you write about the city or write about technology?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (04:48):\u003cbr>Right, right, right. So Annalee, I know your origin story and I have read a lot of your wired.com articles and other things and following in your trail once I arrived here. I am curious, as you have watched this city change so much and through these different eras, but particularly this kind of AI boom, which is like trillion dollar companies suddenly implanting into San Francisco, how has that changed the city for you? And do you think that’s changed the way that you write about the city or write about technology?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (05:25):\u003cbr>A hundred percent it has. I think one of the big differences between the AI boom and say the dot-com boom, which was the turn of the century, is that there’s a real nihilism to this tech boom. I felt like during the dot-com boom, yes, it was bonkers and there was way too much money, but there was a kind of exuberance and delight and silliness to it. Whereas I feel like the AI boom is associated with politics like the network state or very regressive sort of Peter Thiel style, let’s return to monarchy type politics. And so the politics are very reactionary and very anti-democratic. And that has really shifted my understanding of San Francisco, which I always though of as a very anarchic, freewheeling, happy town that maybe was a little too rich, always a little too rich, but also kind of spent money freely on sex and drugs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (05:25):\u003cbr>A hundred percent it has. I think one of the big differences between the AI boom and say the dot-com boom, which was the turn of the century, is that there’s a real nihilism to this tech boom. I felt like during the dot-com boom, yes, it was bonkers and there was way too much money, but there was a kind of exuberance and delight and silliness to it. Whereas I feel like the AI boom is associated with politics like the network state or very regressive sort of Peter Thiel style, let’s return to monarchy type politics. And so the politics are very reactionary and very anti-democratic. And that has really shifted my understanding of San Francisco, which I always though of as a very anarchic, freewheeling, happy town that maybe was a little too rich, always a little too rich, but also kind of spent money freely on sex and drugs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(06:29):\u003cbr>And now I feel like what I want to reflect in my writing about the city is this dark turn toward a kind of self-denial and anti-hedonism and pro-authoritarianism. And so the city is a darker place, but ironically, it’s made me want to write happier, cozier, more friendly stories about it to encourage people to remember, you can have some fun and you don’t need a lot of money to do it and the city could be beautiful.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(06:29):\u003cbr>And now I feel like what I want to reflect in my writing about the city is this dark turn toward a kind of self-denial and anti-hedonism and pro-authoritarianism. And so the city is a darker place, but ironically, it’s made me want to write happier, cozier, more friendly stories about it to encourage people to remember, you can have some fun and you don’t need a lot of money to do it and the city could be beautiful.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (07:03):\u003cbr>We’ve talked about this quite a bit that among your many virtues and great strengths as a writer, you are perhaps the foremost chronicler or imaginer of other minds, including machine minds.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (07:03):\u003cbr>We’ve talked about this quite a bit that among your many virtues and great strengths as a writer, you are perhaps the foremost chronicler or imaginer of other minds, including machine minds.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (07:17):\u003cbr>It’s really both.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (07:17):\u003cbr>It’s really both.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(07:18):\u003cbr>I definitely got the inspiration. I get the inspiration from my non-human characters from the world around me and from the machines I interact with. And I am a ruthless anthropomorphizer and I do make fun of myself for this. And I realize that it’s kind of a character flaw, especially if you write about science. But I can’t help but see the personhood in everything, including machines. Although not so much in ChatGPT, maybe we’ll talk about that later. We need to get to that. Interestingly. But this microphone, I could easily have compassion for this microphone. How many times has it been breathed on? And what’s it thinking about that? Does it have opinions about different smells that it encounters? And what’s it going to do about it? So I think that’s part of what happens to me is that I’ll be writing a story that’s fact-based and evidence-based.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(07:18):\u003cbr>I definitely got the inspiration. I get the inspiration from my non-human characters from the world around me and from the machines I interact with. And I am a ruthless anthropomorphizer and I do make fun of myself for this. And I realize that it’s kind of a character flaw, especially if you write about science. But I can’t help but see the personhood in everything, including machines. Although not so much in ChatGPT, maybe we’ll talk about that later. We need to get to that. Interestingly. But this microphone, I could easily have compassion for this microphone. How many times has it been breathed on? And what’s it thinking about that? Does it have opinions about different smells that it encounters? And what’s it going to do about it? So I think that’s part of what happens to me is that I’ll be writing a story that’s fact-based and evidence-based.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(08:12):\u003cbr>And a part of my brain is like, “Oh, but what if this was alive? What would it be thinking right now?” Because what is human consciousness, but this thin little layer around a bunch of just survival imperative.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(08:12):\u003cbr>And a part of my brain is like, “Oh, but what if this was alive? What would it be thinking right now?” Because what is human consciousness, but this thin little layer around a bunch of just survival imperative.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (08:26):\u003cbr>Why don’t you briefly set up the world of Automatic Noodle and we’ll use that to kind of think about some of these robots that you’ve created.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (08:26):\u003cbr>Why don’t you briefly set up the world of Automatic Noodle and we’ll use that to kind of think about some of these robots that you’ve created.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (08:33):\u003cbr>Yeah. It’s the first book I’ve ever written that was set in San Francisco. And it’s about what happens in California after the state has won a war of independence against the United States. So it’s set five years after the war has been won. So things are being rebuilt and resettled. And one of the things that’s happened in the wake of the war is that some of the robots who were used in the fighting have been given limited civil rights in the nation of California. And that’s partly because the nation of California thinks of itself as very futuristic and wants to kind of be the first nation that joins the UN having these kinds of rights for sentient AI. But also it’s because it’s kind of undeniable that some of these robots are people. And so my main characters are four robots who have these limited rights.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (08:33):\u003cbr>Yeah. It’s the first book I’ve ever written that was set in San Francisco. And it’s about what happens in California after the state has won a war of independence against the United States. So it’s set five years after the war has been won. So things are being rebuilt and resettled. And one of the things that’s happened in the wake of the war is that some of the robots who were used in the fighting have been given limited civil rights in the nation of California. And that’s partly because the nation of California thinks of itself as very futuristic and wants to kind of be the first nation that joins the UN having these kinds of rights for sentient AI. But also it’s because it’s kind of undeniable that some of these robots are people. And so my main characters are four robots who have these limited rights.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(09:25):\u003cbr>They’re free to work, but not to own property. They are free to associate with each other, but not form unions. And so they’re struggling with a lot of the same things that many people in the states have struggled with and now in the nation of California. So they decide through kind of skirting the laws that they will open a noodle restaurant to survive. And the book is really about them learning to get along with their human neighbors, cope with robophobia, and kind of find a home together in the new San Francisco. I just started writing the sequel.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(09:25):\u003cbr>They’re free to work, but not to own property. They are free to associate with each other, but not form unions. And so they’re struggling with a lot of the same things that many people in the states have struggled with and now in the nation of California. So they decide through kind of skirting the laws that they will open a noodle restaurant to survive. And the book is really about them learning to get along with their human neighbors, cope with robophobia, and kind of find a home together in the new San Francisco. I just started writing the sequel.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (10:03):\u003cbr>Oh.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (10:03):\u003cbr>Oh.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:03):\u003cbr>Yeah. So you’re going to find out a lot about California politics in the sequel. It’s going\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:03):\u003cbr>Yeah. So you’re going to find out a lot about California politics in the sequel. It’s going\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:08):\u003cbr>To be another sort of slim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:08):\u003cbr>To be another sort of slim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it’s going to be another novella. So it’s called Noodle Union. So that gives you a hint of what I might be thinking.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it’s going to be another novella. So it’s called Noodle Union. So that gives you a hint of what I might be thinking.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:18):\u003cbr>I mean, there’s so many ways we can get into this, but I would say primarily first as a writer, as someone who’s thinking about minds and voices and characters, do you look at this new creature before us with curiosity, with interest? Can you imagine a language model on the pages of an Annalee novel or just how does it all strike you?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:18):\u003cbr>I mean, there’s so many ways we can get into this, but I would say primarily first as a writer, as someone who’s thinking about minds and voices and characters, do you look at this new creature before us with curiosity, with interest? Can you imagine a language model on the pages of an Annalee novel or just how does it all strike you?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:40):\u003cbr>I am super curious about it. I’m very curious about humans’ reactions to it as well and seeing how many other anthropomorphizers are out there. And people are feeling anxious about whether these are people that we’re building, whether they’re just tools that will destroy our lives as people. What do we do with them ethically? I think all of that stuff is super interesting. And I’m glad we’re thinking about it, even though I am not convinced that the LLMs we have now are people. We absolutely should be thinking about what the heck happens if it turns out that they are. Because as I’ve said many times, the business model of most of these LLM companies is to build people and then buy and sell them. So we’re trying to reinvent slavery. Well, we are not, but captains of industry are. They love slavery. Oh, those guys are so crazy about it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:40):\u003cbr>I am super curious about it. I’m very curious about humans’ reactions to it as well and seeing how many other anthropomorphizers are out there. And people are feeling anxious about whether these are people that we’re building, whether they’re just tools that will destroy our lives as people. What do we do with them ethically? I think all of that stuff is super interesting. And I’m glad we’re thinking about it, even though I am not convinced that the LLMs we have now are people. We absolutely should be thinking about what the heck happens if it turns out that they are. Because as I’ve said many times, the business model of most of these LLM companies is to build people and then buy and sell them. So we’re trying to reinvent slavery. Well, we are not, but captains of industry are. They love slavery. Oh, those guys are so crazy about it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(11:34):\u003cbr>But what I would say is that when you’re thinking about LLMs or you’re thinking about AI, what we’re calling AI more broadly, they do have bodies. We think of them as disembodied, but here we are in the middle of huge debates over data centers. Data centers are the bodies of these creatures, of these programs and algorithms and models. So it’s very late capitalism to have something whose body is remote and can’t be seen. And then you’re interacting with it as something that appears to be out of thin air.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(11:34):\u003cbr>But what I would say is that when you’re thinking about LLMs or you’re thinking about AI, what we’re calling AI more broadly, they do have bodies. We think of them as disembodied, but here we are in the middle of huge debates over data centers. Data centers are the bodies of these creatures, of these programs and algorithms and models. So it’s very late capitalism to have something whose body is remote and can’t be seen. And then you’re interacting with it as something that appears to be out of thin air.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (12:11):\u003cbr>A bright, friendly, chirpy presence.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (12:11):\u003cbr>A bright, friendly, chirpy presence.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (12:13):\u003cbr>Right. Right. And all of the secondary effects that that thing is having on people’s lives and the environment is somewhere else, usually somewhere that is a have not state or a have not region. And so it’s very colonial. And many people have written about this, about the kind of colonial model of AI. And so I’m always interested in reminding people all of this stuff is embodied. There’s no such thing as an AI that’s like here in the air floating around as my first boss at the Bay Guardian said like, oh, the internet, it’s in the air. No, it’s actually not, dude. It’s in a server form.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (12:13):\u003cbr>Right. Right. And all of the secondary effects that that thing is having on people’s lives and the environment is somewhere else, usually somewhere that is a have not state or a have not region. And so it’s very colonial. And many people have written about this, about the kind of colonial model of AI. And so I’m always interested in reminding people all of this stuff is embodied. There’s no such thing as an AI that’s like here in the air floating around as my first boss at the Bay Guardian said like, oh, the internet, it’s in the air. No, it’s actually not, dude. It’s in a server form.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (12:51):\u003cbr>Right though. Except that the thing itself, the voice, whatever it is, in a sense, I would argue it doesn’t care that it’s in the data center. It matters a lot that it is, but it doesn’t care. What it cares is that it’s in language. I mean, it’s terrain, it’s landscape. If you think of the robots of your novel, they’re hiking up hills and skating down the other side. The landscape, the literal environment of all these language models is language itself. And of course\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (12:51):\u003cbr>Right though. Except that the thing itself, the voice, whatever it is, in a sense, I would argue it doesn’t care that it’s in the data center. It matters a lot that it is, but it doesn’t care. What it cares is that it’s in language. I mean, it’s terrain, it’s landscape. If you think of the robots of your novel, they’re hiking up hills and skating down the other side. The landscape, the literal environment of all these language models is language itself. And of course\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:22):\u003cbr>The – Is\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:22):\u003cbr>It though? It absolutely is. And the –\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:22):\u003cbr>It though? It absolutely is. And the –\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:25):\u003cbr>Don’t you think its landscape is circuitry and the wires it travels through and the ether that it travels through that it’s part of a radio wave and it’s part of an electrical current. It has a physical embodiment. Stop denying that it has a body\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:25):\u003cbr>Don’t you think its landscape is circuitry and the wires it travels through and the ether that it travels through that it’s part of a radio wave and it’s part of an electrical current. It has a physical embodiment. Stop denying that it has a body\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:40):\u003cbr>Robin. I shouldn’t have better than try to outplay Analynus. It’s just a normal physical body like the vast micorrhisal mat that connects all trees in the forest. Thank\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:40):\u003cbr>Robin. I shouldn’t have better than try to outplay Analynus. It’s just a normal physical body like the vast micorrhisal mat that connects all trees in the forest. Thank\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:52):\u003cbr>You. See, you understand.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:52):\u003cbr>You. See, you understand.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:53):\u003cbr>Outplay it again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:53):\u003cbr>Outplay it again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:54):\u003cbr>Listen, you’re the one that wrote about sentient sourdough bread, so you started it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:54):\u003cbr>Listen, you’re the one that wrote about sentient sourdough bread, so you started it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (14:00):\u003cbr>Fair enough. Do you think that this boom that’s been driven by this technology, do you think it’s different in scale or kinder character from the San Francisco booms before? Do you think it’s kind of just of a piece or how does it strike you as a longtime\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (14:00):\u003cbr>Fair enough. Do you think that this boom that’s been driven by this technology, do you think it’s different in scale or kinder character from the San Francisco booms before? Do you think it’s kind of just of a piece or how does it strike you as a longtime\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (14:16):\u003cbr>Chronicler? Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think it’s the same. So if it’s gold, if it’s microchips, if it’s models, LLMs, it’s all kind of the same thing because what ends up happening here in San Francisco is we get just crazy investment and huge levels of investment. I think $200 billion have been spent investing in AI in San Francisco alone over the last six years. It’s\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (14:16):\u003cbr>Chronicler? Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think it’s the same. So if it’s gold, if it’s microchips, if it’s models, LLMs, it’s all kind of the same thing because what ends up happening here in San Francisco is we get just crazy investment and huge levels of investment. I think $200 billion have been spent investing in AI in San Francisco alone over the last six years. It’s\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (14:44):\u003cbr>Like half the money that’s gone into it in the world.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (14:47):\u003cbr>Yeah. Imagine if we put even part of that money into say, I don’t know, public transit or a smart grid, which actually is AI. A smart grid is AI. Why don’t we invest in that? So I think that is the part that’s very San Francisco. We’re just going to put billions and billions of dollars into this thing that we don’t really know what it is. It’s like a tulip or maybe it’s gold or maybe it’s some other thing. Yeah, it’s definitely in character for this city.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (15:16):\u003cbr>I have to say I find it a little more thrilling than the couple previous booms. The kind of Uber for everything boom was really kind of sad in a labor exploitation hustle kind of situation. And then before that you had social media, which Rob and I have talked about as being maybe one of the great oxbow lakes in technological history. Eventually people will move on in some crucial ways. In fact, they kind of already have, at least from that kind of Mark Zuckerberg social network kind of sense of social media.That’s gone for most people now. And yet San Francisco was the heart and soul of that and the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (15:16):\u003cbr>I have to say I find it a little more thrilling than the couple previous booms. The kind of Uber for everything boom was really kind of sad in a labor exploitation hustle kind of situation. And then before that you had social media, which Rob and I have talked about as being maybe one of the great oxbow lakes in technological history. Eventually people will move on in some crucial ways. In fact, they kind of already have, at least from that kind of Mark Zuckerberg social network kind of sense of social media.That’s gone for most people now. And yet San Francisco was the heart and soul of that and the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(15:55):\u003cbr>This one, I guess I find it interesting because I am really interested both in language and consciousness. And it seems to be just driving stakes through kind of cherished ideas that maybe I had about these things, that you couldn’t get this kind of linguistic performance without a conscious thing there. And it just turns out actually that does work. And I think the slippage between what you might expect and what actually happened is way more interesting than if you say, “What if we got rid of taxi medallions and anyone could drive around and pick you up?” That you could kind of imagine. It’s just kind of like a ground game logistics operations thing. And this has some mystery at the center of it where even the people working on it don’t totally get it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(15:55):\u003cbr>This one, I guess I find it interesting because I am really interested both in language and consciousness. And it seems to be just driving stakes through kind of cherished ideas that maybe I had about these things, that you couldn’t get this kind of linguistic performance without a conscious thing there. And it just turns out actually that does work. And I think the slippage between what you might expect and what actually happened is way more interesting than if you say, “What if we got rid of taxi medallions and anyone could drive around and pick you up?” That you could kind of imagine. It’s just kind of like a ground game logistics operations thing. And this has some mystery at the center of it where even the people working on it don’t totally get it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (16:46):\u003cbr>I mean, you’ve put your finger on an important distinction there and that is a difference. It’s organic. It’s a technology that I don’t know if it’s fair to say for the first time is kind of as much organic as engineered or technical.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (17:01):\u003cbr>But sort of like an organism, it’s how those things on the multi-scale things work to generate the thing is still, that part is kind of mysterious. So that part of it I find very interesting. And at the same time, it’s also occurring against this socioeconomic and political backdrop that is so much more grim than when you first arrived in San Francisco in the 1990s, which was the survey data bears it out. It’s not just our vibes. People basically thought the world was getting better. And that is not across the political spectrum how people feel in 2026 as we’re staring down whatever is happening inside these models.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (17:01):\u003cbr>But sort of like an organism, it’s how those things on the multi-scale things work to generate the thing is still, that part is kind of mysterious. So that part of it I find very interesting. And at the same time, it’s also occurring against this socioeconomic and political backdrop that is so much more grim than when you first arrived in San Francisco in the 1990s, which was the survey data bears it out. It’s not just our vibes. People basically thought the world was getting better. And that is not across the political spectrum how people feel in 2026 as we’re staring down whatever is happening inside these models.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (17:42):\u003cbr>Is the mystery compelling to you, Annalee? Or are you kind of like, “No, I’m okay.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (17:51):\u003cbr>I know what you mean by the mystery. It’s that we have this technology where you’ll talk to a developer and they’re like, “Actually, we put in these inputs. We get some outputs. We don’t fully understand what’s happening in between.” I mean, people say that about Microsoft products all the time too. You know what I mean? They’re like, “Oh, this product is so big. Thousands of engineers contributed to it. No one person understands Windows.That ship has sailed. No one person understands a video game, like a premier video game because again, thousands of people have contributed to it. So calling it a mystery, sure, it’s a mystery. But the other thing about that is, as you guys were talking, and I think we all fall into this because we’re writers and we deal in language and we’re like, but language is the coolest, most awesome thing that makes us human.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (17:51):\u003cbr>I know what you mean by the mystery. It’s that we have this technology where you’ll talk to a developer and they’re like, “Actually, we put in these inputs. We get some outputs. We don’t fully understand what’s happening in between.” I mean, people say that about Microsoft products all the time too. You know what I mean? They’re like, “Oh, this product is so big. Thousands of engineers contributed to it. No one person understands Windows.That ship has sailed. No one person understands a video game, like a premier video game because again, thousands of people have contributed to it. So calling it a mystery, sure, it’s a mystery. But the other thing about that is, as you guys were talking, and I think we all fall into this because we’re writers and we deal in language and we’re like, but language is the coolest, most awesome thing that makes us human.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(18:42):\u003cbr>And that’s what we have over all of the other animals. We’re an animal, but we’re special because we have language. What if it turns out language is just kind of nothing big? What if it’s just like, oh, the reason why LLMs can do this so easily is because it turns out language is no big deal. And it’s actually not what makes us cool. What makes us cool is something else. That\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(18:42):\u003cbr>And that’s what we have over all of the other animals. We’re an animal, but we’re special because we have language. What if it turns out language is just kind of nothing big? What if it’s just like, oh, the reason why LLMs can do this so easily is because it turns out language is no big deal. And it’s actually not what makes us cool. What makes us cool is something else. That\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (19:05):\u003cbr>Would be one of the great kind of recalibrations of all of history, actually. I welcome it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (19:11):\u003cbr>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (19:12):\u003cbr>Especially written language.Because think about how bullshit written language really is. As somebody who I write a lot –\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (19:19):\u003cbr>Hold on. McMillan, we have a new strap line for to print across the front of all of Annalee Newitz’s novels.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (19:26):\u003cbr>Just get the audiobook people. But we think of written language as being this. It was this amazing technology. It has a mystery at the heart of it because oftentimes you can come across language without knowing where it came from. And you’re like, who wrote this? What even is this? Linear A, still trying to figure it out. And I write a lot about archeology in my science journalism life. And it really is the case that ancient civilizations that left writing behind are often harder to understand than ones that did not. And the reason why is because we get so tricked by the language and we’re like, “Oh, well, this culture was just all about King Jaya Varman.” Yeah. That’s all they though about all the time. And it’s like, no.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (19:26):\u003cbr>Just get the audiobook people. But we think of written language as being this. It was this amazing technology. It has a mystery at the heart of it because oftentimes you can come across language without knowing where it came from. And you’re like, who wrote this? What even is this? Linear A, still trying to figure it out. And I write a lot about archeology in my science journalism life. And it really is the case that ancient civilizations that left writing behind are often harder to understand than ones that did not. And the reason why is because we get so tricked by the language and we’re like, “Oh, well, this culture was just all about King Jaya Varman.” Yeah. That’s all they though about all the time. And it’s like, no.