JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
If watching the rapid rise of AI feels disorienting, well, you're not alone. This week on Machine Gods, the new podcast from NPR about the AI revolution, hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton took some questions from their audience about the good and the bad of AI in daily life. And before we hear some of that conversation, a disclosure - Casey Newton's fiance works for Anthropic, maker of the AI assistant Claude. All right, let's take a listen.
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KEVIN ROOSE: Well, Casey, it's time to hear from our beloved audience. Our first question comes to us from Leigh Ratcliff.
LEIGH RATCLIFF: So I'm in a sticky situation. On the one hand, my work is very eager for me to use AI and demonstrate its efficiencies that we gain with it. But on the other hand, my 16-year-old daughter is completely opposed to AI, how it's all funded by morally unethical billionaires, how it's potentially taking away her future jobs. So I guess my question to you is, what do you think I should do?
CASEY NEWTON: Well, I'm glad we started with an easy one, Kevin.
ROOSE: (Laughter).
NEWTON: I have to say, I'm very sympathetic to the teenager in this situation. I think, you know, if I were the parent here, I might try to have a conversation about the fact that many of the challenges that she's identifying cannot really be addressed at the individual level, right? If you're an individual worker and the boss says, hey, I need you to get more done and AI is going to help you get more done, it probably makes the most sense for your family to just do that.
But if you're really worried about the future of labor, if you're really worried about the concentration of power and those morally dubious oligarchs that seem like they're amassing more and more control, those are things that you can get some political leverage over. You can speak at the city council meeting. You can call your congressperson. Those are really great things for a young person to get involved with.
ROOSE: And I would say I would also try to impress upon the daughter or the teenager in this situation, like, the usefulness of understanding the tools through using them, even if the goal is to oppose them. I think you have to, like, know your enemy a little bit because I think that just makes you a more effective advocate.
NEWTON: All right. Next question.
ROOSE: This one comes to us from Arthur. He is part of a AI dad chat that I am part of, a group text.
NEWTON: So this is a known human to you.
ROOSE: This is a known human to me.
NEWTON: OK.
ROOSE: And he asks, what should America's AI school curriculum look like, and how young should it start? Casey?
NEWTON: Another simple question best answered in a 30-second clip by two people with no experience working in the education system. Arthur, we're so glad you asked.
ROOSE: (Laughter).
NEWTON: I reflected on it a bit, and I just realized that when it would come to my own children, I want them to learn to read and write and do math kind of the old fashioned way to build that foundation. But then once they get into middle school, I'm actually more comfortable with them having AI systems do some writing for them, making slide decks, learning how to use spreadsheets. And that's where I kind of start from, Kevin. What do you think?
ROOSE: I think that there should be some modern AI version of, like, computer lab. Do you remember computer lab?
NEWTON: Love computer lab.
ROOSE: Favorite part of the day when...
NEWTON: Yeah.
ROOSE: ...I was a kid. Your teacher would take you into this room with a bunch of crappy computers in it, and you would pretend to learn how to program while actually playing Oregon Trail.
NEWTON: (Laughter) That's right.
ROOSE: This is - every '90s child...
NEWTON: Yeah.
ROOSE: ...Remembers the computer lab experience.
NEWTON: Yeah.
ROOSE: I think there should be some version of this for AI. I would like for students to be understanding these programs at a very young age, but in an environment where they can be supervised and monitored and taught by their teachers. Like, the way that we were taught how to make a snake game using a simple programming language, I think this should be part of their education.
NEWTON: All right. This next one comes from AM5K on Reddit. I generally like AI. I think there's a ton of nuance with it being useful and also having negative impacts on society. How do you deal with the anti-AI, AI skeptic crowd besides not engaging?
ROOSE: Do you want to take the last part first?
NEWTON: It's a really tough one. I think, as journalists, our obligation is to tell you what we believe to be true. It would be a lot easier for all of us if society were not going to change a lot in the next five, 10, 15 years. It would be great if we weren't under constant threat of cyberattacks.
ROOSE: I'll go further. It would be great if all this was just a house of cards.
NEWTON: Yeah.
ROOSE: Right? Because, yes, there would be a crash. Yes, people would lose money, you know, if the stock market crashed. But, like, the fundamental nature of society and work and labor and human endeavor would not have to change forever.
NEWTON: Absolutely. But our observation over the past few years is just, like, we don't think that is what is happening.
ROOSE: Yeah. I mean, I often feel like, for a lot of people, it's like, you either have to be a total skeptic and a total cynic about all this, or you have to be, like, firmly in the corner of the AI companies. And, like, what I try to just tell people is, like, there is a third path...
NEWTON: Yes.
ROOSE: ...There. And I think that third path is what you and I have tried to occupy.
NEWTON: Yeah. I think in a very real way, like, the project of this show is to avoid becoming polarized in that way and truly just kind of try to come at you down the middle with what we think is happening. And there will be some good things. There will be some bad things. We'll talk about all of it.
SUMMERS: That was Casey Newton and Kevin Roose, the hosts of Machine Gods, the new podcast from NPR about the people and technology driving the AI revolution. You can watch or listen to more of those audience questions on the Machine Gods podcast. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
