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How AI Could Reduce Inequality

July 09, 2026

David Autor is a labor economist at MIT. He has written about how the arrival of personal computers increased inequality among American workers. But when it comes to AI, David thinks there could be a different outcome.  Read David’s article about AI in Noema Magazine.  In this episode, David explains:  How computers increased the wage gap between college and non-college educated workers Why AI’s ability to supplement expertise may open up expert fields to more peop...

Racing Wildfires to Warn the Public

July 02, 2026

John Mills is the CEO and co-founder of a nonprofit called Watch Duty. His problem is this: How do you build an app to warn people when they are in immediate danger from a natural disaster? Watch Duty has millions of users and played a key role in the Los Angeles fires of 2025. In the show, John talks about how he built his app with the help of an army of volunteers, and why the government hadn’t already built something like Watch Duty. In this episode, John explains:  Why one-qua...

How AI Could Actually Make the World Better

June 25, 2026

Josh Tyrangiel is the author of “AI for Good: How Real People Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Fix Things That Matter.” On today’s show, Josh talks about some of these real people and the problems they’re working on: a professor trying to understand her nonverbal son, a general who delivered millions of Covid vaccines in 2021, and a hospital CEO trying to reduce the rate of deadly infections.  In this episode, Josh explains:  Where AI is helping to reduc...