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (20:08):\u003cbr>The one segment they found in the trb. Woodscriribe.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:11):\u003cbr>Yeah. It was like the king had the money and the power to make people write stuff. But then there’s all these other people that we’re not even thinking about because we get so enchanted by this one piece of writing that we have. Or in Rome where it’s like the only people writing are the guys with power. And they’re saying all kinds of nasty stuff about freed slaves and sex workers. And it’s like, but we don’t know what the truth was. So the writing often hides the truth is what I’m saying. So writing is cool. I love it. I’m so grateful for it. It’s something I am good at. But maybe it’s just kind of yet another – The fact that it can\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:11):\u003cbr>Yeah. It was like the king had the money and the power to make people write stuff. But then there’s all these other people that we’re not even thinking about because we get so enchanted by this one piece of writing that we have. Or in Rome where it’s like the only people writing are the guys with power. And they’re saying all kinds of nasty stuff about freed slaves and sex workers. And it’s like, but we don’t know what the truth was. So the writing often hides the truth is what I’m saying. So writing is cool. I love it. I’m so grateful for it. It’s something I am good at. But maybe it’s just kind of yet another – The fact that it can\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (20:50):\u003cbr>Reproduce those patterns of our language to you does not impress you as much as it might some other people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (20:50):\u003cbr>Reproduce those patterns of our language to you does not impress you as much as it might some other people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:58):\u003cbr>Well, I think, like I said, maybe that’s the recalibration is maybe we need to say, maybe it’s not impressive. Maybe it shows us that actually writing wasn’t really that cool of an invention in the first place. And we love writing, keep writing, but let’s keep going. Yeah, but\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:58):\u003cbr>Well, I think, like I said, maybe that’s the recalibration is maybe we need to say, maybe it’s not impressive. Maybe it shows us that actually writing wasn’t really that cool of an invention in the first place. And we love writing, keep writing, but let’s keep going. Yeah, but\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:12):\u003cbr>Let’s talk about some other better inventions like the noodle.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (21:17):\u003cbr>Like cooking. It\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:18):\u003cbr>Turns out\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (21:19):\u003cbr>That cooking might actually be a better\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:21):\u003cbr>Invention than writing. I have to say, sometimes I feel like our conversations about this, and it comes back to humanness and the things that we love and sort of are proud of in almost a species level. And they feel like these bullworks, and then you set them up and they do kind of get challenged or even knocked down. In my novel Sourdough, I make a big deal about the egg test and how these amazing agile robot arms and they can do all these great things, but they cannot crack an egg with the grace of a human cook just knocking it with one hand. There is a robot arm company down in Palo Alto. They got these new robot arms. Now I don’t –\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:21):\u003cbr>Invention than writing. I have to say, sometimes I feel like our conversations about this, and it comes back to humanness and the things that we love and sort of are proud of in almost a species level. And they feel like these bullworks, and then you set them up and they do kind of get challenged or even knocked down. In my novel Sourdough, I make a big deal about the egg test and how these amazing agile robot arms and they can do all these great things, but they cannot crack an egg with the grace of a human cook just knocking it with one hand. There is a robot arm company down in Palo Alto. They got these new robot arms. Now I don’t –\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:01):\u003cbr>CEO emails\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (22:01):\u003cbr>You check this\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:02):\u003cbr>Out.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (22:03):\u003cbr>I don’t know if they read sourdough. I don’t know if they read sourdough, but they’ve got some really slick new demos and they are cracking some eggs. And I will tell you sincerely, I found it kind of both delightful and disturbing because I’ve thought about that so much. And I did. I sort of believed in it. And I think that’s one of the challenges of this time.This has been happening for the last 10 years with these technologies. There have been these really easy ways to say, yeah, yeah, nice, but it can’t X. And then it X’s. And how do we think about that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (22:03):\u003cbr>I don’t know if they read sourdough. I don’t know if they read sourdough, but they’ve got some really slick new demos and they are cracking some eggs. And I will tell you sincerely, I found it kind of both delightful and disturbing because I’ve thought about that so much. And I did. I sort of believed in it. And I think that’s one of the challenges of this time.This has been happening for the last 10 years with these technologies. There have been these really easy ways to say, yeah, yeah, nice, but it can’t X. And then it X’s. And how do we think about that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:35):\u003cbr>I mean, I’m also curious about this, Annalee. I would say in your fiction, you come across to me as pro robot. You would like to have robots here in this room with us and you could interact and hang out with them and\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:48):\u003cbr>Streets of San Francisco. But how do we get from here to there minus, I don’t know, some trillions of dollars worth of investment into LLMs and other things? Is there a preferred route of AI development for you that would somehow go around some of these kind of economic and political issues that you’re thinking about? That’s such a good question.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (23:11):\u003cbr>It is a really good question. I think that one possibility is that we think about this as an economic problem. There’s way too much money going into the development of LLMs. And we’ve seen the results, which is that it’s getting stuffed into every product, into every service, places where we don’t want it, where we don’t need it, where it’s actually hindering productivity rather than bolstering it. And so that’s a very bad side effect of this huge amount of investment. I don’t think we should invest no money in it. I’ve heard lots of accounts that Anthropics products really do help with the development process and software. I heard a lot of people crying about that like, oh, all the things I was trained to do, I don’t have to do anymore. But at the same time, it’s exciting. It is a tool. It’s like a calculator would’ve been back in the 19th century.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (23:11):\u003cbr>It is a really good question. I think that one possibility is that we think about this as an economic problem. There’s way too much money going into the development of LLMs. And we’ve seen the results, which is that it’s getting stuffed into every product, into every service, places where we don’t want it, where we don’t need it, where it’s actually hindering productivity rather than bolstering it. And so that’s a very bad side effect of this huge amount of investment. I don’t think we should invest no money in it. I’ve heard lots of accounts that Anthropics products really do help with the development process and software. I heard a lot of people crying about that like, oh, all the things I was trained to do, I don’t have to do anymore. But at the same time, it’s exciting. It is a tool. It’s like a calculator would’ve been back in the 19th century.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(24:04):\u003cbr>It’s like, oh, this can help us get to a certain point and then now we can develop on top of it. I would love to see more involvement of the humanities and social sciences in the development of LLMs. What if we poured some of that AI money into universities where we study the human impacts of this? Because all of these companies are claiming we are going to build humans, but we’re not going to consult the humanities, which is literally the study of humans and culture. It’s like, how do you make humans? How do you make people without understanding society? And I’m sorry, but software development, love it. It’s great. It’s not the study of culture and society.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>(24:04):\u003cbr>It’s like, oh, this can help us get to a certain point and then now we can develop on top of it. I would love to see more involvement of the humanities and social sciences in the development of LLMs. What if we poured some of that AI money into universities where we study the human impacts of this? Because all of these companies are claiming we are going to build humans, but we’re not going to consult the humanities, which is literally the study of humans and culture. It’s like, how do you make humans? How do you make people without understanding society? And I’m sorry, but software development, love it. It’s great. It’s not the study of culture and society.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (24:49):\u003cbr>I do think that a lot of the people who work in this field who now are scattered throughout the streets of San Francisco, more or less think like humans suck at figuring stuff out. That the way to do it is to just plow all the information into the machine and have it find the patterns of what is human? Well, this thing is going to figure it out. We’re just going to keep feeding it every word ever put out by humans, every video, every uploaded by human. Every podcast episode. Every podcast. And then out at the other end, they’re just going to say, what is a human? And something will emerge. Some pattern will be there. And that’s to me, the sort of bounce on effect of this for the city of San Francisco is we’re now like, there’s tons of people here who now think in the terms of these large language models and think in the terms of AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(25:44):\u003cbr>And I’m not sure what that’s going to do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:46):\u003cbr>The term of art for that in the industry and in academia is the bitter lesson. It’s literally called the bitter lesson of data, which also sounds like the title of a good novel that I would read. Yeah, bitter\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:59):\u003cbr>Yeah. Totally. So yeah, people are walking around basically bitter lesson pilled. And it’s like, we’re not going to reason our way – We’re not going to figure anything out. Or puzzle our way out. We’re just going to. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (26:09):\u003cbr>It’s very nihilistic and it is very anti-human. I think that it’s as much a reflection of contemporary politics as it is of any kind of technology. And again, all of the money going into this technology is a political choice. Saying that this is the primary technology that’s going to drive our understanding of ourselves. That’s again, a political choice. The technology is just going along doing sentence completion or whatever. It really is, as Emily and Bender has said, a stochastic parrot. It says horoscope or something. But the idea that we’ll shovel all of this data into a machine and get answers about people or about society, I think is a symptom of a culture where we’re moving toward authoritarianism, where the idea is that some single centralized entity will figure everything out and make decisions for us. And then we don’t have to worry about what actual people say that they want because the machine says, “Well, what you need is X.” Asking the machine what humans are is a way of avoiding democracy, avoiding voting, asking the actual humans who they are.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(27:23):\u003cbr>We don’t want to hear from them. They don’t know. And it’s like, actually, it turns out we know best what’s good for us. And our voices should be heard, not filtered through a machine, through a model that distorts what we mean. Actually just talk to us. Ask us what we want. I just want trans people to be free. And I just want to have public transit that works. And you’re not going to get an AI to explain that to anyone. You have to do it at the voting booth. You have to do it in the streets.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (27:56):\u003cbr>Hearing you describe that, it kind of creates a paradox. It’s a very vivid paradox of this Titanic effort. I mean, sort of a construction effort, an infrastructural effort, a financial effort driven at least in part by exhaustion and sort of a community, a society saying, “I give up. We can’t figure this out. We’re not going to try anymore. Let’s just build a machine God that can\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (28:22):\u003cbr>Us.” So what’s the next five years look like right here in San Francisco? Forget the world. Just think about this. We’re in the hot crucible of this weird new\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (28:31):\u003cbr>Yeah. Yeah. What do you think it looks like, Annalee? That’s the first question. And then we’ll finally close out with what should we do? But what do you think? What do you think is just ahead of us now?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (28:42):\u003cbr>I mean, there’s a couple of pathways. I mean, there’s many pathways. This is a city that loves to burn itself down. We are right near a massive earthquake fault. Bad things could happen. We could be on fire. We could be recovering from all kinds of – Are\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(29:03):\u003cbr>I think we’re going to see a backlash to that investment model. We’re also going to see, and Robin, you and I were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, and a backlash against just the internet, information and language that we receive from places that we think of as kind of polluted by AI slop. I hear a lot of people talking about cozy technology. How do you create the feeling of coziness that was torn away from us when Twitter turned into X? So I think we’re going to see new kinds of community spaces, for example, like local economy, which Alexis, you’ve worked on so hard in Oakland, and I just think is absolutely a model of the future. And we’re going to see more and more of that. We’re going to see more new types of community gatherings in older spaces like bars or libraries or schools.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(29:59):\u003cbr>And I’m more focused on authenticity being associated with something being physical. But I think that we are associating people just talking to each other and writing things down with human connection versus if you do it on the internet, you never know if an AI wrote it. Did a person write it? But if I give you a zine that’s all scribbled and weird and I’ve cut things up, you’re like, “That’s definitely Annalee.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (30:29):\u003cbr>I mean, I do think you’re right though, Annalee. I think that there’s a bonus that’s now accruing to the physical world and anything that is. I mean, the problem is the words now can be printed from an AI, but just real actual three-dimensional IRL, real-time interaction suddenly has a bonus that it didn’t have before, which is you know you’re not interacting with AI slop of any kind. Wait, before we let you go, do you want to tell us about your new book just before you\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (30:58):\u003cbr>Want to do that? Yeah. So I’m working on two things right now. One is I have a new book coming out in October, which is called A Wall Is Also a Road, and it is about a cellular slime mold who is a grad student. Classic. And the other thing I’m working on is I’m helping to reboot the magazine Star Log as a print publication.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> has been at the center of successive waves of technological and cultural change — from the literal Gold Rush days to the current gold rush-like AI boom. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/dreammachines\">Dream Machines\u003c/a> hosts Alexis Madrigal and Robin Sloan talk to author, longtime San Francisco resident, and “chronicler of other minds” Annalee Newitz about the difference between this boom and previous ones, the pleasures and dangers of anthropomorphizing tech tools, and whether or not AI is embodied. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>Guest: \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.techsploitation.com/\">Annalee Newitz\u003c/a>, journalist and author of Automatic Noodle and other books\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/v8FdJur2RJ4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/v8FdJur2RJ4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Episode transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (00:00):\u003cbr>What if it turns out language is just kind of nothing big? What if it’s just like, oh, the reason why LLMs can do this so easily is because it turns out language is no big deal. And it’s actually not what makes us cool. What makes us cool is something else. Because think about how bullshit written language really is. As somebody who I write a lot –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:19):\u003cbr>Hold on. McMillan, we have a new strap line to print across the front of all of Annalee Newitz’s novels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (00:27):\u003cbr>I’m Alexis Madrigal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:30):\u003cbr>I’m Robin Sloan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (00:31):\u003cbr>And this is KQED’s Dream Machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (00:34):\u003cbr>A podcast about AI, how it works, what it means. How it feels. Yeah, how it feels. And importantly, it’s rooted here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (00:45):\u003cbr>So of course, first episode of Dream Machines, we are talking about how AI took root here in San Francisco, Anthropic, OpenAI, and like 400 million other companies between here and Hayes Valley. The dream of San Francisco and the broader Bay Area as the place that is this incredible mechanism for bringing these audacious dreams forward, whether or not you kind of want them to, whether or not you think they’re a good idea or a bad idea, just incontrovertibly going back in time, this is the place. Semiconductors all the way through the PC, all the different components of the PC are happening here. The internet, of course, social media, the great horrors of social media, as well as all the Uber for everything companies. Each one of these things has these roots in this area. And it is one of those times where you’re like, was it just the gold rush?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(01:39):\u003cbr>Did the gold rush somehow imbue some magic dust?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:42):\u003cbr>So for our first conversation, we wanted to find the ultimate\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (01:47):\u003cbr>San\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:48):\u003cbr>Franciscan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (01:48):\u003cbr>The avatar\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:50):\u003cbr>Of\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (01:50):\u003cbr>San Francisco. Who\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (01:51):\u003cbr>Can speak? Who can speak about this place in the long run? And across all these dimensions we’re talking about, cultural and economic and technical and everything else. And\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (02:00):\u003cbr>That would be Annalee Newitz, of course, a nonfiction writer who really in their nonfiction works on this kind of civilizational scale. In fiction too, books like Automatic Noodle is creating dream machines. It’s creating these kind of other minds. And I do think Annalee is a figure that is just so San Francisco in this mix of being tech forward, being politics forward, being wild and free along dimensions other people in other regions of country maybe have never even imagined.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (02:31):\u003cbr>Thinking creatively and critically about the future, right? It’s those two things together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (02:35):\u003cbr>Without further ado, here is our interview with Annalee Newitz, the first on dream machines. One of the questions that I think we’ve been asking ourselves is why San Francisco over and over for these booms? I mean, the Bay Area broadly, but also San Francisco quite specifically in this case and certainly over the last 20 years, what do you think? What do you make of it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (02:57):\u003cbr>Because it’s easy to say, you want to say, oh, it’s a boom town. That’s the nature of it. But you’re like, okay, you’ve told me nothing. Over all these years, what’s your read of that tendency, that power?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (03:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it is true that this is a town of boom and bust, but more than that, it’s a town of booms motivated by engineering breakthroughs. And we’ve always had in the Bay Area, if you include things like Silicon Valley in the kind of greater Bay Area, we’ve always had innovators and industrialists coming together. And one of the things I think that’s so interesting about San Francisco is this weird alchemy of oftentimes very conservative proto-oligarchs of industry. Whether it’s the railway tycoons of the late 19th century or people like Peter Thiel now or Sam Altman now, you have these people who are just dumping money into the economy and they’re not interested in the public good really. I mean, or they have sort of a thin scrim of care for the public good. They just want to make money, but they’re dumping that money into a city that’s full of radicals and subversives, people who’ve been kicked out of every decent city in the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(04:15):\u003cbr>People who are too queer for their families, too leftist for their political parties. And they come together, they meet that money, and then something fricking weird happens. That’s San Francisco. And I think that’s why San Francisco has such weird politics too. You’d think we’d be a city that would be like Arcada up north, that we’d have an all green city council. We’d be run by socialists. But no, we’re a city where the socialists somehow are hanging out with these industrialists.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (04:48):\u003cbr>Right, right, right. So Annalee, I know your origin story and I have read a lot of your wired.com articles and other things and following in your trail once I arrived here. I am curious, as you have watched this city change so much and through these different eras, but particularly this kind of AI boom, which is like trillion dollar companies suddenly implanting into San Francisco, how has that changed the city for you? And do you think that’s changed the way that you write about the city or write about technology?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (05:25):\u003cbr>A hundred percent it has. I think one of the big differences between the AI boom and say the dot-com boom, which was the turn of the century, is that there’s a real nihilism to this tech boom. I felt like during the dot-com boom, yes, it was bonkers and there was way too much money, but there was a kind of exuberance and delight and silliness to it. Whereas I feel like the AI boom is associated with politics like the network state or very regressive sort of Peter Thiel style, let’s return to monarchy type politics. And so the politics are very reactionary and very anti-democratic. And that has really shifted my understanding of San Francisco, which I always though of as a very anarchic, freewheeling, happy town that maybe was a little too rich, always a little too rich, but also kind of spent money freely on sex and drugs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(06:29):\u003cbr>And now I feel like what I want to reflect in my writing about the city is this dark turn toward a kind of self-denial and anti-hedonism and pro-authoritarianism. And so the city is a darker place, but ironically, it’s made me want to write happier, cozier, more friendly stories about it to encourage people to remember, you can have some fun and you don’t need a lot of money to do it and the city could be beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (07:03):\u003cbr>We’ve talked about this quite a bit that among your many virtues and great strengths as a writer, you are perhaps the foremost chronicler or imaginer of other minds, including machine minds.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (07:17):\u003cbr>It’s really both.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(07:18):\u003cbr>I definitely got the inspiration. I get the inspiration from my non-human characters from the world around me and from the machines I interact with. And I am a ruthless anthropomorphizer and I do make fun of myself for this. And I realize that it’s kind of a character flaw, especially if you write about science. But I can’t help but see the personhood in everything, including machines. Although not so much in ChatGPT, maybe we’ll talk about that later. We need to get to that. Interestingly. But this microphone, I could easily have compassion for this microphone. How many times has it been breathed on? And what’s it thinking about that? Does it have opinions about different smells that it encounters? And what’s it going to do about it? So I think that’s part of what happens to me is that I’ll be writing a story that’s fact-based and evidence-based.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(08:12):\u003cbr>And a part of my brain is like, “Oh, but what if this was alive? What would it be thinking right now?” Because what is human consciousness, but this thin little layer around a bunch of just survival imperative.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (08:26):\u003cbr>Why don’t you briefly set up the world of Automatic Noodle and we’ll use that to kind of think about some of these robots that you’ve created.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (08:33):\u003cbr>Yeah. It’s the first book I’ve ever written that was set in San Francisco. And it’s about what happens in California after the state has won a war of independence against the United States. So it’s set five years after the war has been won. So things are being rebuilt and resettled. And one of the things that’s happened in the wake of the war is that some of the robots who were used in the fighting have been given limited civil rights in the nation of California. And that’s partly because the nation of California thinks of itself as very futuristic and wants to kind of be the first nation that joins the UN having these kinds of rights for sentient AI. But also it’s because it’s kind of undeniable that some of these robots are people. And so my main characters are four robots who have these limited rights.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(09:25):\u003cbr>They’re free to work, but not to own property. They are free to associate with each other, but not form unions. And so they’re struggling with a lot of the same things that many people in the states have struggled with and now in the nation of California. So they decide through kind of skirting the laws that they will open a noodle restaurant to survive. And the book is really about them learning to get along with their human neighbors, cope with robophobia, and kind of find a home together in the new San Francisco. I just started writing the sequel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (10:03):\u003cbr>Oh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:03):\u003cbr>Yeah. So you’re going to find out a lot about California politics in the sequel. It’s going\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:08):\u003cbr>To be another sort of slim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:09):\u003cbr>Yeah, it’s going to be another novella. So it’s called Noodle Union. So that gives you a hint of what I might be thinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (10:18):\u003cbr>I mean, there’s so many ways we can get into this, but I would say primarily first as a writer, as someone who’s thinking about minds and voices and characters, do you look at this new creature before us with curiosity, with interest? Can you imagine a language model on the pages of an Annalee novel or just how does it all strike you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (10:40):\u003cbr>I am super curious about it. I’m very curious about humans’ reactions to it as well and seeing how many other anthropomorphizers are out there. And people are feeling anxious about whether these are people that we’re building, whether they’re just tools that will destroy our lives as people. What do we do with them ethically? I think all of that stuff is super interesting. And I’m glad we’re thinking about it, even though I am not convinced that the LLMs we have now are people. We absolutely should be thinking about what the heck happens if it turns out that they are. Because as I’ve said many times, the business model of most of these LLM companies is to build people and then buy and sell them. So we’re trying to reinvent slavery. Well, we are not, but captains of industry are. They love slavery. Oh, those guys are so crazy about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(11:34):\u003cbr>But what I would say is that when you’re thinking about LLMs or you’re thinking about AI, what we’re calling AI more broadly, they do have bodies. We think of them as disembodied, but here we are in the middle of huge debates over data centers. Data centers are the bodies of these creatures, of these programs and algorithms and models. So it’s very late capitalism to have something whose body is remote and can’t be seen. And then you’re interacting with it as something that appears to be out of thin air.