Yael Eisenstat is trained to analyze an argument from all sides. During her career at the CIA and State Department, she had tea with suspected extremists and sat at tables with people who were programmed to hate her. But the biggest challenge of her career didn’t come from a covert operation… it came when she stepped into Facebook Headquarters to head up their election integrity efforts. This is her story.

 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Yael Eisenstat is trained to analyze an argument from all sides. During her career at the CIA and State Department, she had tea with suspected extremists and sat at tables with people who were programmed to hate her. But the biggest challenge of her career didn’t come from a covert operation… it came when she stepped into Facebook Headquarters to head up their election integrity efforts. This is her story. Learn more about your ad-choices at <a href="https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com">https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com</a>

Mostly Human is a weekly podcast that explores technology through the most important lens: the human one. Hosted by award-winning tech journalist Laurie Segall, the immersive interview and investigative show tackles some of the defining questions of our time with headline-making tech titans and the people you don't know yet, but should. Mostly Human will leave you with a sense of agency over fear, and a clearer view of how tech can actually work for you.

Mostly Human is a weekly podcast that explores technology through the most important lens: the human one. Hosted by award-winning tech journalist Laurie Segall, the immersive interview and investigative show tackles some of the defining questions of our time with headline-making tech titans and the people you don't know yet, but should. Mostly Human will leave you with a sense of agency over fear, and a clearer view of how tech can actually work for you.

Mostly Human with Laurie Segall

Mostly Human is a weekly podcast that explores technology through the most important lens: the human one. Hosted by award-winning tech journalist Laurie Segall, the immersive interview and investigative show tackles some of the defining questions of our time with headline-making tech titans and the people you don't know yet, but should. Mostly Human will leave you with a sense of agency over fear, and a clearer view of how tech can actually work for you.

 

Mostly Human is a weekly podcast that explores technology through the most important lens: the human one. Hosted by award-winning tech journalist Laurie Segall, the immersive interview and investigative show tackles some of the defining questions of our time with headline-making tech titans and the people you don't know yet, but should. Mostly Human will leave you with a sense of agency over fear, and a clearer view of how tech can actually work for you.
&nbsp;

She Spent 10+ Years at the CIA. It Didn’t Prepare Her for Life at Facebook.

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/1bd62902-691e-4d9a-ad25-ae270180899e/transcript

There’s a lot of concern right now about the big scary ways AI could take control of the human race, or extinct us all together. But computational social scientist Sandra Matz argues the human deterioration by AI is more subtle than that — and already happening. Sandra Matz studies the cross section of human behavior, our technological relationships, and our inner mental lives -- and now, AI’s influence on it all. In this conversation, Laurie Segall and Sandra Matz talk about how AI has the ability to make us boring, flatten our potential, cause cognitive atrophy, and  impact our human relationships. They explore unexpected ways AI can track our human behavior. If we’re not careful, that data can be weaponized and manipulated by companies all around the world. But it’d be too simple to discount the potential of AI. Sandra and Laurie go in depth about all the ways the power of AI could be used for good - like how AI could be used to detect our deteriorating mental health. 

Sandra’s book: Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

There&rsquo;s a lot of concern right now about the big scary ways AI could take control of the human race, or extinct us all together. But computational social scientist Sandra Matz argues the human deterioration by AI is more subtle than that &mdash;&nbsp;and already happening. Sandra Matz studies the cross section of human behavior, our technological relationships, and our inner mental lives -- and now, AI&rsquo;s influence on it all. In this conversation, Laurie Segall and Sandra Matz talk about how AI has the ability to make us boring, flatten our potential, cause cognitive atrophy, and&nbsp; impact our human relationships. They explore unexpected ways AI can track our human behavior. If we&rsquo;re not careful, that data can be weaponized and manipulated by companies all around the world. But it&rsquo;d be too simple to discount the potential of AI. Sandra and Laurie go in depth about all the ways the power of AI could be used for good - like how AI could be used to detect our deteriorating mental health.&nbsp;
Sandra&rsquo;s book:&nbsp;<a href="https://business.columbia.edu/faculty/research/mindmasters-data-driven-science-predicting-and-changing-human-behavior">Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior</a>
If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:hello@mostlyhuman.com">hello@mostlyhuman.com</a>

The Unspoken AI Catastrophe: Death By a Thousand Cuts

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/1a458cc8-734a-41c9-8466-b4c70150107d/transcript

If you have kids in school — or soon will, or know someone who does — you probably have questions about AI in the classroom. Should schools be using it? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? And who’s actually getting to decide? New York Times tech reporter Natasha Singer has spent over a decade exploring exactly those questions. In her new book, Coding Kids, Natasha traces how Google, Microsoft, and Apple have moved from supplying Chromebooks to training teachers, funding nonprofits, writing the lessons, and how they’re now shaping what a generation of kids learns about AI. In this episode, host Laurie Segall and Natasha Singer break down what every parent — or bystander — needs to understand about the influence Big Tech has always had in the classroom and how kids, teachers and parents can take control of the curriculum in the age of AI.  

Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools, by Natasah Singer

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

If you have kids in school &mdash; or soon will, or know someone who does &mdash; you probably have questions about AI in the classroom. Should schools be using it? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? And who&rsquo;s actually getting to decide? New York Times tech reporter Natasha Singer has spent over a decade exploring exactly those questions. In her new book, Coding Kids, Natasha traces how Google, Microsoft, and Apple have moved from supplying Chromebooks to training teachers, funding nonprofits, writing the lessons, and how they&rsquo;re now shaping what a generation of kids learns about AI. In this episode, host Laurie Segall and Natasha Singer break down what every parent &mdash; or bystander &mdash; needs to understand about the influence Big Tech has always had in the classroom and how kids, teachers and parents can take control of the curriculum in the age of AI.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881943">Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools</a>, by Natasah Singer
If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at <a href="mailto:hello@mostlyhuman.com">hello@mostlyhuman.com</a>

Everything You Need to Know About AI in the Classroom

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/9f663f0b-a346-4561-b733-b4c00112a716/transcript

Six months ago, Andrew Yeung came on Mostly Human and built Laurie Segall a website live on the show, just by talking to a computer. He's back as the show's first returning guest, because in six months (a lifetime in AI!) the tech stack Andrew uses has several upgrades. Andrew is an entrepreneur, investor, startup advisor and the founder of Fibe, and he is a voracious experimenter of the latest tools and gadgets available to the layperson to hack productivity (and relationships!). He's abandoned the check-in app he vibe-coded for his girlfriend last time (his update: "Now we just talk like regular people"), but he's built two new personal projects — one that surfaces a single buried text message from the last seven years, every day, and one that asks his parents a question a day for 100 days and turns their voice answers into a book. He's learned fifty stories he never knew, and his dad now wakes up excited to answer.  

Then Laurie asks her producer Derrick for a business idea and Andrew sets an AI agent loose on it, hands-free, while the conversation keeps going. Twenty-two minutes later there's a real website, with animations and creative interactive features that weren’t even part of Andrew’s prompt.  

Laurie and Andrew also dig into a new etiquette emerging: what Silicon Valley reads as "high signal" and "low signal" AI use, and why VCs are calling people “slop cannons.” Then Andrew opens the box of listening devices companies keep mailing him, and Laurie wonders who is collecting all that voice data, what will they do with it.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

Six months ago, Andrew Yeung came on Mostly Human and built Laurie Segall a website live on the show, just by talking to a computer. He's back as the show's first returning guest, because in six months (a lifetime in AI!) the tech stack Andrew uses has several upgrades. Andrew is an entrepreneur, investor, startup advisor and the founder of <a href="https://www.meetfibe.com/">Fibe</a>, and he is a voracious experimenter of the latest tools and gadgets available to the layperson to hack productivity (and relationships!). He's abandoned the check-in app he vibe-coded for his girlfriend last time (his update: "Now we just talk like regular people"), but he's built two new personal projects &mdash; one that surfaces a single buried text message from the last seven years, every day, and one that asks his parents a question a day for 100 days and turns their voice answers into a book. He's learned fifty stories he never knew, and his dad now wakes up excited to answer.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Then Laurie asks her producer Derrick for a business idea and Andrew sets an AI agent loose on it, hands-free, while the conversation keeps going. Twenty-two minutes later there's a real website, with animations and creative interactive features that weren&rsquo;t even part of Andrew&rsquo;s prompt.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Laurie and Andrew also dig into a new etiquette emerging: what Silicon Valley reads as "high signal" and "low signal" AI use, and why VCs are calling people &ldquo;slop cannons.&rdquo; Then Andrew opens the box of listening devices companies keep mailing him, and Laurie wonders who is collecting all that voice data, what will they do with it.
If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at <a href="mailto:hello@mostlyhuman.com">hello@mostlyhuman.com</a>

What Has Your Army of AI Agents Made For You Lately?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/be55e993-9e05-4cd6-9718-b4ba001374f2/transcript

She Spent 10+ Years at the CIA. It Didn’t Prepare Her for Life at Facebook.

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