THE FUTURE OF WRITING: A Conversation with Ethan Mollick and Steven Johnson
What if, thanks to AI, you can now research and write a book two, three, or even four times faster? For authors and AI pioneers Steven Johnson (Editorial Director, NotebookLM and Google Labs) and Ethan Mollick (Wharton professor and creator of One Useful Thing), that's the new reality. In this episode, they crack open their personal toolkits to reveal the prompts and workflows they use to supercharge their creativity.
What you’ll learn:
How Steven used AI to write 40,000 words in 72 hours.
The specific AI tools Steven and Ethan rely on for researching and writing.
Whether AI will ever write better than humans.
How the very concept of a "book" may morph into an interactive, personalized experience that readers can query, customize, and even turn into a game.
Further listening:
BILL GATES: Superhuman AI May Be Closer Than You Think
SAL KHAN: How AI Will Revolutionize the Way We Learn
MARYANNE WOLF: Are We Forgetting How To Read?
STEVEN JOHNSON & DAVID CHALMERS: Artificial Intelligence Meets Virtual Worlds
ADAM BROTMAN & ANDY SACK: The AI Tsunami Is Already Here
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'The Next Big Idea Daily': There's Probably a Con Artist in Your Life Right Now. Here's How to Spot Them.
Most of us like to think we could spot a con artist. But according to Emmy-winning television producer and investigative podcaster Johnathan Walton, the truth is much scarier: Scammers don’t look like strangers. They look like friends, neighbors, even soulmates. In his new book Anatomy of a Con Artist: The 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Grifters, and Thieves, Walton draws from his own jaw-dropping experience of being conned out of nearly $100,000 by someone he considered family. The good news? He turned that pain into purpose, and he’s here to help the rest of us avoid the same fate.
📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen
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Best Of: Sebastian Junger’s Journey to the Edge and Back
On a June night several years ago, Sebastian Junger, bestselling author of The Perfect Storm and co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo, lay on an operating table, dying. An undiagnosed aneurysm in his pancreatic artery had ruptured, flooding his abdominal cavity with blood. His odds of survival were between 10 and 20 percent. "I said, 'Doc, you've got to hurry. You're losing me right now. I'm going.'" This near-death experience inspired him to embark on a scientific, philosophical, and profoundly personal exploration of what happens after we die.
Host: Caleb Bissinger
Guest: Sebastian Junger, author of In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife.
🎁 We all know that reading is the best investment we can make in ourselves. But figuring out what to read — well, that's another matter. Which is why we started the Next Big Idea Club. We get the best new books (as chosen by our friends Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink) into the hands of curious people. Like you! Join us today at nextbigideaclub.com and use code PODCAST to take 20% off your order.
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'The Next Big Idea Daily': How to Run Your Life Like a Startup
Happiness might not sound like a business strategy, but Arthur C. Brooks—Harvard professor, Atlantic columnist, and all-around happiness guru—says it’s the most important metric of all. In his new book The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life, Arthur argues that your life is a startup, and you’re the founder, CEO, and maybe even the unpaid intern. Which means you’ve got to manage your most important asset: yourself.
📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen
📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter
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INTUITION: The Science of Trusting Your Gut
We all have eureka moments, sudden bursts of certainty that seem to come out of nowhere. What if you could summon that feeling on command? Laura Huang, a business school professor, has been studying that question. She’s found that for the world's most successful people, intuition isn't an accident. It's a skill. A tool they’ve sharpened. Today on the show: the practical steps you can take to turn a random hunch into your most reliable guide.
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The Next Big Idea is a weekly series of in-depth interviews with the world’s leading thinkers. Join hosts Rufus Griscom and Caleb Bissinger — along with our curators, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink — for conversations that might just change the way you see the world. New episodes every Thursday.
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