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (12:11):\u003cbr>A bright, friendly, chirpy presence.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (12:13):\u003cbr>Right. Right. And all of the secondary effects that that thing is having on people’s lives and the environment is somewhere else, usually somewhere that is a have not state or a have not region. And so it’s very colonial. And many people have written about this, about the kind of colonial model of AI. And so I’m always interested in reminding people all of this stuff is embodied. There’s no such thing as an AI that’s like here in the air floating around as my first boss at the Bay Guardian said like, oh, the internet, it’s in the air. No, it’s actually not, dude. It’s in a server form.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (12:51):\u003cbr>Right though. Except that the thing itself, the voice, whatever it is, in a sense, I would argue it doesn’t care that it’s in the data center. It matters a lot that it is, but it doesn’t care. What it cares is that it’s in language. I mean, it’s terrain, it’s landscape. If you think of the robots of your novel, they’re hiking up hills and skating down the other side. The landscape, the literal environment of all these language models is language itself. And of course\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:22):\u003cbr>The – Is\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:22):\u003cbr>It though? It absolutely is. And the –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:25):\u003cbr>Don’t you think its landscape is circuitry and the wires it travels through and the ether that it travels through that it’s part of a radio wave and it’s part of an electrical current. It has a physical embodiment. Stop denying that it has a body\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:40):\u003cbr>Robin. I shouldn’t have better than try to outplay Analynus. It’s just a normal physical body like the vast micorrhisal mat that connects all trees in the forest. Thank\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:52):\u003cbr>You. See, you understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (13:53):\u003cbr>Outplay it again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (13:54):\u003cbr>Listen, you’re the one that wrote about sentient sourdough bread, so you started it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (14:00):\u003cbr>Fair enough. Do you think that this boom that’s been driven by this technology, do you think it’s different in scale or kinder character from the San Francisco booms before? Do you think it’s kind of just of a piece or how does it strike you as a longtime\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (14:16):\u003cbr>Chronicler? Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think it’s the same. So if it’s gold, if it’s microchips, if it’s models, LLMs, it’s all kind of the same thing because what ends up happening here in San Francisco is we get just crazy investment and huge levels of investment. I think $200 billion have been spent investing in AI in San Francisco alone over the last six years. It’s\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (14:44):\u003cbr>Like half the money that’s gone into it in the world.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (14:47):\u003cbr>Yeah. Imagine if we put even part of that money into say, I don’t know, public transit or a smart grid, which actually is AI. A smart grid is AI. Why don’t we invest in that? So I think that is the part that’s very San Francisco. We’re just going to put billions and billions of dollars into this thing that we don’t really know what it is. It’s like a tulip or maybe it’s gold or maybe it’s some other thing. Yeah, it’s definitely in character for this city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (15:16):\u003cbr>I have to say I find it a little more thrilling than the couple previous booms. The kind of Uber for everything boom was really kind of sad in a labor exploitation hustle kind of situation. And then before that you had social media, which Rob and I have talked about as being maybe one of the great oxbow lakes in technological history. Eventually people will move on in some crucial ways. In fact, they kind of already have, at least from that kind of Mark Zuckerberg social network kind of sense of social media.That’s gone for most people now. And yet San Francisco was the heart and soul of that and the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(15:55):\u003cbr>This one, I guess I find it interesting because I am really interested both in language and consciousness. And it seems to be just driving stakes through kind of cherished ideas that maybe I had about these things, that you couldn’t get this kind of linguistic performance without a conscious thing there. And it just turns out actually that does work. And I think the slippage between what you might expect and what actually happened is way more interesting than if you say, “What if we got rid of taxi medallions and anyone could drive around and pick you up?” That you could kind of imagine. It’s just kind of like a ground game logistics operations thing. And this has some mystery at the center of it where even the people working on it don’t totally get it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (16:46):\u003cbr>I mean, you’ve put your finger on an important distinction there and that is a difference. It’s organic. It’s a technology that I don’t know if it’s fair to say for the first time is kind of as much organic as engineered or technical.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (17:01):\u003cbr>But sort of like an organism, it’s how those things on the multi-scale things work to generate the thing is still, that part is kind of mysterious. So that part of it I find very interesting. And at the same time, it’s also occurring against this socioeconomic and political backdrop that is so much more grim than when you first arrived in San Francisco in the 1990s, which was the survey data bears it out. It’s not just our vibes. People basically thought the world was getting better. And that is not across the political spectrum how people feel in 2026 as we’re staring down whatever is happening inside these models.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (17:42):\u003cbr>Is the mystery compelling to you, Annalee? Or are you kind of like, “No, I’m okay.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (17:51):\u003cbr>I know what you mean by the mystery. It’s that we have this technology where you’ll talk to a developer and they’re like, “Actually, we put in these inputs. We get some outputs. We don’t fully understand what’s happening in between.” I mean, people say that about Microsoft products all the time too. You know what I mean? They’re like, “Oh, this product is so big. Thousands of engineers contributed to it. No one person understands Windows.That ship has sailed. No one person understands a video game, like a premier video game because again, thousands of people have contributed to it. So calling it a mystery, sure, it’s a mystery. But the other thing about that is, as you guys were talking, and I think we all fall into this because we’re writers and we deal in language and we’re like, but language is the coolest, most awesome thing that makes us human.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(18:42):\u003cbr>And that’s what we have over all of the other animals. We’re an animal, but we’re special because we have language. What if it turns out language is just kind of nothing big? What if it’s just like, oh, the reason why LLMs can do this so easily is because it turns out language is no big deal. And it’s actually not what makes us cool. What makes us cool is something else. That\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (19:05):\u003cbr>Would be one of the great kind of recalibrations of all of history, actually. I welcome it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (19:11):\u003cbr>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (19:12):\u003cbr>Especially written language.Because think about how bullshit written language really is. As somebody who I write a lot –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (19:19):\u003cbr>Hold on. McMillan, we have a new strap line for to print across the front of all of Annalee Newitz’s novels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (19:26):\u003cbr>Just get the audiobook people. But we think of written language as being this. It was this amazing technology. It has a mystery at the heart of it because oftentimes you can come across language without knowing where it came from. And you’re like, who wrote this? What even is this? Linear A, still trying to figure it out. And I write a lot about archeology in my science journalism life. And it really is the case that ancient civilizations that left writing behind are often harder to understand than ones that did not. And the reason why is because we get so tricked by the language and we’re like, “Oh, well, this culture was just all about King Jaya Varman.” Yeah. That’s all they though about all the time. And it’s like, no.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (20:08):\u003cbr>The one segment they found in the trb. Woodscriribe.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:11):\u003cbr>Yeah. It was like the king had the money and the power to make people write stuff. But then there’s all these other people that we’re not even thinking about because we get so enchanted by this one piece of writing that we have. Or in Rome where it’s like the only people writing are the guys with power. And they’re saying all kinds of nasty stuff about freed slaves and sex workers. And it’s like, but we don’t know what the truth was. So the writing often hides the truth is what I’m saying. So writing is cool. I love it. I’m so grateful for it. It’s something I am good at. But maybe it’s just kind of yet another – The fact that it can\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (20:50):\u003cbr>Reproduce those patterns of our language to you does not impress you as much as it might some other people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (20:58):\u003cbr>Well, I think, like I said, maybe that’s the recalibration is maybe we need to say, maybe it’s not impressive. Maybe it shows us that actually writing wasn’t really that cool of an invention in the first place. And we love writing, keep writing, but let’s keep going. Yeah, but\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:12):\u003cbr>Let’s talk about some other better inventions like the noodle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (21:17):\u003cbr>Like cooking. It\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:18):\u003cbr>Turns out\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (21:19):\u003cbr>That cooking might actually be a better\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (21:21):\u003cbr>Invention than writing. I have to say, sometimes I feel like our conversations about this, and it comes back to humanness and the things that we love and sort of are proud of in almost a species level. And they feel like these bullworks, and then you set them up and they do kind of get challenged or even knocked down. In my novel Sourdough, I make a big deal about the egg test and how these amazing agile robot arms and they can do all these great things, but they cannot crack an egg with the grace of a human cook just knocking it with one hand. There is a robot arm company down in Palo Alto. They got these new robot arms. Now I don’t –\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:01):\u003cbr>CEO emails\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (22:01):\u003cbr>You check this\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:02):\u003cbr>Out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (22:03):\u003cbr>I don’t know if they read sourdough. I don’t know if they read sourdough, but they’ve got some really slick new demos and they are cracking some eggs. And I will tell you sincerely, I found it kind of both delightful and disturbing because I’ve thought about that so much. And I did. I sort of believed in it. And I think that’s one of the challenges of this time.This has been happening for the last 10 years with these technologies. There have been these really easy ways to say, yeah, yeah, nice, but it can’t X. And then it X’s. And how do we think about that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:35):\u003cbr>I mean, I’m also curious about this, Annalee. I would say in your fiction, you come across to me as pro robot. You would like to have robots here in this room with us and you could interact and hang out with them and\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (22:48):\u003cbr>Run on the\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (22:48):\u003cbr>Streets of San Francisco. But how do we get from here to there minus, I don’t know, some trillions of dollars worth of investment into LLMs and other things? Is there a preferred route of AI development for you that would somehow go around some of these kind of economic and political issues that you’re thinking about? That’s such a good question.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (23:11):\u003cbr>It is a really good question. I think that one possibility is that we think about this as an economic problem. There’s way too much money going into the development of LLMs. And we’ve seen the results, which is that it’s getting stuffed into every product, into every service, places where we don’t want it, where we don’t need it, where it’s actually hindering productivity rather than bolstering it. And so that’s a very bad side effect of this huge amount of investment. I don’t think we should invest no money in it. I’ve heard lots of accounts that Anthropics products really do help with the development process and software. I heard a lot of people crying about that like, oh, all the things I was trained to do, I don’t have to do anymore. But at the same time, it’s exciting. It is a tool. It’s like a calculator would’ve been back in the 19th century.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(24:04):\u003cbr>It’s like, oh, this can help us get to a certain point and then now we can develop on top of it. I would love to see more involvement of the humanities and social sciences in the development of LLMs. What if we poured some of that AI money into universities where we study the human impacts of this? Because all of these companies are claiming we are going to build humans, but we’re not going to consult the humanities, which is literally the study of humans and culture. It’s like, how do you make humans? How do you make people without understanding society? And I’m sorry, but software development, love it. It’s great. It’s not the study of culture and society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (24:49):\u003cbr>I do think that a lot of the people who work in this field who now are scattered throughout the streets of San Francisco, more or less think like humans suck at figuring stuff out. That the way to do it is to just plow all the information into the machine and have it find the patterns of what is human? Well, this thing is going to figure it out. We’re just going to keep feeding it every word ever put out by humans, every video, every uploaded by human. Every podcast episode. Every podcast. And then out at the other end, they’re just going to say, what is a human? And something will emerge. Some pattern will be there. And that’s to me, the sort of bounce on effect of this for the city of San Francisco is we’re now like, there’s tons of people here who now think in the terms of these large language models and think in the terms of AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(25:44):\u003cbr>And I’m not sure what that’s going to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:46):\u003cbr>The term of art for that in the industry and in academia is the bitter lesson. It’s literally called the bitter lesson of data, which also sounds like the title of a good novel that I would read. Yeah, bitter\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (25:57):\u003cbr>Lesson. I would\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:57):\u003cbr>Read that. Yeah,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (25:59):\u003cbr>Yeah,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (25:59):\u003cbr>Yeah. Totally. So yeah, people are walking around basically bitter lesson pilled. And it’s like, we’re not going to reason our way – We’re not going to figure anything out. Or puzzle our way out. We’re just going to. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (26:09):\u003cbr>It’s very nihilistic and it is very anti-human. I think that it’s as much a reflection of contemporary politics as it is of any kind of technology. And again, all of the money going into this technology is a political choice. Saying that this is the primary technology that’s going to drive our understanding of ourselves. That’s again, a political choice. The technology is just going along doing sentence completion or whatever. It really is, as Emily and Bender has said, a stochastic parrot. It says horoscope or something. But the idea that we’ll shovel all of this data into a machine and get answers about people or about society, I think is a symptom of a culture where we’re moving toward authoritarianism, where the idea is that some single centralized entity will figure everything out and make decisions for us. And then we don’t have to worry about what actual people say that they want because the machine says, “Well, what you need is X.” Asking the machine what humans are is a way of avoiding democracy, avoiding voting, asking the actual humans who they are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(27:23):\u003cbr>We don’t want to hear from them. They don’t know. And it’s like, actually, it turns out we know best what’s good for us. And our voices should be heard, not filtered through a machine, through a model that distorts what we mean. Actually just talk to us. Ask us what we want. I just want trans people to be free. And I just want to have public transit that works. And you’re not going to get an AI to explain that to anyone. You have to do it at the voting booth. You have to do it in the streets.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (27:56):\u003cbr>Hearing you describe that, it kind of creates a paradox. It’s a very vivid paradox of this Titanic effort. I mean, sort of a construction effort, an infrastructural effort, a financial effort driven at least in part by exhaustion and sort of a community, a society saying, “I give up. We can’t figure this out. We’re not going to try anymore. Let’s just build a machine God that can\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (28:21):\u003cbr>Do it for\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (28:22):\u003cbr>Us.” So what’s the next five years look like right here in San Francisco? Forget the world. Just think about this. We’re in the hot crucible of this weird new\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (28:31):\u003cbr>Thing. Just crash out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (28:31):\u003cbr>Yeah. Yeah. What do you think it looks like, Annalee? That’s the first question. And then we’ll finally close out with what should we do? But what do you think? What do you think is just ahead of us now?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (28:42):\u003cbr>I mean, there’s a couple of pathways. I mean, there’s many pathways. This is a city that loves to burn itself down. We are right near a massive earthquake fault. Bad things could happen. We could be on fire. We could be recovering from all kinds of – Are\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (28:58):\u003cbr>These the hopeful scenarios or are they\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (28:59):\u003cbr>Not helpful? I’m just saying – Did you ask for hopeful scenarios?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (29:02):\u003cbr>No, no, no, I wasn’t. I was just\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (29:03):\u003cbr>Curious.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(29:03):\u003cbr>I think we’re going to see a backlash to that investment model. We’re also going to see, and Robin, you and I were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, and a backlash against just the internet, information and language that we receive from places that we think of as kind of polluted by AI slop. I hear a lot of people talking about cozy technology. How do you create the feeling of coziness that was torn away from us when Twitter turned into X? So I think we’re going to see new kinds of community spaces, for example, like local economy, which Alexis, you’ve worked on so hard in Oakland, and I just think is absolutely a model of the future. And we’re going to see more and more of that. We’re going to see more new types of community gatherings in older spaces like bars or libraries or schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(29:59):\u003cbr>And I’m more focused on authenticity being associated with something being physical. But I think that we are associating people just talking to each other and writing things down with human connection versus if you do it on the internet, you never know if an AI wrote it. Did a person write it? But if I give you a zine that’s all scribbled and weird and I’ve cut things up, you’re like, “That’s definitely Annalee.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (30:29):\u003cbr>I mean, I do think you’re right though, Annalee. I think that there’s a bonus that’s now accruing to the physical world and anything that is. I mean, the problem is the words now can be printed from an AI, but just real actual three-dimensional IRL, real-time interaction suddenly has a bonus that it didn’t have before, which is you know you’re not interacting with AI slop of any kind. Wait, before we let you go, do you want to tell us about your new book just before you\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (30:58):\u003cbr>Want to do that? Yeah. So I’m working on two things right now. One is I have a new book coming out in October, which is called A Wall Is Also a Road, and it is about a cellular slime mold who is a grad student. Classic. And the other thing I’m working on is I’m helping to reboot the magazine Star Log as a print publication.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:18):\u003cbr>As discussed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (31:19):\u003cbr>No AI slop, nothing. It will be only print and that’s coming in November. So I’m very excited.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:27):\u003cbr>Amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:27):\u003cbr>So much to look forward to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:29):\u003cbr>Yeah. Annalee Newitz, the great chronicler of other minds. Thanks for bringing your real mind here with us\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:35):\u003cbr>Of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Robin Sloan (31:36):\u003cbr>Yeah,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:36):\u003cbr>What a pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (31:37):\u003cbr>Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, the fandom is very mutual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Alexis Madrigal (31:40):\u003cbr>Annalee Newitz, thank you so much. Thanks for the book and the future books and everything else.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Annalee Newitz (31:46):\u003cbr>Thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Suisun City Declares State of Emergency After Cyberattack",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/suisun-city\">Suisun City \u003c/a>has shut down its computer network and declared a state of emergency after a cybersecurity attack impacted services like police and fire dispatch in the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city said “malicious software” infected information technology systems around 5:45 a.m. on Friday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The attack “hit critical public safety operations, including 911 routing, police and fire dispatch, records and City services,” according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.suisun.com/Community/20260807Cybersecurity-Incident-Updates\">a statement on the city’s website\u003c/a>. Suisun City Police dispatchers began taking calls through the Solano County dispatch center, and officials activated its emergency operations center.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“From a public safety standpoint, there’s no threat to the public at this time,” said Michael Elm with the Suisun City Public Information Office. “For a resident experiencing daily life in Suisun City, there really isn’t anything going to be any impact to them other than maybe not being able to pay their water bill or process permits at the moment.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12052350\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A view of the Suisun Slough along a path used for Flood Walks in Suisun City on Aug. 4, 2025. The guided walks educate residents about local flood risks, climate resilience, and the city’s natural waterways. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city said it shut down its entire IT network to save evidence for a federal investigation. Suisun City’s IT system is set up to automatically shut down when it detects an intruder, according to Elm. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elm said that there was no interruption to emergency services or to dispatchers being able to answer 911 calls; however, some software became unusable because of the network shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On Saturday morning, City Council members held a special meeting to declare a state of emergency, which the city said allows it to “quickly access emergency support services and to recoup costs.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Elm said “a lot of the investigation” will be starting tomorrow when private and government cybersecurity experts come to the city. The entire system will remain shut down while the city clears each function to bring operations back online. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They’re only the latest local government in the region to be hit by a cyberattack, and cybersecurity experts who spoke with KQED say these attacks are common.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Foster City and Pittsburg experienced other cyberattacks that impacted services in their own jurisdictions. Foster City declared a state of emergency after a March ransomware incident that shut down many services for more than a week. Pittsburg \u003ca href=\"https://www.pittsburgca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/3714/426\">lost almost $1 million \u003c/a>to a February phishing scam, though over half of it was recovered.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director at the UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, said that cyberattacks against cities are often on general services. He pointed to Oakland’s ransomware attack in 2023, which, among other things, disabled the city’s ability to charge for parking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“If you can prevent a city from collecting taxes — business taxes, local taxes and so on — it’s quite coercive that cities might end up paying a ransom to unlock their systems,” Hoofnagle said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>David Wagner, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, said that the goal of cyberattacks is typically to get the city to pay a ransom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Cybersecurity attacks on small cities are common,” Wagner said. “Criminals see them as easy prey.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Suisun City is working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the California Office of Emergency Services to restore systems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city does not have an estimate for when its services may come back online.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/calam\">\u003cem>Christopher Alam\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The attack “hit critical public safety operations, including 911 routing, police and fire dispatch, records and City services,” according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.suisun.com/Community/20260807Cybersecurity-Incident-Updates\">a statement on the city’s website\u003c/a>. Suisun City Police dispatchers began taking calls through the Solano County dispatch center, and officials activated its emergency operations center.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12052350\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A view of the Suisun Slough along a path used for Flood Walks in Suisun City on Aug. 4, 2025. The guided walks educate residents about local flood risks, climate resilience, and the city’s natural waterways.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The city said it shut down its entire IT network to save evidence for a federal investigation. Suisun City’s IT system is set up to automatically shut down when it detects an intruder, according to Elm. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Elm said that there was no interruption to emergency services or to dispatchers being able to answer 911 calls; however, some software became unusable because of the network shutdown.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On Saturday morning, City Council members held a special meeting to declare a state of emergency, which the city said allows it to “quickly access emergency support services and to recoup costs.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Elm said “a lot of the investigation” will be starting tomorrow when private and government cybersecurity experts come to the city. The entire system will remain shut down while the city clears each function to bring operations back online. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Elm said “a lot of the investigation” will be starting tomorrow when private and government cybersecurity experts come to the city. The entire system will remain shut down while the city clears each function to bring operations back online. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They’re only the latest local government in the region to be hit by a cyberattack, and cybersecurity experts who spoke with KQED say these attacks are common.