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Life, Automated

Ryan Institute on Complexity at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management 4 Episodes Aug 19, 2026

Life, Automated explores how to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. Hosted by Jess Love, a science writer and cognitive psychology PhD, the podcast features conversations with researchers, practitioners, and artists about AI's impact on economy, community, and daily life. It asks whether AI will isolate us or bring us together, and how to prepare for a future where machines can do many human tasks. The show is grounded and non-ideological, aiming to make AI understandable for everyone.

Episodes

Why AI Might Not Change Education Much at All (with Justin Reich) Aug 19, 2026 2533 “AI will revolutionize education!” “No, it will destroy it!” Well, which is it? If history is any guide, the impact will be limited in either direction. In this episode, MIT education researcher Justin Reich walks through a century of hype cycles — from filmstrips and radio to MOOCs and smartphones — to show what actually changed in classrooms, and what didn’t.  Drawing on interviews with

An Optimist’s Take on AI and the Future of Learning (with Sébastien Martin) Aug 12, 2026 2073 As AI tools spread through classrooms, many educators see a “cheating factory.” Kellogg Professor Sébastien Martin sees things differently: as a chance to reinvent how and what we teach. In his operations management class, students trade PDFs for lifelike chatbots, log conversations with Socratic AI tutors, and use AI to explore the kinds of social and political dynamics that students normally hav

Our Chatbot Friends and Lovers (with Pat Pataranutaporn) Aug 5, 2026 2479 What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? Pat Pataranutaporn, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, explores how chatbots can either support or undermine human flourishing. Pat explains why it’s so easy to imagine a “someone” behind the screen and why chatbots that never push back are dangerous. He ultimately makes the case that AI should be evaluated based not on short-term engagement or pro

Chatbots Don’t Fool Us, We Fool Ourselves (with Joshua Jay) Jul 29, 2026 2500 When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician Joshua Jay says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into beli

Does AI Have to Be Bad News for the Planet? (with Meghan Busse) Jul 22, 2026 2216 Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? Economist Meghan Busse suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investmen

To Thrive Alongside AI, Find the Bottlenecks (with Ben Jones) Jul 15, 2026 2211 Will AI actually take over every job ever? Economist Ben Jones doesn't think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers everything — it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one n

Coming July 15th! Life, Automated Jun 23, 2026 122 Life, Automated explores the surreal, exciting, and occasionally terrifying ways AI and automation are reshaping our daily lives.Through thoughtful conversations with researchers, practitioners, artists, and more, we do our best to make sense of how technology is changing—and how it is changing us. We ask: What does the economy look like if AI can do much of what humans can? Will AI tools isolate

Life, Automated

Episodes

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