Life, Automated

“AI will revolutionize education!”

“No, it will destroy it!”

Well, which is it?

If history is any guide, the impact will be limited in either direction. In this episode, MIT education researcher Justin Reich walks through a century of hype cycles — from filmstrips and radio to MOOCs and smartphones — to show what actually changed in classrooms, and what didn’t. Drawing on interviews with 120 teachers and students across the U.S., he explains why new tools tend to extend old habits, why gains from new technology are usually modest, and why they tend to benefit affluent schools most. (Part 2/2 in our back-to-school series.)

Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED.

Producer: Jesse Dukes

Music: Steven Jackson

Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger

Recording: George Christensen and Will Feeney

Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

As AI tools spread through classrooms, many educators see a “cheating factory.” Kellogg Professor Sébastien Martin sees things differently: as a chance to reinvent how and what we teach. In his operations management class, students trade PDFs for lifelike chatbots, log conversations with Socratic AI tutors, and use AI to explore the kinds of social and political dynamics that students normally have to learn on the job. But Martin also grapples with harder questions: What about public schools with fewer resources? When should kids use AI at all? And how can students stay hopeful and true to their own interests in a wildly uncertain future?

(Part 1/2 in our back-to-school series.)

Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED

Producer: Jesse Dukes

Music: Steven Jackson

Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger

Additional Production: Nathan Ray

Recording: George Christensen and Will Feeney

Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? Pat Pataranutaporn, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, explores how chatbots can either support or undermine human flourishing. Pat explains why it’s so easy to imagine a “someone” behind the screen and why chatbots that never push back are dangerous. He ultimately makes the case that AI should be evaluated based not on short-term engagement or productivity but on how well it improves the lives of humans.

Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED.

Producer: Jesse Dukes

Music: Steven Jackson Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger Additional Production: Nathan Ray Recording: George Christensen and Will FeeneyPromotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician Joshua Jay says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.

Further Reading:

Joshua Jay's book: How Magician's Think



Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED.

Producer: Jesse Dukes

Music: Steven Jackson

Administrative and Editorial Support: Stacia Sliger

Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

Produced in partnership with KQED, Jen Chien, director of podcasts.

Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? Economist Meghan Busse suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.

Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED.

Production: Jesse Dukes

Music: Steven Jackson

Administration and Recording: Stacia Sliger

Recording Engineering: George Christensen and Will Feeney

Marketing: Ananya Mallapragada

Featured Guests:

Meghan Busse

Further Reading:

Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment — AP-NORC

Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash — Jack Healy, New York Times