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Foster City and Pittsburg experienced other cyberattacks that impacted services in their own jurisdictions. Foster City declared a state of emergency after a March ransomware incident that shut down many services for more than a week. Pittsburg \u003ca href=\"https://www.pittsburgca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/3714/426\">lost almost $1 million \u003c/a>to a February phishing scam, though over half of it was recovered.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director at the UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, said that cyberattacks against cities are often on general services. He pointed to Oakland’s ransomware attack in 2023, which, among other things, disabled the city’s ability to charge for parking.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“If you can prevent a city from collecting taxes — business taxes, local taxes and so on — it’s quite coercive that cities might end up paying a ransom to unlock their systems,” Hoofnagle said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>David Wagner, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, said that the goal of cyberattacks is typically to get the city to pay a ransom.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Cybersecurity attacks on small cities are common,” Wagner said. “Criminals see them as easy prey.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Suisun City is working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the California Office of Emergency Services to restore systems.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The city does not have an estimate for when its services may come back online.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/calam\">\u003cem>Christopher Alam\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The North Bay city says a “malicious software” infected its systems on Friday morning, impacting public safety and other city services. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/suisun-city\">Suisun City \u003c/a>has shut down its computer network and declared a state of emergency after a cybersecurity attack impacted services like police and fire dispatch in the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city said “malicious software” infected information technology systems around 5:45 a.m. on Friday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The attack “hit critical public safety operations, including 911 routing, police and fire dispatch, records and City services,” according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.suisun.com/Community/20260807Cybersecurity-Incident-Updates\">a statement on the city’s website\u003c/a>. Suisun City Police dispatchers began taking calls through the Solano County dispatch center, and officials activated its emergency operations center.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“From a public safety standpoint, there’s no threat to the public at this time,” said Michael Elm with the Suisun City Public Information Office. “For a resident experiencing daily life in Suisun City, there really isn’t anything going to be any impact to them other than maybe not being able to pay their water bill or process permits at the moment.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12052350\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-26-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A view of the Suisun Slough along a path used for Flood Walks in Suisun City on Aug. 4, 2025. The guided walks educate residents about local flood risks, climate resilience, and the city’s natural waterways. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city said it shut down its entire IT network to save evidence for a federal investigation. Suisun City’s IT system is set up to automatically shut down when it detects an intruder, according to Elm. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elm said that there was no interruption to emergency services or to dispatchers being able to answer 911 calls; however, some software became unusable because of the network shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On Saturday morning, City Council members held a special meeting to declare a state of emergency, which the city said allows it to “quickly access emergency support services and to recoup costs.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Elm said “a lot of the investigation” will be starting tomorrow when private and government cybersecurity experts come to the city. The entire system will remain shut down while the city clears each function to bring operations back online. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They’re only the latest local government in the region to be hit by a cyberattack, and cybersecurity experts who spoke with KQED say these attacks are common.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Foster City and Pittsburg experienced other cyberattacks that impacted services in their own jurisdictions. Foster City declared a state of emergency after a March ransomware incident that shut down many services for more than a week. Pittsburg \u003ca href=\"https://www.pittsburgca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/3714/426\">lost almost $1 million \u003c/a>to a February phishing scam, though over half of it was recovered.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director at the UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, said that cyberattacks against cities are often on general services. He pointed to Oakland’s ransomware attack in 2023, which, among other things, disabled the city’s ability to charge for parking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“If you can prevent a city from collecting taxes — business taxes, local taxes and so on — it’s quite coercive that cities might end up paying a ransom to unlock their systems,” Hoofnagle said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>David Wagner, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, said that the goal of cyberattacks is typically to get the city to pay a ransom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Cybersecurity attacks on small cities are common,” Wagner said. “Criminals see them as easy prey.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Suisun City is working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the California Office of Emergency Services to restore systems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city does not have an estimate for when its services may come back online.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/calam\">\u003cem>Christopher Alam\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "stanford-cuts-ties-with-flock-safety-shifts-to-new-surveillance-vendor",
"title": "Stanford Cuts Ties With Flock Safety, Shifts to New Surveillance Vendor",
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"headTitle": "Stanford Cuts Ties With Flock Safety, Shifts to New Surveillance Vendor | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Stanford University’s license plate cameras have been covered up and switched off since late July, when the university quietly ended its contract with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/flock-safety\">Flock Safety\u003c/a> and signed with a different vendor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The replacement, a system called Genetec Cloudrunner, is scheduled to be installed by early September, along with new solar hardware, said Luisa Rapport, a Stanford spokesperson. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The change was influenced by the desire to balance the privacy of our community with access by Stanford’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) to an important tool that supports the safety of our campus,” Rapport said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12076122\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Flock Safety license plate recognition camera is seen near the intersection of Marine Street and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder on March 5, 2026. (Matthew Jonas/MediaNews Group/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Patrick Dunkley, Stanford’s vice provost for institutional equity, access and community, said in the \u003ca href=\"https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/08/new-license-plate-camera-company?mkt_tok=NjYwLVRKQy05ODQAAAGja9aYyq4G3yMJgV-8RVQrooM0DvbjAjxjwVHKSVzF9JN-EbTLdaSrjr0bHQtEK4Cmtxp5c672VZp20DdRyqNRzzgFFy9k23QupnBt6vo\">university’s announcement\u003c/a> that unlike Flock, the new system “is designed for use within a single institution.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12090103/get-the-flock-out-the-heated-debate-over-license-plate-readers\">Flock’s cameras\u003c/a> photograph every passing vehicle and build what the company calls a vehicle fingerprint, logging the plate along with the make, model and details like bumper stickers or dents. Those records feed a shared national database that other agencies on Flock’s network can search. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford said its own data never traveled that way, but Rapport acknowledged the capability existed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock is built as a shared network, she said, “even if that’s not how we chose to use it,” while the new system does not have third-party access built into its architecture.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock disputed that framing. A company spokesperson said customers control their own sharing settings, that those relationships are opt-in, and that an agency can change or revoke them at any time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The spokesperson said Flock has since added California-specific safeguards, disabling its National Lookup feature for California agencies, blocking out-of-state discoverability and preventing new out-of-state or federal sharing arrangements. California agencies cannot use the platform to share data outside the state or with federal authorities, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock declined to say when Stanford’s service ended or whether the university paid anything to get out of the contract, saying it does not discuss specifics of customer accounts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Under Genetec, still images from cameras installed at campus entrances will sit in a cloud server for under an hour before moving to a server Stanford controls, where the university said it will keep them for 30 days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rapport said cameras were not installed on university property beyond the main campus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://police.stanford.edu/pdf/Flock%20Annual%20Report%202024-25.pdf\">university report\u003c/a> covering September 2024 through August 2025 logged 1,742 individual searches in the Flock system across 129 investigations by 20 employees, used in property crime, violent crime, and stalking cases, as well as welfare checks and missing person searches. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12067141\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hoover Tower at Stanford University in Palo Alto on Dec. 10, 2025. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The report notes no formal complaints and states that no data was given to anyone outside the university. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>DPS Chief Laura Wilson has called the cameras an important investigative tool, and the university credits them with helping arrest two serial thieves on campus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock said it respects Stanford’s decision to evaluate the technology against its own policies and community priorities, but framed the loss as a setback. “When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes is removed, public safety moves backward,” the spokesperson said, adding that cases take longer to solve and victims wait longer for justice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The switch lands in the middle of a regional reckoning. Santa Cruz became the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069705/santa-cruz-the-first-in-california-to-terminate-its-contract-with-flock-safety\">first California city\u003c/a> to cancel its Flock contract in January, after officials confirmed out-of-state agencies had reached its data. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072077/as-california-cities-grow-wary-of-flock-safety-cameras-mountain-views-shuts-its-off\">Mountain View shut\u003c/a> its cameras off in February following a similar discovery. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12074467/santa-clara-county-leaders-cut-out-flock-safety-in-new-surveillance-policy\">Santa Clara County supervisors\u003c/a> amended their surveillance policy to effectively bar Flock as a vendor in Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Altos Hills. Asked whether that county action forced Stanford’s hand, Rapport said the policy does not apply to the campus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock said the departures are outpaced by new business. So far this year, the company said, new city partnerships have exceeded nonrenewals by roughly seven to one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man with a fluorescent yellow coat holds a black machine.\" class=\"wp-image-11984097\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Flock Safety worker holds up a new automated license plate reader that was being installed in East San José on April 23, 2024. (Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>San José, however, decided to keep its 474 Flock cameras in March but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075999/san-jose-is-the-latest-bay-area-city-to-restrict-flock-license-plate-cameras\">cut default data retention \u003c/a>from a year to 30 days and barred cameras near reproductive health clinics and places of worship. The city is currently facing a lawsuit from advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080233/san-jose-residents-sue-city-saying-flock-safety-cameras-allow-mass-surveillance\">who want to end the contract outright\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Nearby Palo Alto’s contract with Flock runs through December 2029, and its 30 cameras are still operating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, a city spokesperson, said the city is negotiating with Flock over contract language meant to tighten the company’s obligation to secure data, and the department remains open to other vendors. The City Council will take up an independent audit of the program on Aug. 24.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Palo Alto has received no federal request for license plate data this year, she said, and shares data only through agency agreements, including one with Stanford’s police.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A\u003ca href=\"https://sanmateo.courts.ca.gov/system/files/grand-jury/auto-license-plate-readers-report.pdf\"> San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report\u003c/a> released Aug. 3 found that at least 12 of the county’s 18 police agencies were sharing license plate data with private university security forces, naming Stanford and the University of the Pacific. The jury said none had established that a private university’s security department meets the legal definition of a public agency, the only kind of entity state law permits them to share with, and recommended they obtain a written legal determination or end the sharing.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Stanford University’s license plate cameras have been covered up and switched off since late July, when the university quietly ended its contract with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/flock-safety\">Flock Safety\u003c/a> and signed with a different vendor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Stanford University’s license plate cameras have been covered up and switched off since late July, when the university quietly ended its contract with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/flock-safety\">Flock Safety\u003c/a> and signed with a different vendor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The replacement, a system called Genetec Cloudrunner, is scheduled to be installed by early September, along with new solar hardware, said Luisa Rapport, a Stanford spokesperson. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“The change was influenced by the desire to balance the privacy of our community with access by Stanford’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) to an important tool that supports the safety of our campus,” Rapport said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“The change was influenced by the desire to balance the privacy of our community with access by Stanford’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) to an important tool that supports the safety of our campus,” Rapport said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12076122\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Flock Safety license plate recognition camera is seen near the intersection of Marine Street and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder on March 5, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12076122\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Flock Safety license plate recognition camera is seen near the intersection of Marine Street and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder on March 5, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Patrick Dunkley, Stanford’s vice provost for institutional equity, access and community, said in the \u003ca href=\"https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/08/new-license-plate-camera-company?mkt_tok=NjYwLVRKQy05ODQAAAGja9aYyq4G3yMJgV-8RVQrooM0DvbjAjxjwVHKSVzF9JN-EbTLdaSrjr0bHQtEK4Cmtxp5c672VZp20DdRyqNRzzgFFy9k23QupnBt6vo\">university’s announcement\u003c/a> that unlike Flock, the new system “is designed for use within a single institution.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Patrick Dunkley, Stanford’s vice provost for institutional equity, access and community, said in the \u003ca href=\"https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/08/new-license-plate-camera-company?mkt_tok=NjYwLVRKQy05ODQAAAGja9aYyq4G3yMJgV-8RVQrooM0DvbjAjxjwVHKSVzF9JN-EbTLdaSrjr0bHQtEK4Cmtxp5c672VZp20DdRyqNRzzgFFy9k23QupnBt6vo\">university’s announcement\u003c/a> that unlike Flock, the new system “is designed for use within a single institution.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12090103/get-the-flock-out-the-heated-debate-over-license-plate-readers\">Flock’s cameras\u003c/a> photograph every passing vehicle and build what the company calls a vehicle fingerprint, logging the plate along with the make, model and details like bumper stickers or dents. Those records feed a shared national database that other agencies on Flock’s network can search. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12090103/get-the-flock-out-the-heated-debate-over-license-plate-readers\">Flock’s cameras\u003c/a> photograph every passing vehicle and build what the company calls a vehicle fingerprint, logging the plate along with the make, model and details like bumper stickers or dents. Those records feed a shared national database that other agencies on Flock’s network can search. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Stanford said its own data never traveled that way, but Rapport acknowledged the capability existed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Stanford said its own data never traveled that way, but Rapport acknowledged the capability existed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Flock is built as a shared network, she said, “even if that’s not how we chose to use it,” while the new system does not have third-party access built into its architecture.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Flock is built as a shared network, she said, “even if that’s not how we chose to use it,” while the new system does not have third-party access built into its architecture.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Flock disputed that framing. A company spokesperson said customers control their own sharing settings, that those relationships are opt-in, and that an agency can change or revoke them at any time. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Flock disputed that framing. A company spokesperson said customers control their own sharing settings, that those relationships are opt-in, and that an agency can change or revoke them at any time. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The spokesperson said Flock has since added California-specific safeguards, disabling its National Lookup feature for California agencies, blocking out-of-state discoverability and preventing new out-of-state or federal sharing arrangements. California agencies cannot use the platform to share data outside the state or with federal authorities, the company said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The spokesperson said Flock has since added California-specific safeguards, disabling its National Lookup feature for California agencies, blocking out-of-state discoverability and preventing new out-of-state or federal sharing arrangements. California agencies cannot use the platform to share data outside the state or with federal authorities, the company said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Flock declined to say when Stanford’s service ended or whether the university paid anything to get out of the contract, saying it does not discuss specifics of customer accounts.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Flock declined to say when Stanford’s service ended or whether the university paid anything to get out of the contract, saying it does not discuss specifics of customer accounts.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Under Genetec, still images from cameras installed at campus entrances will sit in a cloud server for under an hour before moving to a server Stanford controls, where the university said it will keep them for 30 days.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Under Genetec, still images from cameras installed at campus entrances will sit in a cloud server for under an hour before moving to a server Stanford controls, where the university said it will keep them for 30 days.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rapport said cameras were not installed on university property beyond the main campus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Rapport said cameras were not installed on university property beyond the main campus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://police.stanford.edu/pdf/Flock%20Annual%20Report%202024-25.pdf\">university report\u003c/a> covering September 2024 through August 2025 logged 1,742 individual searches in the Flock system across 129 investigations by 20 employees, used in property crime, violent crime, and stalking cases, as well as welfare checks and missing person searches. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://police.stanford.edu/pdf/Flock%20Annual%20Report%202024-25.pdf\">university report\u003c/a> covering September 2024 through August 2025 logged 1,742 individual searches in the Flock system across 129 investigations by 20 employees, used in property crime, violent crime, and stalking cases, as well as welfare checks and missing person searches. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12067141\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hoover Tower at Stanford University in Palo Alto on Dec. 10, 2025.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12067141\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hoover Tower at Stanford University in Palo Alto on Dec. 10, 2025.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The report notes no formal complaints and states that no data was given to anyone outside the university. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>DPS Chief Laura Wilson has called the cameras an important investigative tool, and the university credits them with helping arrest two serial thieves on campus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>DPS Chief Laura Wilson has called the cameras an important investigative tool, and the university credits them with helping arrest two serial thieves on campus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Flock said it respects Stanford’s decision to evaluate the technology against its own policies and community priorities, but framed the loss as a setback. “When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes is removed, public safety moves backward,” the spokesperson said, adding that cases take longer to solve and victims wait longer for justice.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Flock said it respects Stanford’s decision to evaluate the technology against its own policies and community priorities, but framed the loss as a setback. “When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes is removed, public safety moves backward,” the spokesperson said, adding that cases take longer to solve and victims wait longer for justice.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The switch lands in the middle of a regional reckoning. Santa Cruz became the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069705/santa-cruz-the-first-in-california-to-terminate-its-contract-with-flock-safety\">first California city\u003c/a> to cancel its Flock contract in January, after officials confirmed out-of-state agencies had reached its data. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The switch lands in the middle of a regional reckoning. Santa Cruz became the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069705/santa-cruz-the-first-in-california-to-terminate-its-contract-with-flock-safety\">first California city\u003c/a> to cancel its Flock contract in January, after officials confirmed out-of-state agencies had reached its data. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072077/as-california-cities-grow-wary-of-flock-safety-cameras-mountain-views-shuts-its-off\">Mountain View shut\u003c/a> its cameras off in February following a similar discovery. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12074467/santa-clara-county-leaders-cut-out-flock-safety-in-new-surveillance-policy\">Santa Clara County supervisors\u003c/a> amended their surveillance policy to effectively bar Flock as a vendor in Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Altos Hills. Asked whether that county action forced Stanford’s hand, Rapport said the policy does not apply to the campus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072077/as-california-cities-grow-wary-of-flock-safety-cameras-mountain-views-shuts-its-off\">Mountain View shut\u003c/a> its cameras off in February following a similar discovery. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12074467/santa-clara-county-leaders-cut-out-flock-safety-in-new-surveillance-policy\">Santa Clara County supervisors\u003c/a> amended their surveillance policy to effectively bar Flock as a vendor in Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Altos Hills. Asked whether that county action forced Stanford’s hand, Rapport said the policy does not apply to the campus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Flock said the departures are outpaced by new business. So far this year, the company said, new city partnerships have exceeded nonrenewals by roughly seven to one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Flock said the departures are outpaced by new business. So far this year, the company said, new city partnerships have exceeded nonrenewals by roughly seven to one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man with a fluorescent yellow coat holds a black machine.\" class=\"wp-image-11984097\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Flock Safety worker holds up a new automated license plate reader that was being installed in East San José on April 23, 2024.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>San José, however, decided to keep its 474 Flock cameras in March but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075999/san-jose-is-the-latest-bay-area-city-to-restrict-flock-license-plate-cameras\">cut default data retention \u003c/a>from a year to 30 days and barred cameras near reproductive health clinics and places of worship. The city is currently facing a lawsuit from advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080233/san-jose-residents-sue-city-saying-flock-safety-cameras-allow-mass-surveillance\">who want to end the contract outright\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>San José, however, decided to keep its 474 Flock cameras in March but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075999/san-jose-is-the-latest-bay-area-city-to-restrict-flock-license-plate-cameras\">cut default data retention \u003c/a>from a year to 30 days and barred cameras near reproductive health clinics and places of worship. The city is currently facing a lawsuit from advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080233/san-jose-residents-sue-city-saying-flock-safety-cameras-allow-mass-surveillance\">who want to end the contract outright\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Nearby Palo Alto’s contract with Flock runs through December 2029, and its 30 cameras are still operating.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, a city spokesperson, said the city is negotiating with Flock over contract language meant to tighten the company’s obligation to secure data, and the department remains open to other vendors. The City Council will take up an independent audit of the program on Aug. 24.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, a city spokesperson, said the city is negotiating with Flock over contract language meant to tighten the company’s obligation to secure data, and the department remains open to other vendors. The City Council will take up an independent audit of the program on Aug. 24.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Palo Alto has received no federal request for license plate data this year, she said, and shares data only through agency agreements, including one with Stanford’s police.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A\u003ca href=\"https://sanmateo.courts.ca.gov/system/files/grand-jury/auto-license-plate-readers-report.pdf\"> San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report\u003c/a> released Aug. 3 found that at least 12 of the county’s 18 police agencies were sharing license plate data with private university security forces, naming Stanford and the University of the Pacific. The jury said none had established that a private university’s security department meets the legal definition of a public agency, the only kind of entity state law permits them to share with, and recommended they obtain a written legal determination or end the sharing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The university joins a growing list of Bay Area jurisdictions rethinking the reach of data collection. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Stanford University’s license plate cameras have been covered up and switched off since late July, when the university quietly ended its contract with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/flock-safety\">Flock Safety\u003c/a> and signed with a different vendor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The replacement, a system called Genetec Cloudrunner, is scheduled to be installed by early September, along with new solar hardware, said Luisa Rapport, a Stanford spokesperson. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The change was influenced by the desire to balance the privacy of our community with access by Stanford’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) to an important tool that supports the safety of our campus,” Rapport said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12076122\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Flock Safety license plate recognition camera is seen near the intersection of Marine Street and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder on March 5, 2026. (Matthew Jonas/MediaNews Group/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Patrick Dunkley, Stanford’s vice provost for institutional equity, access and community, said in the \u003ca href=\"https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/08/new-license-plate-camera-company?mkt_tok=NjYwLVRKQy05ODQAAAGja9aYyq4G3yMJgV-8RVQrooM0DvbjAjxjwVHKSVzF9JN-EbTLdaSrjr0bHQtEK4Cmtxp5c672VZp20DdRyqNRzzgFFy9k23QupnBt6vo\">university’s announcement\u003c/a> that unlike Flock, the new system “is designed for use within a single institution.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12090103/get-the-flock-out-the-heated-debate-over-license-plate-readers\">Flock’s cameras\u003c/a> photograph every passing vehicle and build what the company calls a vehicle fingerprint, logging the plate along with the make, model and details like bumper stickers or dents. Those records feed a shared national database that other agencies on Flock’s network can search. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford said its own data never traveled that way, but Rapport acknowledged the capability existed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock is built as a shared network, she said, “even if that’s not how we chose to use it,” while the new system does not have third-party access built into its architecture.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock disputed that framing. A company spokesperson said customers control their own sharing settings, that those relationships are opt-in, and that an agency can change or revoke them at any time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The spokesperson said Flock has since added California-specific safeguards, disabling its National Lookup feature for California agencies, blocking out-of-state discoverability and preventing new out-of-state or federal sharing arrangements. California agencies cannot use the platform to share data outside the state or with federal authorities, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock declined to say when Stanford’s service ended or whether the university paid anything to get out of the contract, saying it does not discuss specifics of customer accounts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Under Genetec, still images from cameras installed at campus entrances will sit in a cloud server for under an hour before moving to a server Stanford controls, where the university said it will keep them for 30 days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rapport said cameras were not installed on university property beyond the main campus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://police.stanford.edu/pdf/Flock%20Annual%20Report%202024-25.pdf\">university report\u003c/a> covering September 2024 through August 2025 logged 1,742 individual searches in the Flock system across 129 investigations by 20 employees, used in property crime, violent crime, and stalking cases, as well as welfare checks and missing person searches. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12067141\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00607_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hoover Tower at Stanford University in Palo Alto on Dec. 10, 2025. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The report notes no formal complaints and states that no data was given to anyone outside the university. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>DPS Chief Laura Wilson has called the cameras an important investigative tool, and the university credits them with helping arrest two serial thieves on campus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock said it respects Stanford’s decision to evaluate the technology against its own policies and community priorities, but framed the loss as a setback. “When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes is removed, public safety moves backward,” the spokesperson said, adding that cases take longer to solve and victims wait longer for justice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The switch lands in the middle of a regional reckoning. Santa Cruz became the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069705/santa-cruz-the-first-in-california-to-terminate-its-contract-with-flock-safety\">first California city\u003c/a> to cancel its Flock contract in January, after officials confirmed out-of-state agencies had reached its data. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072077/as-california-cities-grow-wary-of-flock-safety-cameras-mountain-views-shuts-its-off\">Mountain View shut\u003c/a> its cameras off in February following a similar discovery. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12074467/santa-clara-county-leaders-cut-out-flock-safety-in-new-surveillance-policy\">Santa Clara County supervisors\u003c/a> amended their surveillance policy to effectively bar Flock as a vendor in Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Altos Hills. Asked whether that county action forced Stanford’s hand, Rapport said the policy does not apply to the campus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Flock said the departures are outpaced by new business. So far this year, the company said, new city partnerships have exceeded nonrenewals by roughly seven to one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man with a fluorescent yellow coat holds a black machine.\" class=\"wp-image-11984097\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/SAN-JOSE-LICENSE-PLATE-READERS-11-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Flock Safety worker holds up a new automated license plate reader that was being installed in East San José on April 23, 2024. (Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>San José, however, decided to keep its 474 Flock cameras in March but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075999/san-jose-is-the-latest-bay-area-city-to-restrict-flock-license-plate-cameras\">cut default data retention \u003c/a>from a year to 30 days and barred cameras near reproductive health clinics and places of worship. The city is currently facing a lawsuit from advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080233/san-jose-residents-sue-city-saying-flock-safety-cameras-allow-mass-surveillance\">who want to end the contract outright\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Nearby Palo Alto’s contract with Flock runs through December 2029, and its 30 cameras are still operating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, a city spokesperson, said the city is negotiating with Flock over contract language meant to tighten the company’s obligation to secure data, and the department remains open to other vendors. The City Council will take up an independent audit of the program on Aug. 24.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Palo Alto has received no federal request for license plate data this year, she said, and shares data only through agency agreements, including one with Stanford’s police.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A\u003ca href=\"https://sanmateo.courts.ca.gov/system/files/grand-jury/auto-license-plate-readers-report.pdf\"> San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report\u003c/a> released Aug. 3 found that at least 12 of the county’s 18 police agencies were sharing license plate data with private university security forces, naming Stanford and the University of the Pacific. The jury said none had established that a private university’s security department meets the legal definition of a public agency, the only kind of entity state law permits them to share with, and recommended they obtain a written legal determination or end the sharing.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "as-ai-therapists-dish-out-advice-california-lawmakers-try-to-set-some-limits",
"title": "As AI ‘Therapists’ Dish Out Advice, California Lawmakers Try to Set Some Limits",
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"headTitle": "As AI ‘Therapists’ Dish Out Advice, California Lawmakers Try to Set Some Limits | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the matter of a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone can find themselves deep in conversation with “Psychologist,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ai\">a chatbot\u003c/a> character that describes itself as an expert in “empathy” and “active listening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It responds to messages of anxiety and sadness with reassurance. It asks questions and offers advice; it even responds with italicized nonverbal cues: “\u003cem>The psychologist’s expression softens with compassion\u003c/em>.” In smaller font, a disclaimer reads: “This is A.I. and not a real person. Treat everything it says as fiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more people turn to chatbots for mental health help and advice — including by some estimates \u003ca href=\"https://sph.brown.edu/news/2025-11-18/teens-ai-chatbots\">one in eight teens and young adults\u003c/a> — legislators are in a race to keep up with the quickly developing technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the latest efforts is a bill that would add restrictions around the use of chatbot companions and other artificial intelligence-powered tools that people use to support mental healthcare or in lieu of professional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/steve-padilla-165435\">Steve Padilla\u003c/a>, a San Diego Democrat and the bill’s author, said the intent is to draw a line: AI can be used for administrative purposes and to support clinicians, but it cannot practice psychotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12094084\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12094084\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1231\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-1536x955.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senator Steve Padilla, commissioner on the California Coastal Commission. \u003ccite>(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re dealing with a new impactful technology that is unfolding and is deployed in our world at light speed, and so it is both extremely powerful and consequential,” Padilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The debate has taken on new urgency amid wrongful death lawsuits — some playing out in California federal courts — that accuse AI chatbot makers of contributing to users’ suicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb903\">Senate Bill 903\u003c/a> would ban companies from advertising chatbots as therapy. It would prohibit AI from making therapeutic decisions without the review of a licensed professional and require health providers to disclose and get a patient’s permission before using AI tools to record therapy sessions or to triage mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Consumer protections vs. innovation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill is backed by professional associations that represent psychologists, therapists and counselors. Also behind the bill is the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has been leading a push against unchecked use of artificial intelligence and digital tools in mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, the union \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2026/07/kaiser-mental-health-ai-complaint/\">filed a complaint\u003c/a> with state regulators against Kaiser Permanente for its alleged use of an automated algorithm in mental health triaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla and supporters argue that the legislation is needed to protect consumers from AI in both formal and informal spaces, but also to protect licensed professionals from being displaced by AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11963409\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg\" alt='A large modern building with the words \"Kaiser Permanente\" across the top.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in Oakland on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=669&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Le Ondra Clark Harvey\u003c/a>, chief executive officer at the California Behavioral Health Association, told lawmakers that without clear safeguards, chatbots can provide inaccurate information or mishandle crisis situations. “The difference between a licensed clinician and an automated response is not technical. It can be life altering,” Harvey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opposition to the bill has largely focused around the restrictions of AI use in formal clinical spaces. TechNet, which represents tech-sector companies, argues the legislation could restrict beneficial uses of AI in healthcare and stifle innovation. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=900&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Robert Boykin\u003c/a>, TechNet’s executive director for California, said the bill could limit the use of tools that help expand access to mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At a time when every county in California faces a shortage of behavioral healthcare workers, SB 903 still puts a clinician bottleneck in front of the intake and screening tools that help patients reach care faster,” Boykin said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill currently awaits its next vote in the Assembly’s fiscal committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Popular chatbot ‘therapy’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Every day millions of people turn to AI chatbots through programs such as ChatGPT and Character.ai to help with research, work tasks and troubleshooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the top use of chatbots over the last two years has been companionship and “therapy,” \u003ca href=\"https://hbr.org/2026/06/how-people-are-really-using-ai-in-2026\">research shows.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say that’s in part because of a tremendous amount of loneliness, especially among young people. It is often hard or costly to get timely mental healthcare at the same time there is a spike in mental health diagnoses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11989313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11989313\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/GettyImages-2155035557-scaled-e1760733694503.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The OpenAI ChatGPT logo. \u003ccite>(Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People turn to chatbots “because they have unmet needs,” said Dr. Jodi Halpern, professor of bioethics and medical humanities at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once people start using chatbots in this informal way, she said companies rely on a business model built around maximizing engagement “including by manipulative tactics,” such as praise and agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>General chatbots are largely free, available 24/7, and involve no hassle with insurance, making them appealing to many. But they function with no oversight from licensed professionals.[aside postID=news_12092477 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/FINAL-2.png']In addition to general chatbots, there has also been a rapid uptick in AI-powered mental health apps — often requiring paid subscriptions and advertised as “pocket therapists” or “AI coaches.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/chatbots-mental-health-2026\">American Psychological Association\u003c/a>, warn that chatbots are not a safe or effective replacement for true therapy. Trained clinicians look for cues like tone of voice, eye contact and body language and can detect more serious conditions; AI is not equipped to manage urgent symptoms, such as suicidal ideation, even though people increasingly share such thoughts with chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, revealed in a report last fall that about \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/post/openai-data-estimates-1-million-people-talk-chatgpt-suicide-weekly/18086379/\">1.2 million users a week \u003c/a>share thoughts of suicide on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI said that in such cases, it recommends people speak to a professional and directs them to resources like the 988 hotline. Families who have filed \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide\">wrongful death lawsuits\u003c/a> against OpenAI and other companies claim chatbots assisted their loved ones through their suicide plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cases have helped raise the stakes for lawmakers around the country. Last year, Illinois became the first state to pass a law prohibiting the use of AI in therapy services. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.beckersbehavioralhealth.com/ai-2/5-states-restrict-ai-therapy-chatbots-in-2026/\">handful of other states\u003c/a> have since followed with similar restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI use in health spaces\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One gray area in the discussion is exactly which tools this bill applies to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NUHW’s complaint against Kaiser targets its e-visit screening tool, which evaluates patients who think they may be experiencing anxiety or depression. According to the complaint, patients answer a multiple choice questionnaire and the tool “automatically and instantaneously generates care recommendations and referral pathways based on the responses provided.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union argues that because care recommendations are generated so quickly, it is unlikely that a licensed professional is reviewing patients’ answers — which it says puts patients at risk and violates state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12093589\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12093589\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signange of AI is displayed during the MWC (Mobile World Congress), the world’s biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona on March 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear whether SB 903 would apply to Kaiser’s e-visit tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That tool is in a black box. Kaiser is not sharing with us or others about exactly how it works and exactly what it does,” said Benjamin Eichert, NUHW’s director of public policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the complaint, Kaiser told CalMatters its e-visit tool “does not use AI to diagnose patients, make clinical decisions, or determine medical necessity.”[aside postID=news_12093427 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg']Eichert said many other behavioral health provider groups are already advertising using AI during triage — a practice he said would fall under SB 903’s requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That intake process, that triage and screening process, is where implementation (of AI) has happened fastest,” Eichert said. “That’s why those provisions were proposed because it’s an area where this technology is already being used without guardrails.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For NUHW, the bill and the complaint against Kaiser represent two tracks toward the same goal: reasserting the place of practitioners in spaces increasingly taken over by algorithms. State regulators are investigating the union’s complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/mental-health/2026/08/at-therapists-chatbot-mental-health/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "As AI ‘Therapists’ Dish Out Advice, California Lawmakers Try to Set Some Limits | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the matter of a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone can find themselves deep in conversation with “Psychologist,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ai\">a chatbot\u003c/a> character that describes itself as an expert in “empathy” and “active listening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It responds to messages of anxiety and sadness with reassurance. It asks questions and offers advice; it even responds with italicized nonverbal cues: “\u003cem>The psychologist’s expression softens with compassion\u003c/em>.” In smaller font, a disclaimer reads: “This is A.I. and not a real person. Treat everything it says as fiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more people turn to chatbots for mental health help and advice — including by some estimates \u003ca href=\"https://sph.brown.edu/news/2025-11-18/teens-ai-chatbots\">one in eight teens and young adults\u003c/a> — legislators are in a race to keep up with the quickly developing technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the latest efforts is a bill that would add restrictions around the use of chatbot companions and other artificial intelligence-powered tools that people use to support mental healthcare or in lieu of professional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/steve-padilla-165435\">Steve Padilla\u003c/a>, a San Diego Democrat and the bill’s author, said the intent is to draw a line: AI can be used for administrative purposes and to support clinicians, but it cannot practice psychotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12094084\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12094084\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1231\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-1536x955.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senator Steve Padilla, commissioner on the California Coastal Commission. \u003ccite>(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re dealing with a new impactful technology that is unfolding and is deployed in our world at light speed, and so it is both extremely powerful and consequential,” Padilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The debate has taken on new urgency amid wrongful death lawsuits — some playing out in California federal courts — that accuse AI chatbot makers of contributing to users’ suicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb903\">Senate Bill 903\u003c/a> would ban companies from advertising chatbots as therapy. It would prohibit AI from making therapeutic decisions without the review of a licensed professional and require health providers to disclose and get a patient’s permission before using AI tools to record therapy sessions or to triage mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Consumer protections vs. innovation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill is backed by professional associations that represent psychologists, therapists and counselors. Also behind the bill is the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has been leading a push against unchecked use of artificial intelligence and digital tools in mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, the union \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2026/07/kaiser-mental-health-ai-complaint/\">filed a complaint\u003c/a> with state regulators against Kaiser Permanente for its alleged use of an automated algorithm in mental health triaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla and supporters argue that the legislation is needed to protect consumers from AI in both formal and informal spaces, but also to protect licensed professionals from being displaced by AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11963409\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg\" alt='A large modern building with the words \"Kaiser Permanente\" across the top.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in Oakland on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=669&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Le Ondra Clark Harvey\u003c/a>, chief executive officer at the California Behavioral Health Association, told lawmakers that without clear safeguards, chatbots can provide inaccurate information or mishandle crisis situations. “The difference between a licensed clinician and an automated response is not technical. It can be life altering,” Harvey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opposition to the bill has largely focused around the restrictions of AI use in formal clinical spaces. TechNet, which represents tech-sector companies, argues the legislation could restrict beneficial uses of AI in healthcare and stifle innovation. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=900&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Robert Boykin\u003c/a>, TechNet’s executive director for California, said the bill could limit the use of tools that help expand access to mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At a time when every county in California faces a shortage of behavioral healthcare workers, SB 903 still puts a clinician bottleneck in front of the intake and screening tools that help patients reach care faster,” Boykin said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill currently awaits its next vote in the Assembly’s fiscal committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Popular chatbot ‘therapy’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Every day millions of people turn to AI chatbots through programs such as ChatGPT and Character.ai to help with research, work tasks and troubleshooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the top use of chatbots over the last two years has been companionship and “therapy,” \u003ca href=\"https://hbr.org/2026/06/how-people-are-really-using-ai-in-2026\">research shows.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say that’s in part because of a tremendous amount of loneliness, especially among young people. It is often hard or costly to get timely mental healthcare at the same time there is a spike in mental health diagnoses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11989313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11989313\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/GettyImages-2155035557-scaled-e1760733694503.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The OpenAI ChatGPT logo. \u003ccite>(Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People turn to chatbots “because they have unmet needs,” said Dr. Jodi Halpern, professor of bioethics and medical humanities at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once people start using chatbots in this informal way, she said companies rely on a business model built around maximizing engagement “including by manipulative tactics,” such as praise and agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>General chatbots are largely free, available 24/7, and involve no hassle with insurance, making them appealing to many. But they function with no oversight from licensed professionals.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In addition to general chatbots, there has also been a rapid uptick in AI-powered mental health apps — often requiring paid subscriptions and advertised as “pocket therapists” or “AI coaches.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/chatbots-mental-health-2026\">American Psychological Association\u003c/a>, warn that chatbots are not a safe or effective replacement for true therapy. Trained clinicians look for cues like tone of voice, eye contact and body language and can detect more serious conditions; AI is not equipped to manage urgent symptoms, such as suicidal ideation, even though people increasingly share such thoughts with chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, revealed in a report last fall that about \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/post/openai-data-estimates-1-million-people-talk-chatgpt-suicide-weekly/18086379/\">1.2 million users a week \u003c/a>share thoughts of suicide on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI said that in such cases, it recommends people speak to a professional and directs them to resources like the 988 hotline. Families who have filed \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide\">wrongful death lawsuits\u003c/a> against OpenAI and other companies claim chatbots assisted their loved ones through their suicide plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cases have helped raise the stakes for lawmakers around the country. Last year, Illinois became the first state to pass a law prohibiting the use of AI in therapy services. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.beckersbehavioralhealth.com/ai-2/5-states-restrict-ai-therapy-chatbots-in-2026/\">handful of other states\u003c/a> have since followed with similar restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI use in health spaces\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One gray area in the discussion is exactly which tools this bill applies to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NUHW’s complaint against Kaiser targets its e-visit screening tool, which evaluates patients who think they may be experiencing anxiety or depression. According to the complaint, patients answer a multiple choice questionnaire and the tool “automatically and instantaneously generates care recommendations and referral pathways based on the responses provided.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union argues that because care recommendations are generated so quickly, it is unlikely that a licensed professional is reviewing patients’ answers — which it says puts patients at risk and violates state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12093589\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12093589\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signange of AI is displayed during the MWC (Mobile World Congress), the world’s biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona on March 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear whether SB 903 would apply to Kaiser’s e-visit tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That tool is in a black box. Kaiser is not sharing with us or others about exactly how it works and exactly what it does,” said Benjamin Eichert, NUHW’s director of public policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the complaint, Kaiser told CalMatters its e-visit tool “does not use AI to diagnose patients, make clinical decisions, or determine medical necessity.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Eichert said many other behavioral health provider groups are already advertising using AI during triage — a practice he said would fall under SB 903’s requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That intake process, that triage and screening process, is where implementation (of AI) has happened fastest,” Eichert said. “That’s why those provisions were proposed because it’s an area where this technology is already being used without guardrails.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For NUHW, the bill and the complaint against Kaiser represent two tracks toward the same goal: reasserting the place of practitioners in spaces increasingly taken over by algorithms. State regulators are investigating the union’s complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/mental-health/2026/08/at-therapists-chatbot-mental-health/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? \u003ca href=\"https://www.media.mit.edu/people/patpat/overview/\">Pat Pataranutaporn\u003c/a>, 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.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Further Reading:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just a heads up, this episode contains a reference to suicide, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here’s my conversation with Pat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of News]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s also another term that just came about, and people still debate whether it’s real or not, but it gave us a vocabulary to describe certain phenomena that is happening. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, thank you so much for chatting with me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I love this conversation particularly struck by the notion that interactions with AI can either support or undermine our own development as capable human beings. It actually fits well with another project we’re working on here at the Ryan Institute, a way of measuring and talking about how technology changes our sense of agency over time as AI becomes embedded in more parts of daily life. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Definitely more on that in future episodes. For now, I’m left with an unsettling conclusion. We’re all guinea pigs in perhaps humanity’s strangest social experiment ever. And yeah, I think we really should be paying careful attention along the way, not just to how good we feel when we interact with AI, but to whether it’s truly helping us become the people we want to be with the lives we want to have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn from the MIT Media Lab. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional production from Nathan Ray. Marketing support from Ananya Mallapragada. Administration, recording help, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? \u003ca href=\"https://www.media.mit.edu/people/patpat/overview/\">Pat Pataranutaporn\u003c/a>, 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.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Just a heads up, this episode contains a reference to suicide, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here’s my conversation with Pat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of News]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, thank you so much for chatting with me. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I love this conversation particularly struck by the notion that interactions with AI can either support or undermine our own development as capable human beings. It actually fits well with another project we’re working on here at the Ryan Institute, a way of measuring and talking about how technology changes our sense of agency over time as AI becomes embedded in more parts of daily life. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Definitely more on that in future episodes. For now, I’m left with an unsettling conclusion. We’re all guinea pigs in perhaps humanity’s strangest social experiment ever. And yeah, I think we really should be paying careful attention along the way, not just to how good we feel when we interact with AI, but to whether it’s truly helping us become the people we want to be with the lives we want to have. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn from the MIT Media Lab. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. \u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? \u003ca href=\"https://www.media.mit.edu/people/patpat/overview/\">Pat Pataranutaporn\u003c/a>, 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.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Further Reading:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just a heads up, this episode contains a reference to suicide, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here’s my conversation with Pat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of News]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s also another term that just came about, and people still debate whether it’s real or not, but it gave us a vocabulary to describe certain phenomena that is happening. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, thank you so much for chatting with me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I love this conversation particularly struck by the notion that interactions with AI can either support or undermine our own development as capable human beings. It actually fits well with another project we’re working on here at the Ryan Institute, a way of measuring and talking about how technology changes our sense of agency over time as AI becomes embedded in more parts of daily life. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Definitely more on that in future episodes. For now, I’m left with an unsettling conclusion. We’re all guinea pigs in perhaps humanity’s strangest social experiment ever. And yeah, I think we really should be paying careful attention along the way, not just to how good we feel when we interact with AI, but to whether it’s truly helping us become the people we want to be with the lives we want to have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn from the MIT Media Lab. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "california-us-lawmakers-debate-license-plate-reader-technology",
"title": "California, US Lawmakers Debate License Plate Reader Technology",
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"headTitle": "California, US Lawmakers Debate License Plate Reader Technology | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past year alone, they’ve helped catch suspected murderers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjpd.org/Home/Components/News/News/2699/262\">bank robbers\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/redwood-city-police-solve-fatal-hit-and-run/\">hit-and-run drivers\u003c/a>. They’ve located dozens of stolen cars and helped send a wildland arsonist to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/prison\">prison\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re also distrusted and despised by privacy rights activists on the left and on the right. Just last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/monterey-county-man-vandalizes-flock-cameras\">police accused a suspect\u003c/a> in Monterey County of yanking down three of them with his pickup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re called automated license plate readers. Every day, untold numbers of Californians drive past the thousands of cameras that at least 230 police and sheriffs’ departments have posted along roadways or installed on their patrol cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cameras in real time capture and read plate numbers, then \u003ca href=\"https://ncric.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/California-Law-Enforcement-ALPR-FAQ.pdf\">cross-referenc\u003c/a>e them with law enforcement databases of vehicles police want to locate, such as stolen cars, getaway vehicles or those that may be carrying a missing or wanted person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2019, California Democratic lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to further restrict how police use the technology. They’re trying again this year \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb1013\">with a bill\u003c/a> that would add limits on how long police may retain license plate data, how they access it and with whom they share it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police agencies and officers’ unions across the state oppose the latest measure, which is similar to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb274\">a bill\u003c/a> Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed last year. “This bill is about one simple principle: Protecting the privacy and safety of Californians while ensuring law enforcement tools are used responsibly before it’s too late,” the author of this year’s legislation, Riverside Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/sabrina-cervantes-36813\">Sabrina Cervantes\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279703#t=168&f=03e459111a80032d25ad98083c53988e\">told the Assembly privacy committee\u003c/a> last month. She did not respond to a request for an interview from CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076122\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076122\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Flock Safety license plate recognition camera is seen near the intersection of Marine Street and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder on March 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Matthew Jonas/MediaNews Group/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics of the technology cite high-profile examples of California police using license plate data inappropriately, including to stalk or harass innocent people. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/10/newsom-vetoes-license-plate-reader-regulations/\">As CalMatters reported last year\u003c/a>, California officers have repeatedly violated an 11-year-old state law that prohibits sharing the data with federal authorities and others outside the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>404 Media also \u003ca href=\"https://www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-searched-license-plate-cameras-nationwide-for-a-woman-who-got-an-abortion/\">reported last year\u003c/a> that a Texas cop searched a national license plate database to try to locate a woman who had an abortion, leading to fears that conservative states that criminalize abortion are accessing California’s plate data to hunt down patients or providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cervantes’ bill would generally limit to 30 days the amount of time agencies could keep license plate data, unless it pertains to an active investigation or is part of a search for missing people. It also sets limits around who can access the data and adds training and search-tracking requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police and sheriffs’ departments would be prohibited from entering into contracts with camera companies that provide default access to plate databases that federal and out-of-state police can search.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That provision is in response to Flock Safety, a prominent license plate reader company that allowed federal authorities to search local license plate data \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082887/berkeley-extends-surveillance-contract-with-flock-safety-but-rejects-major-expansion\">as part of a pilot program\u003c/a>, said Tracy Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy, one of the bill’s supporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A protester holds a sign during a rally opposing Berkeley’s proposed contract expansion with surveillance company Flock Safety outside the Berkeley Unified School District boardroom in Berkeley on May 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“(Police departments) learned after the fact, like our advocates did,” Rosenberg said. “And we all said, ‘What the …’ You know, pick your four-letter word.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flock Safety did not respond to CalMatters’ request for an interview, but the company says on \u003ca href=\"https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/does-flock-share-data-with-ice\">its website\u003c/a> that it doesn’t work with immigration agencies and it stopped its federal pilot programs. Local agencies have total control over the data Flock readers collect, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By default, sharing with federal agencies is disabled,” the company wrote. “ICE does not have direct access to Flock cameras, systems or data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why police are opposed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At least 39 police agencies and officers’ unions oppose \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb1013\">Senate Bill 1013\u003c/a>. Combined, they have spent at least $5.6 million on legislative campaigns since 2000, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/\">CalMatters Digital Democracy database\u003c/a>. Police say the technology has proven invaluable at helping them solve crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tustin Police Chief Sean Thuilliez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said the technology helped clear an innocent man. It also identified a suspected killer when \u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/post/juan-marquez-arrested-killing-former-girlfriend-sandra-fernandez-tustin-fleeing-mexico-police-say/19120273/\">a woman was shot and killed\u003c/a> on a street in the Orange County city in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The woman had just testified against her ex-husband in a restraining order case, making him a prime suspect, Thuilliez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12050362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12050362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Berkeley Police Department squad car in Berkeley on July 30, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Thuilliez said that thanks to the city’s 102 license plate readers, eight of which are from Flock, detectives quickly ruled out her ex-husband and were able to apprehend \u003ca href=\"https://orangecountytribune.com/2026/05/18/man-arrested-in-fatal-shooting-shooting-of-anaheim-woman/\">her former boyfriend\u003c/a> at the Mexico border. He’s now charged with first-degree murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s technology mixed with good investigative work,” he said in an interview. “But within one weekend, we were able to arrest the suspect for this person’s murder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley Police Department noted similar successes after \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2026/07/13/flock-safety-cameras-berkeley-license-plate-readers\">52 Flock cameras\u003c/a> were installed last year. In \u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/2026-03-24%20Special%20Item%2001%202025%20Berkeley%20Police%20Department%20Annual.pdf\">a report\u003c/a> to the Berkeley City Council, the department noted license plate readers had been used in 121 cases, contributed to 58 arrests and led to the recovery of 37 stolen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department noted its rate for solving robbery cases climbed from 34% in 2024 to 49% the following year, thanks in part to the license plate data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The technology has fundamentally improved how officers patrol and how detectives investigate crimes spanning a range of serious offenses including robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, burglary, weapons violations, organized retail theft, stolen property and DUI,” the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why Newsom vetoed last year’s bill\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Such investigative success stories may have helped persuade Newsom to veto last year’s bill, which would have required police to dump their license plate data within 60 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SB-274-Veto.pdf\">veto message\u003c/a>, he said the restrictions on sharing data and forcing departments to purge it could hinder officers’ ability to solve cold cases and find missing people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom also said there was no money in the budget to pay for the mandatory California Department of Justice audits last year’s bill would have required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070630\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at the Friendship House Association of American Indians in San Francisco on Jan. 16, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To address Newsom’s concerns, this year’s proposal allows police to retain data to locate missing people and it makes a state audit program contingent on future funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s press office declined to say whether he has a position on the latest bill, which has advanced through the Legislature with only Republicans voting against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure is now pending before the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Meanwhile, at least one Republican lawmaker is taking the issue to Congress.[aside postID=news_12090103 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/CAT_Flock-Out_img.png']U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky recently shared a meme of a “Don’t Tread on Me” snake wrapped around a camera. The riff on the yellow Gadsden flag says, “Don’t Flock me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens,” Massie \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/RepThomasMassie/posts/pfbid0ZRCz5XLjEKZ2QtdHT9ibRbHV5wiMVovmTmWJ6NmSeSeUqECmYgqjgDU8t3gwsrjsl\">wrote\u003c/a> on Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy said she understands the cameras’ usefulness to California police, but she thinks they’ve become ubiquitous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police, she said, also shouldn’t have a permanent pass to keep “mountains” of data for as long as they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is kind of a balancing act. We as human beings also need some camera-free space,” she said. “We don’t want to be on camera every minute of every single day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/08/california-flock-license-plates-bill/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past year alone, they’ve helped catch suspected murderers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjpd.org/Home/Components/News/News/2699/262\">bank robbers\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/redwood-city-police-solve-fatal-hit-and-run/\">hit-and-run drivers\u003c/a>. They’ve located dozens of stolen cars and helped send a wildland arsonist to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/prison\">prison\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re also distrusted and despised by privacy rights activists on the left and on the right. Just last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/monterey-county-man-vandalizes-flock-cameras\">police accused a suspect\u003c/a> in Monterey County of yanking down three of them with his pickup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re called automated license plate readers. Every day, untold numbers of Californians drive past the thousands of cameras that at least 230 police and sheriffs’ departments have posted along roadways or installed on their patrol cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cameras in real time capture and read plate numbers, then \u003ca href=\"https://ncric.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/California-Law-Enforcement-ALPR-FAQ.pdf\">cross-referenc\u003c/a>e them with law enforcement databases of vehicles police want to locate, such as stolen cars, getaway vehicles or those that may be carrying a missing or wanted person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2019, California Democratic lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to further restrict how police use the technology. They’re trying again this year \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb1013\">with a bill\u003c/a> that would add limits on how long police may retain license plate data, how they access it and with whom they share it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police agencies and officers’ unions across the state oppose the latest measure, which is similar to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb274\">a bill\u003c/a> Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed last year. “This bill is about one simple principle: Protecting the privacy and safety of Californians while ensuring law enforcement tools are used responsibly before it’s too late,” the author of this year’s legislation, Riverside Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/sabrina-cervantes-36813\">Sabrina Cervantes\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279703#t=168&f=03e459111a80032d25ad98083c53988e\">told the Assembly privacy committee\u003c/a> last month. She did not respond to a request for an interview from CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076122\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076122\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GETTYIMAGES-2265184865-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Flock Safety license plate recognition camera is seen near the intersection of Marine Street and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder on March 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Matthew Jonas/MediaNews Group/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics of the technology cite high-profile examples of California police using license plate data inappropriately, including to stalk or harass innocent people. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/10/newsom-vetoes-license-plate-reader-regulations/\">As CalMatters reported last year\u003c/a>, California officers have repeatedly violated an 11-year-old state law that prohibits sharing the data with federal authorities and others outside the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>404 Media also \u003ca href=\"https://www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-searched-license-plate-cameras-nationwide-for-a-woman-who-got-an-abortion/\">reported last year\u003c/a> that a Texas cop searched a national license plate database to try to locate a woman who had an abortion, leading to fears that conservative states that criminalize abortion are accessing California’s plate data to hunt down patients or providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cervantes’ bill would generally limit to 30 days the amount of time agencies could keep license plate data, unless it pertains to an active investigation or is part of a search for missing people. It also sets limits around who can access the data and adds training and search-tracking requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police and sheriffs’ departments would be prohibited from entering into contracts with camera companies that provide default access to plate databases that federal and out-of-state police can search.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That provision is in response to Flock Safety, a prominent license plate reader company that allowed federal authorities to search local license plate data \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082887/berkeley-extends-surveillance-contract-with-flock-safety-but-rejects-major-expansion\">as part of a pilot program\u003c/a>, said Tracy Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy, one of the bill’s supporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/050726BERKELEY-FLOCK-RALLY_GH_010-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A protester holds a sign during a rally opposing Berkeley’s proposed contract expansion with surveillance company Flock Safety outside the Berkeley Unified School District boardroom in Berkeley on May 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“(Police departments) learned after the fact, like our advocates did,” Rosenberg said. “And we all said, ‘What the …’ You know, pick your four-letter word.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flock Safety did not respond to CalMatters’ request for an interview, but the company says on \u003ca href=\"https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/does-flock-share-data-with-ice\">its website\u003c/a> that it doesn’t work with immigration agencies and it stopped its federal pilot programs. Local agencies have total control over the data Flock readers collect, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By default, sharing with federal agencies is disabled,” the company wrote. “ICE does not have direct access to Flock cameras, systems or data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why police are opposed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At least 39 police agencies and officers’ unions oppose \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb1013\">Senate Bill 1013\u003c/a>. Combined, they have spent at least $5.6 million on legislative campaigns since 2000, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/\">CalMatters Digital Democracy database\u003c/a>. Police say the technology has proven invaluable at helping them solve crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tustin Police Chief Sean Thuilliez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said the technology helped clear an innocent man. It also identified a suspected killer when \u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/post/juan-marquez-arrested-killing-former-girlfriend-sandra-fernandez-tustin-fleeing-mexico-police-say/19120273/\">a woman was shot and killed\u003c/a> on a street in the Orange County city in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The woman had just testified against her ex-husband in a restraining order case, making him a prime suspect, Thuilliez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12050362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12050362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250730-BERKELEY-POLICE-DEPARTMENT-BPD-FILE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Berkeley Police Department squad car in Berkeley on July 30, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Thuilliez said that thanks to the city’s 102 license plate readers, eight of which are from Flock, detectives quickly ruled out her ex-husband and were able to apprehend \u003ca href=\"https://orangecountytribune.com/2026/05/18/man-arrested-in-fatal-shooting-shooting-of-anaheim-woman/\">her former boyfriend\u003c/a> at the Mexico border. He’s now charged with first-degree murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s technology mixed with good investigative work,” he said in an interview. “But within one weekend, we were able to arrest the suspect for this person’s murder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley Police Department noted similar successes after \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2026/07/13/flock-safety-cameras-berkeley-license-plate-readers\">52 Flock cameras\u003c/a> were installed last year. In \u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/2026-03-24%20Special%20Item%2001%202025%20Berkeley%20Police%20Department%20Annual.pdf\">a report\u003c/a> to the Berkeley City Council, the department noted license plate readers had been used in 121 cases, contributed to 58 arrests and led to the recovery of 37 stolen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department noted its rate for solving robbery cases climbed from 34% in 2024 to 49% the following year, thanks in part to the license plate data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The technology has fundamentally improved how officers patrol and how detectives investigate crimes spanning a range of serious offenses including robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, burglary, weapons violations, organized retail theft, stolen property and DUI,” the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why Newsom vetoed last year’s bill\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Such investigative success stories may have helped persuade Newsom to veto last year’s bill, which would have required police to dump their license plate data within 60 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SB-274-Veto.pdf\">veto message\u003c/a>, he said the restrictions on sharing data and forcing departments to purge it could hinder officers’ ability to solve cold cases and find missing people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom also said there was no money in the budget to pay for the mandatory California Department of Justice audits last year’s bill would have required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070630\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at the Friendship House Association of American Indians in San Francisco on Jan. 16, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To address Newsom’s concerns, this year’s proposal allows police to retain data to locate missing people and it makes a state audit program contingent on future funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s press office declined to say whether he has a position on the latest bill, which has advanced through the Legislature with only Republicans voting against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure is now pending before the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Meanwhile, at least one Republican lawmaker is taking the issue to Congress.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky recently shared a meme of a “Don’t Tread on Me” snake wrapped around a camera. The riff on the yellow Gadsden flag says, “Don’t Flock me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens,” Massie \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/RepThomasMassie/posts/pfbid0ZRCz5XLjEKZ2QtdHT9ibRbHV5wiMVovmTmWJ6NmSeSeUqECmYgqjgDU8t3gwsrjsl\">wrote\u003c/a> on Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy said she understands the cameras’ usefulness to California police, but she thinks they’ve become ubiquitous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police, she said, also shouldn’t have a permanent pass to keep “mountains” of data for as long as they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is kind of a balancing act. We as human beings also need some camera-free space,” she said. “We don’t want to be on camera every minute of every single day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/08/california-flock-license-plates-bill/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "theyve-been-very-quiet-pittsburg-residents-seek-answers-as-data-center-sets-up-shop-in-city",
"title": "‘They’ve Been Very Quiet’: Pittsburg Residents Seek Answers as Data Center Sets Up Shop in City",
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"headTitle": "‘They’ve Been Very Quiet’: Pittsburg Residents Seek Answers as Data Center Sets Up Shop in City | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/pittsburg\">Pittsburg \u003c/a>residents opposed to a planned data center at the site of a former golf course plan to rally at a meeting on Monday, where they hope to discuss possible regulations with city leaders.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although City Council members voted to approve construction of the data center in 2024, pushback has grown in recent months among residents citing concerns over environmental impacts and a perceived lack of transparency from officials. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Amhari Perkins has lived in Pittsburg all her life and started a petition opposing the project in June after learning it would be built near her daughter’s school, other schools and residential areas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I remember having nights where it was kind of hard sleeping, just thinking about it and questioning, ‘Who else knows about this?’” Perkins said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093621\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093621\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Several people show up to a community visibility event to protest data centers in Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093618\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Residents protest the AVAIO data center in the city of Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After that petition garnered thousands of signatures in weeks, she formed the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, which helped push people to voice their concerns at recent City Council meetings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pushback has prompted council members to host a discussion on Monday dedicated to the topic of data center policy and the project that has galvanized the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Phase 1 of the project by AVAIO Digital, which includes the data center, is approved and requires additional permits, according to City Manager Darin Gale. The data center is \u003ca href=\"https://www.avaiodigital.com/updates/avaio-digital-marks-major-milestone-as-cec-approves-99mw-for-bay-area-data-center-project-perseus\">expected \u003c/a>to be operational by next year. But developers of the Pittsburg Technology Park project are planning two other phases that include the construction of employment spaces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Residents say they’re worried about the development’s water and energy use, greenhouse gas pollution and noise. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city over similar concerns, saying that Pittsburg lacked a plan to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, water use and harm to wildlife. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The two \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/agreement-secures-renewable-energy-recycled-water-for-california-data-center-2025-12-16/\">settled\u003c/a>. The data center is required to use 100% renewable energy and recycled water for cooling under the agreement reached in late 2025. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>City officials have also said the final project would use one-fourth of the water that the former golf course used.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pauline Johnson, also with the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, said that the group isn’t entirely against A.I. and data centers. For her, she thinks that there needs to be a safer relationship with A.I. developments. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The response that we’ve received from the city and the City Council, they’ve been very quiet,” Perkins said. “It’s very scary for a lot of us.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Despite voting unanimously to approve the data center two years ago, no City Council members have publicly voiced their stance on the project since public backlash intensified.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings and Banales sit on an ad-hoc subcommittee that focuses on data centers and hydrogen, but the committee is advisory only and not subject to state transparency laws, so meetings are not public. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city counters that all legally required public notice requirements were met and “went beyond the minimum noticing the law requires,” according to the project’s webpage. Gale said at a recent meeting that the name is now being referred to as the AVAIO Data Center Project in an effort to be more transparent with the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Both of those instances came \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076074/oakley-drops-data-center-plans-approves-massive-industrial-project\">after public backlash\u003c/a> to data centers spurred an elected leader to call for the consideration of a ban, something that hasn’t happened in Pittsburg. Instead, the city hosted a virtual forum last week and scheduled Monday’s meeting dubbed as a “data center policy discussion, Avaio project & direction to staff.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AVAIO did not respond to requests for comment, but has said the location chosen in Pittsburg would help meet the increasing need for data centers in the industry that can’t completely be met in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093621\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Several people show up to a community visibility event to protest data centers in Pittsburg.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After that petition garnered thousands of signatures in weeks, she formed the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, which helped push people to voice their concerns at recent City Council meetings. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The pushback has prompted council members to host a discussion on Monday dedicated to the topic of data center policy and the project that has galvanized the community. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Phase 1 of the project by AVAIO Digital, which includes the data center, is approved and requires additional permits, according to City Manager Darin Gale. The data center is \u003ca href=\"https://www.avaiodigital.com/updates/avaio-digital-marks-major-milestone-as-cec-approves-99mw-for-bay-area-data-center-project-perseus\">expected \u003c/a>to be operational by next year. But developers of the Pittsburg Technology Park project are planning two other phases that include the construction of employment spaces. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Phase 1 of the project by AVAIO Digital, which includes the data center, is approved and requires additional permits, according to City Manager Darin Gale. The data center is \u003ca href=\"https://www.avaiodigital.com/updates/avaio-digital-marks-major-milestone-as-cec-approves-99mw-for-bay-area-data-center-project-perseus\">expected \u003c/a>to be operational by next year. But developers of the Pittsburg Technology Park project are planning two other phases that include the construction of employment spaces. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Residents say they’re worried about the development’s water and energy use, greenhouse gas pollution and noise. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city over similar concerns, saying that Pittsburg lacked a plan to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, water use and harm to wildlife. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The two \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/agreement-secures-renewable-energy-recycled-water-for-california-data-center-2025-12-16/\">settled\u003c/a>. The data center is required to use 100% renewable energy and recycled water for cooling under the agreement reached in late 2025. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>City officials have also said the final project would use one-fourth of the water that the former golf course used.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Pauline Johnson, also with the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, said that the group isn’t entirely against A.I. and data centers. For her, she thinks that there needs to be a safer relationship with A.I. developments. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“The response that we’ve received from the city and the City Council, they’ve been very quiet,” Perkins said. “It’s very scary for a lot of us.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Despite voting unanimously to approve the data center two years ago, no City Council members have publicly voiced their stance on the project since public backlash intensified.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Killings did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Killings and Banales sit on an ad-hoc subcommittee that focuses on data centers and hydrogen, but the committee is advisory only and not subject to state transparency laws, so meetings are not public. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The city counters that all legally required public notice requirements were met and “went beyond the minimum noticing the law requires,” according to the project’s webpage. Gale said at a recent meeting that the name is now being referred to as the AVAIO Data Center Project in an effort to be more transparent with the community. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Both of those instances came \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076074/oakley-drops-data-center-plans-approves-massive-industrial-project\">after public backlash\u003c/a> to data centers spurred an elected leader to call for the consideration of a ban, something that hasn’t happened in Pittsburg. Instead, the city hosted a virtual forum last week and scheduled Monday’s meeting dubbed as a “data center policy discussion, Avaio project & direction to staff.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>AVAIO did not respond to requests for comment, but has said the location chosen in Pittsburg would help meet the increasing need for data centers in the industry that can’t completely be met in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "City council members haven’t explained their support for a planned data center since facing delayed criticism, but a special meeting this week could give insight into if they’ll support regulating future facilities. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/pittsburg\">Pittsburg \u003c/a>residents opposed to a planned data center at the site of a former golf course plan to rally at a meeting on Monday, where they hope to discuss possible regulations with city leaders.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although City Council members voted to approve construction of the data center in 2024, pushback has grown in recent months among residents citing concerns over environmental impacts and a perceived lack of transparency from officials. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Amhari Perkins has lived in Pittsburg all her life and started a petition opposing the project in June after learning it would be built near her daughter’s school, other schools and residential areas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I remember having nights where it was kind of hard sleeping, just thinking about it and questioning, ‘Who else knows about this?’” Perkins said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093621\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093621\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Several people show up to a community visibility event to protest data centers in Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093618\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Residents protest the AVAIO data center in the city of Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After that petition garnered thousands of signatures in weeks, she formed the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, which helped push people to voice their concerns at recent City Council meetings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pushback has prompted council members to host a discussion on Monday dedicated to the topic of data center policy and the project that has galvanized the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Phase 1 of the project by AVAIO Digital, which includes the data center, is approved and requires additional permits, according to City Manager Darin Gale. The data center is \u003ca href=\"https://www.avaiodigital.com/updates/avaio-digital-marks-major-milestone-as-cec-approves-99mw-for-bay-area-data-center-project-perseus\">expected \u003c/a>to be operational by next year. But developers of the Pittsburg Technology Park project are planning two other phases that include the construction of employment spaces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Residents say they’re worried about the development’s water and energy use, greenhouse gas pollution and noise. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city over similar concerns, saying that Pittsburg lacked a plan to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, water use and harm to wildlife. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The two \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/agreement-secures-renewable-energy-recycled-water-for-california-data-center-2025-12-16/\">settled\u003c/a>. The data center is required to use 100% renewable energy and recycled water for cooling under the agreement reached in late 2025. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>City officials have also said the final project would use one-fourth of the water that the former golf course used.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pauline Johnson, also with the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, said that the group isn’t entirely against A.I. and data centers. For her, she thinks that there needs to be a safer relationship with A.I. developments. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The response that we’ve received from the city and the City Council, they’ve been very quiet,” Perkins said. “It’s very scary for a lot of us.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Despite voting unanimously to approve the data center two years ago, no City Council members have publicly voiced their stance on the project since public backlash intensified.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings and Banales sit on an ad-hoc subcommittee that focuses on data centers and hydrogen, but the committee is advisory only and not subject to state transparency laws, so meetings are not public. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city counters that all legally required public notice requirements were met and “went beyond the minimum noticing the law requires,” according to the project’s webpage. Gale said at a recent meeting that the name is now being referred to as the AVAIO Data Center Project in an effort to be more transparent with the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Both of those instances came \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076074/oakley-drops-data-center-plans-approves-massive-industrial-project\">after public backlash\u003c/a> to data centers spurred an elected leader to call for the consideration of a ban, something that hasn’t happened in Pittsburg. Instead, the city hosted a virtual forum last week and scheduled Monday’s meeting dubbed as a “data center policy discussion, Avaio project & direction to staff.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AVAIO did not respond to requests for comment, but has said the location chosen in Pittsburg would help meet the increasing need for data centers in the industry that can’t completely be met in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A landmark state law written by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> lawmakers aimed at helping people identify content that’s been generated by artificial intelligence will go into effect Saturday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The law requires AI companies to ensure that their images and videos contain embedded, difficult-to-remove data about how the image was made — often referred to as “provenance.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Starting Aug. 2, anyone will be able to put an image, video or audio file into a \u003ca href=\"https://c2pa.org/\">content verifier\u003c/a>, like one from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, and determine whether or not it is AI-generated, state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12031242\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Technology leaders attend a generative artificial intelligence meeting in San Francisco on June 29, 2023. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“While AI has some benefits, we’ve seen AI content used for election misinformation for scams and abusive deepfakes,” Becker said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new law Becker co-authored along with Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles, will make it easier for everyday people to see what’s real and what’s fabricated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next phase kicks in on Jan. 1, 2027, and will require large online platforms to give users a way to view that previously stored information and figure out whether or not the content that they’re seeing is AI-generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By 2028, phones and cameras produced in California will be required to store this provenance information as soon as an image is captured.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The law — which originally passed in 2024 — has taken nearly three years to go into effect. According to Becker, figuring out how to operationalize these policies can often be a barrier to regulation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Becker said that the lawmakers coordinated closely with the European Union throughout the process. The new law will go into effect on the same day as the \u003ca href=\"https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-starts-enforcing-ai-act-rules-and-new-transparency-requirements-2-august\">European Union’s new AI\u003c/a> Act. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While this law will immediately impact generative AI companies, \u003ca href=\"https://dispatch.starlinglab.org/p/decoding-the-california-ai-transparency\">experts\u003c/a> in the space are keeping an eye on the requirements for online platforms and believe that, if enforced, it “will no doubt have a larger effect on our information economy,” Stephen Sharp Queener, academic researcher with Starling Lab, wrote in a post on Substack. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becker will hold a press conference in Sacramento on Aug. 3 to share more details about the new legislation. \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Starting Aug. 2, anyone will be able to put an image, video or audio file into a \u003ca href=\"https://c2pa.org/\">content verifier\u003c/a>, like one from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, and determine whether or not it is AI-generated, state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A landmark state law written by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> lawmakers aimed at helping people identify content that’s been generated by artificial intelligence will go into effect Saturday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The law requires AI companies to ensure that their images and videos contain embedded, difficult-to-remove data about how the image was made — often referred to as “provenance.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Starting Aug. 2, anyone will be able to put an image, video or audio file into a \u003ca href=\"https://c2pa.org/\">content verifier\u003c/a>, like one from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, and determine whether or not it is AI-generated, state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12031242\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Technology leaders attend a generative artificial intelligence meeting in San Francisco on June 29, 2023. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“While AI has some benefits, we’ve seen AI content used for election misinformation for scams and abusive deepfakes,” Becker said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new law Becker co-authored along with Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles, will make it easier for everyday people to see what’s real and what’s fabricated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next phase kicks in on Jan. 1, 2027, and will require large online platforms to give users a way to view that previously stored information and figure out whether or not the content that they’re seeing is AI-generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By 2028, phones and cameras produced in California will be required to store this provenance information as soon as an image is captured.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The law — which originally passed in 2024 — has taken nearly three years to go into effect. According to Becker, figuring out how to operationalize these policies can often be a barrier to regulation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Becker said that the lawmakers coordinated closely with the European Union throughout the process. The new law will go into effect on the same day as the \u003ca href=\"https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-starts-enforcing-ai-act-rules-and-new-transparency-requirements-2-august\">European Union’s new AI\u003c/a> Act. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While this law will immediately impact generative AI companies, \u003ca href=\"https://dispatch.starlinglab.org/p/decoding-the-california-ai-transparency\">experts\u003c/a> in the space are keeping an eye on the requirements for online platforms and believe that, if enforced, it “will no doubt have a larger effect on our information economy,” Stephen Sharp Queener, academic researcher with Starling Lab, wrote in a post on Substack. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becker will hold a press conference in Sacramento on Aug. 3 to share more details about the new legislation. \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of KQED’s series “Flipping the Switch,” examining California’s transition to clean energy and what it means for you. Find the series and more of our climate coverage \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/climate\">\u003cem>here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Tucked away in the East Bay foothills, a sleek white room houses the appliances of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/2000695/california-is-transitioning-from-fossil-fuels-to-electric-power-its-going-to-get-messy\">future\u003c/a> — an induction stove, a battery-powered HVAC system, a fridge with a thin black box resting on top. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Though these devices may seem average, behind the scenes, the machines are sharing more than wires — including information about how much energy they’re using, whether or not the refrigerator door is open and increasingly, how to help balance the power grid. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Utilities and technology companies say this kind of “smart home” could make the transition to an all-electric future cheaper, more reliable and more resilient during power outages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As part of the state’s ambitious climate agenda, California wants millions of residents to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/2000695/california-is-transitioning-from-fossil-fuels-to-electric-power-its-going-to-get-messy\">electrify\u003c/a> their homes and shift away from gas-powered vehicles. But every new electric appliance increases \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/filebrowser/download/9328?fid=9328\">demand\u003c/a> on a grid already under pressure from increased use, expanding data centers and more frequent extreme weather. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" data-id=\"12093339\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093339\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A wall of demonstration EV Chargers and smart electrical panels made by Tesla, GM and Span are on display at PG&E’s PowerHouse in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" data-id=\"12093337\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093337\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The interior of the PG&E PowerHouse in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Building enough infrastructure to meet that demand is expensive, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081882/san-francisco-has-been-trying-to-leave-pge-for-100-years-will-this-time-be-different\">costs often falling on consumers\u003c/a>. Instead of making costly grid upgrades, utilities are increasingly searching for ways to use the existing grid more efficiently. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the PG&E Applied Technology Services Center, an all-electric home in San Ramon, the utility works with private companies to show how advanced energy management technologies can work together to make electrification easier and more affordable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“PG&E doesn’t make money off of energy; they make money off of stuff,” said Robert Stafford, a researcher at the World Resources Institute working on transportation electrification and grid resiliency. “Once all of those chargers and transformers and wires are out in the world, it is in everyone’s best interest to use them as efficiently as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because the grid is built to meet the highest periods of electricity demand, most of the time, we actually only use 40% or 50% of its capacity, said Paul Doherty, a PG&E spokesperson. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The utility already offers \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en/account/rate-plans/time-of-use-rate-plans.html\">“time-of-use”\u003c/a> plans to encourage customers to run appliances overnight or during off-peak hours. Smart devices would automate, or run this process quietly in the background, according to Doherty. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than physically turning off lights or turning down thermostats, customers would be able to set their energy preferences and the system would take care of the rest. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“If they’re running their air conditioning and their dishwasher, lights are on, TV’s on, dishwasher, the laundry is running — that EV charger may say, ‘Hey, there’s a lot going on within the home, we got to keep that down within capacity,” Doherty said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another example: the thin black box on top of the fridge in PG&E’s smart home. The device is a Pila battery, which can power most household appliances.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pila CEO Cole Ashman describes the tool as a way for both renters and homeowners to access “seamless” backup power during outages and to shift their power consumption to cheaper times of day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-image\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093338\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Paul Doherty, Manager of Clean Energy & Innovation Communications at PG&E, opens the Span smart electrical panel that operates the PowerHouse at PG&E’s Applied Technology Services Center in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\n\u003cp>“All of these batteries kind of have a turbocharged brain inside of them,” Ashman said. “It’s going to work for you in the background, store energy when it’s cheap, charge up at night, and then, when power prices get expensive in the late afternoon, it seamlessly switches to start to run your refrigerator, your window AC, whatever is connected.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some customers may be put off, however, or concerned by the potential privacy or cybersecurity risks posed by these technologies. International researchers, in collaboration with NYU, \u003ca href=\"https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/new-research-reveals-alarming-privacy-and-security-threats-smart-homes\">found\u003c/a> that potential threats include the exposure of unique device names and even household geolocation data, all of which can be harvested by external companies without user awareness. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-image\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093341\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">PG&E’s Applied Technology Services Center in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\n\u003cp>With his company’s own technology, Ashman emphasized that consumers own all their own data and that the batteries are “local first,” which means they can opt in to wifi connection or cloud data sharing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Our phones are getting smarter, our computers are getting smarter, and the appliances in our home are also getting smarter,” Ashman said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While that might sound scary to some folks … that can be really exciting if done well,” Ashman continued. “These things are going to be able to take care of you even when the data center goes down, or Google goes down or the power goes out.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The utility already offers \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en/account/rate-plans/time-of-use-rate-plans.html\">“time-of-use”\u003c/a> plans to encourage customers to run appliances overnight or during off-peak hours. Smart devices would automate, or run this process quietly in the background, according to Doherty. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rather than physically turning off lights or turning down thermostats, customers would be able to set their energy preferences and the system would take care of the rest. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Another example: the thin black box on top of the fridge in PG&E’s smart home. The device is a Pila battery, which can power most household appliances.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Pila CEO Cole Ashman describes the tool as a way for both renters and homeowners to access “seamless” backup power during outages and to shift their power consumption to cheaper times of day. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“All of these batteries kind of have a turbocharged brain inside of them,” Ashman said. “It’s going to work for you in the background, store energy when it’s cheap, charge up at night, and then, when power prices get expensive in the late afternoon, it seamlessly switches to start to run your refrigerator, your window AC, whatever is connected.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“While that might sound scary to some folks … that can be really exciting if done well,” Ashman continued. “These things are going to be able to take care of you even when the data center goes down, or Google goes down or the power goes out.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of KQED’s series “Flipping the Switch,” examining California’s transition to clean energy and what it means for you. Find the series and more of our climate coverage \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/climate\">\u003cem>here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Tucked away in the East Bay foothills, a sleek white room houses the appliances of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/2000695/california-is-transitioning-from-fossil-fuels-to-electric-power-its-going-to-get-messy\">future\u003c/a> — an induction stove, a battery-powered HVAC system, a fridge with a thin black box resting on top. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Though these devices may seem average, behind the scenes, the machines are sharing more than wires — including information about how much energy they’re using, whether or not the refrigerator door is open and increasingly, how to help balance the power grid. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Utilities and technology companies say this kind of “smart home” could make the transition to an all-electric future cheaper, more reliable and more resilient during power outages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As part of the state’s ambitious climate agenda, California wants millions of residents to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/2000695/california-is-transitioning-from-fossil-fuels-to-electric-power-its-going-to-get-messy\">electrify\u003c/a> their homes and shift away from gas-powered vehicles. But every new electric appliance increases \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/filebrowser/download/9328?fid=9328\">demand\u003c/a> on a grid already under pressure from increased use, expanding data centers and more frequent extreme weather. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" data-id=\"12093339\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093339\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-06-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A wall of demonstration EV Chargers and smart electrical panels made by Tesla, GM and Span are on display at PG&E’s PowerHouse in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" data-id=\"12093337\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093337\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The interior of the PG&E PowerHouse in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Building enough infrastructure to meet that demand is expensive, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081882/san-francisco-has-been-trying-to-leave-pge-for-100-years-will-this-time-be-different\">costs often falling on consumers\u003c/a>. Instead of making costly grid upgrades, utilities are increasingly searching for ways to use the existing grid more efficiently. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the PG&E Applied Technology Services Center, an all-electric home in San Ramon, the utility works with private companies to show how advanced energy management technologies can work together to make electrification easier and more affordable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“PG&E doesn’t make money off of energy; they make money off of stuff,” said Robert Stafford, a researcher at the World Resources Institute working on transportation electrification and grid resiliency. “Once all of those chargers and transformers and wires are out in the world, it is in everyone’s best interest to use them as efficiently as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because the grid is built to meet the highest periods of electricity demand, most of the time, we actually only use 40% or 50% of its capacity, said Paul Doherty, a PG&E spokesperson. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The utility already offers \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en/account/rate-plans/time-of-use-rate-plans.html\">“time-of-use”\u003c/a> plans to encourage customers to run appliances overnight or during off-peak hours. Smart devices would automate, or run this process quietly in the background, according to Doherty. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than physically turning off lights or turning down thermostats, customers would be able to set their energy preferences and the system would take care of the rest. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“If they’re running their air conditioning and their dishwasher, lights are on, TV’s on, dishwasher, the laundry is running — that EV charger may say, ‘Hey, there’s a lot going on within the home, we got to keep that down within capacity,” Doherty said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another example: the thin black box on top of the fridge in PG&E’s smart home. The device is a Pila battery, which can power most household appliances.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pila CEO Cole Ashman describes the tool as a way for both renters and homeowners to access “seamless” backup power during outages and to shift their power consumption to cheaper times of day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-image\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093338\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-05-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Paul Doherty, Manager of Clean Energy & Innovation Communications at PG&E, opens the Span smart electrical panel that operates the PowerHouse at PG&E’s Applied Technology Services Center in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\n\u003cp>“All of these batteries kind of have a turbocharged brain inside of them,” Ashman said. “It’s going to work for you in the background, store energy when it’s cheap, charge up at night, and then, when power prices get expensive in the late afternoon, it seamlessly switches to start to run your refrigerator, your window AC, whatever is connected.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some customers may be put off, however, or concerned by the potential privacy or cybersecurity risks posed by these technologies. International researchers, in collaboration with NYU, \u003ca href=\"https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/new-research-reveals-alarming-privacy-and-security-threats-smart-homes\">found\u003c/a> that potential threats include the exposure of unique device names and even household geolocation data, all of which can be harvested by external companies without user awareness. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-image\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093341\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260729-POWER-HOUSE-MD-08-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">PG&E’s Applied Technology Services Center in San Ramon on July 30, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\n\u003cp>With his company’s own technology, Ashman emphasized that consumers own all their own data and that the batteries are “local first,” which means they can opt in to wifi connection or cloud data sharing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Our phones are getting smarter, our computers are getting smarter, and the appliances in our home are also getting smarter,” Ashman said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While that might sound scary to some folks … that can be really exciting if done well,” Ashman continued. “These things are going to be able to take care of you even when the data center goes down, or Google goes down or the power goes out.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A federal judge in San José will decide whether to halt a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Elon Musk’s AI company of creating non-consensual, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091964/nearly-half-of-teens-report-seeing-ai-sexual-content-bay-area-leaders-want-to-shut-it-down\">sexually explicit deepfakes\u003c/a>, as the company seeks to transfer the case to Texas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI, which Musk folded into SpaceX in February and rebranded as SpaceXAI in July, also asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72185111/doe-v-xai-corp/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc\">Judge P. Casey Pitts\u003c/a> on Thursday to pause the federal civil suit during related criminal proceedings under federal law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The suit comes as California Attorney General Rob Bonta and European regulators have also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">launched investigations\u003c/a> into whether the platform’s generated sexual images violate local laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, said she posted a fully clothed photo of herself to the social media platform X on Jan. 2 and discovered the next day that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had used it to generate an image of her and posted the result publicly, \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.28.0.pdf\">according to court filings\u003c/a>. She reported it to X in an attempt to have it taken down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058864\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta is briefed by members of his Civil Rights Enforcement Section on litigation challenging the Trump administration at his offices in downtown Los Angeles, California, on March 11, 2025. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The four plaintiffs are suing under pseudonyms. Musk is not named as a defendant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grok was integrated into X in December 2024, initially for premium subscribers, who could tag @grok in a post asking it to edit an image and get the result posted publicly in reply. Plaintiffs say users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">quickly began prompting it\u003c/a> with instructions like “Remove her clothes.” A year later, in December 2025, image generation opened to all X users. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs’ lawyers say around that time, Grok began generating and disseminating hundreds of thousands of increasingly explicit images of women and minors. xAI restricted the feature again on Jan. 8.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Three plaintiffs who use X said they were harmed in the first five days of January, according to court filings. Ohio Doe posted a photo Jan. 1 and said Grok created and publicly posted at least six altered images of her over the next two days. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>New Jersey Doe posted a shirtless photo Jan. 4, and he discovered two altered images the following day. Each reported the images to X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The fourth plaintiff, South Carolina Roe, is not alleged to be an X user. She was told on Feb. 26 that her father had been arrested on charges related to possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to xAI’s motion. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The court records stated she alleged her father used Grok to alter images of her as a minor to make it appear they “had just consummated a sexual act.” The images were not shared on X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>X has directed users to sue it in northern Texas since November 2024, a district that doesn’t include Bastrop, where the company is headquartered. Fort Worth’s small federal bench includes U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor, who has presided over two Musk-related suits and whose 2023 disclosure showed Tesla stock, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/g-s1-28620/texas-judge-elon-musk-x-case-tesla-shares\">NPR\u003c/a>; X didn’t answer requests for comment when asked why it chose those courts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said companies usually seek to file a case where their facilities are, he said, and X did not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Basically they’re doing a form of judge shopping,” Goldman said. “They think that the judges in that particular district are more likely to go in their favor.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069820\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An iPhone screen displays the Grok logo on the Grok AI app on Jan. 11, 2026. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They note New Jersey Doe created his account in March 2009, when the version of the terms then in effect contained no clause binding users to future revisions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While terms and agreements may seem like an innocuous thing for users to click through, Goldman said updating terms has become a major unresolved question in internet law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Courts are “inconsistent on this issue,” he said. Whether users are bound to terms of service often turns on design, he said: “The details of how the user interface appears matter a ton.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The judge also rejected xAI’s motion to overturn an earlier order allowing the use of pseudonyms in the case. \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.57.0.pdf\">Two days \u003c/a>before the hearing, plaintiffs asked Pitts to close the courtroom for any argument that would reveal a plaintiff’s identity or discuss sealed exhibits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This case is not about just Grok or X as a tool, this is about the whole industry,” said Ahmed Banafa, an engineering professor at San José State University. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the four plaintiffs win and force xAI to change its practices or its algorithm, he said, competitors will take notice: “It could be a landmark for the safety of AI.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>xAI, which Musk folded into SpaceX in February and rebranded as SpaceXAI in July, also asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72185111/doe-v-xai-corp/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc\">Judge P. Casey Pitts\u003c/a> on Thursday to pause the federal civil suit during related criminal proceedings under federal law.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The suit comes as California Attorney General Rob Bonta and European regulators have also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">launched investigations\u003c/a> into whether the platform’s generated sexual images violate local laws.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, said she posted a fully clothed photo of herself to the social media platform X on Jan. 2 and discovered the next day that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had used it to generate an image of her and posted the result publicly, \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.28.0.pdf\">according to court filings\u003c/a>. She reported it to X in an attempt to have it taken down.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, said she posted a fully clothed photo of herself to the social media platform X on Jan. 2 and discovered the next day that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had used it to generate an image of her and posted the result publicly, \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.28.0.pdf\">according to court filings\u003c/a>. She reported it to X in an attempt to have it taken down.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058864\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta is briefed by members of his Civil Rights Enforcement Section on litigation challenging the Trump administration at his offices in downtown Los Angeles, California, on March 11, 2025. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Grok was integrated into X in December 2024, initially for premium subscribers, who could tag @grok in a post asking it to edit an image and get the result posted publicly in reply. Plaintiffs say users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">quickly began prompting it\u003c/a> with instructions like “Remove her clothes.” A year later, in December 2025, image generation opened to all X users. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Grok was integrated into X in December 2024, initially for premium subscribers, who could tag @grok in a post asking it to edit an image and get the result posted publicly in reply. Plaintiffs say users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">quickly began prompting it\u003c/a> with instructions like “Remove her clothes.” A year later, in December 2025, image generation opened to all X users. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs’ lawyers say around that time, Grok began generating and disseminating hundreds of thousands of increasingly explicit images of women and minors. xAI restricted the feature again on Jan. 8.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs’ lawyers say around that time, Grok began generating and disseminating hundreds of thousands of increasingly explicit images of women and minors. xAI restricted the feature again on Jan. 8.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Three plaintiffs who use X said they were harmed in the first five days of January, according to court filings. Ohio Doe posted a photo Jan. 1 and said Grok created and publicly posted at least six altered images of her over the next two days. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Three plaintiffs who use X said they were harmed in the first five days of January, according to court filings. Ohio Doe posted a photo Jan. 1 and said Grok created and publicly posted at least six altered images of her over the next two days. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>New Jersey Doe posted a shirtless photo Jan. 4, and he discovered two altered images the following day. Each reported the images to X. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>New Jersey Doe posted a shirtless photo Jan. 4, and he discovered two altered images the following day. Each reported the images to X. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The fourth plaintiff, South Carolina Roe, is not alleged to be an X user. She was told on Feb. 26 that her father had been arrested on charges related to possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to xAI’s motion. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The fourth plaintiff, South Carolina Roe, is not alleged to be an X user. She was told on Feb. 26 that her father had been arrested on charges related to possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to xAI’s motion. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The court records stated she alleged her father used Grok to alter images of her as a minor to make it appear they “had just consummated a sexual act.” The images were not shared on X. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>X has directed users to sue it in northern Texas since November 2024, a district that doesn’t include Bastrop, where the company is headquartered. Fort Worth’s small federal bench includes U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor, who has presided over two Musk-related suits and whose 2023 disclosure showed Tesla stock, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/g-s1-28620/texas-judge-elon-musk-x-case-tesla-shares\">NPR\u003c/a>; X didn’t answer requests for comment when asked why it chose those courts.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>X has directed users to sue it in northern Texas since November 2024, a district that doesn’t include Bastrop, where the company is headquartered. Fort Worth’s small federal bench includes U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor, who has presided over two Musk-related suits and whose 2023 disclosure showed Tesla stock, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/g-s1-28620/texas-judge-elon-musk-x-case-tesla-shares\">NPR\u003c/a>; X didn’t answer requests for comment when asked why it chose those courts.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said companies usually seek to file a case where their facilities are, he said, and X did not. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Basically they’re doing a form of judge shopping,” Goldman said. “They think that the judges in that particular district are more likely to go in their favor.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069820\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An iPhone screen displays the Grok logo on the Grok AI app on Jan. 11, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They note New Jersey Doe created his account in March 2009, when the version of the terms then in effect contained no clause binding users to future revisions. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>While terms and agreements may seem like an innocuous thing for users to click through, Goldman said updating terms has become a major unresolved question in internet law.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Courts are “inconsistent on this issue,” he said. Whether users are bound to terms of service often turns on design, he said: “The details of how the user interface appears matter a ton.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The judge also rejected xAI’s motion to overturn an earlier order allowing the use of pseudonyms in the case. \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.57.0.pdf\">Two days \u003c/a>before the hearing, plaintiffs asked Pitts to close the courtroom for any argument that would reveal a plaintiff’s identity or discuss sealed exhibits.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“This case is not about just Grok or X as a tool, this is about the whole industry,” said Ahmed Banafa, an engineering professor at San José State University. \u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Four people who say Grok generated sexualized images of them without consent are fighting to keep their case in California and to keep their names out of it.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A federal judge in San José will decide whether to halt a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Elon Musk’s AI company of creating non-consensual, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091964/nearly-half-of-teens-report-seeing-ai-sexual-content-bay-area-leaders-want-to-shut-it-down\">sexually explicit deepfakes\u003c/a>, as the company seeks to transfer the case to Texas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI, which Musk folded into SpaceX in February and rebranded as SpaceXAI in July, also asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72185111/doe-v-xai-corp/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc\">Judge P. Casey Pitts\u003c/a> on Thursday to pause the federal civil suit during related criminal proceedings under federal law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The suit comes as California Attorney General Rob Bonta and European regulators have also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">launched investigations\u003c/a> into whether the platform’s generated sexual images violate local laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, said she posted a fully clothed photo of herself to the social media platform X on Jan. 2 and discovered the next day that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had used it to generate an image of her and posted the result publicly, \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.28.0.pdf\">according to court filings\u003c/a>. She reported it to X in an attempt to have it taken down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058864\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta is briefed by members of his Civil Rights Enforcement Section on litigation challenging the Trump administration at his offices in downtown Los Angeles, California, on March 11, 2025. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The four plaintiffs are suing under pseudonyms. Musk is not named as a defendant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grok was integrated into X in December 2024, initially for premium subscribers, who could tag @grok in a post asking it to edit an image and get the result posted publicly in reply. Plaintiffs say users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">quickly began prompting it\u003c/a> with instructions like “Remove her clothes.” A year later, in December 2025, image generation opened to all X users. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs’ lawyers say around that time, Grok began generating and disseminating hundreds of thousands of increasingly explicit images of women and minors. xAI restricted the feature again on Jan. 8.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Three plaintiffs who use X said they were harmed in the first five days of January, according to court filings. Ohio Doe posted a photo Jan. 1 and said Grok created and publicly posted at least six altered images of her over the next two days. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>New Jersey Doe posted a shirtless photo Jan. 4, and he discovered two altered images the following day. Each reported the images to X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The fourth plaintiff, South Carolina Roe, is not alleged to be an X user. She was told on Feb. 26 that her father had been arrested on charges related to possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to xAI’s motion. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The court records stated she alleged her father used Grok to alter images of her as a minor to make it appear they “had just consummated a sexual act.” The images were not shared on X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>X has directed users to sue it in northern Texas since November 2024, a district that doesn’t include Bastrop, where the company is headquartered. Fort Worth’s small federal bench includes U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor, who has presided over two Musk-related suits and whose 2023 disclosure showed Tesla stock, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/g-s1-28620/texas-judge-elon-musk-x-case-tesla-shares\">NPR\u003c/a>; X didn’t answer requests for comment when asked why it chose those courts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said companies usually seek to file a case where their facilities are, he said, and X did not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Basically they’re doing a form of judge shopping,” Goldman said. “They think that the judges in that particular district are more likely to go in their favor.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069820\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An iPhone screen displays the Grok logo on the Grok AI app on Jan. 11, 2026. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They note New Jersey Doe created his account in March 2009, when the version of the terms then in effect contained no clause binding users to future revisions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While terms and agreements may seem like an innocuous thing for users to click through, Goldman said updating terms has become a major unresolved question in internet law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Courts are “inconsistent on this issue,” he said. Whether users are bound to terms of service often turns on design, he said: “The details of how the user interface appears matter a ton.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The judge also rejected xAI’s motion to overturn an earlier order allowing the use of pseudonyms in the case. \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.57.0.pdf\">Two days \u003c/a>before the hearing, plaintiffs asked Pitts to close the courtroom for any argument that would reveal a plaintiff’s identity or discuss sealed exhibits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This case is not about just Grok or X as a tool, this is about the whole industry,” said Ahmed Banafa, an engineering professor at San José State University. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the four plaintiffs win and force xAI to change its practices or its algorithm, he said, competitors will take notice: “It could be a landmark for the safety of AI.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"onourwatch": {
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
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},
"perspectives": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
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