Hector Vila: What podcasts offer in the age of AI

Something curious is happening in our increasingly automated world. While AI promises to democratize expertise, eliminate drudgery, and amplify human intelligence, potentially solving problems that have plagued humanity for centuries, these same AI advances threaten to create what we might call the “connection paradox” — simultaneously connecting us globally while isolating us individually.

The current lull following the application of world-wide, and world-changing, tariffs levied on “Liberation Day” gives us space to try to understand what happened, and maybe what is happening.

Can Vermont legislators distinguish an AI-generated portrait from a real one? That was the question facing the Senate Government Operations committee last week as members watched pictures from a New York Times quiz designed to test just that.

Throughout this series on artificial intelligence, we’ve explored its fundamentals, examined its environmental impact, and analyzed its implications for governance. Now let’s turn to perhaps the most crucial question: How do we prepare for the future that … (read more)

Recently, my cell phone stopped receiving texts and phone calls. Because I have a landline, I was able to call my service provider to get help. Like most telecommunications company, mine offers an online knowledge base and a chat feature, but I wanted to … (read more)

With hospitals already deploying artificial intelligence to improve patient care, a new study has found that using Chat GPT Plus does not significantly improve the accuracy of doctors’ diagnoses when compared with the use of usual resources.

Governance has dominated our discourse since at least 2016. We’ve been wrestling with the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants; rules and procedures for making decisions; the systems for monitoring and enforcing complia … (read more)

Data centers, which house large numbers of networked computers, servers and storage systems that process, store and distribute massive amounts of data out of sight, and out of mind, and feed the devices that run beneath our lives consume a lot of energy, … (read more)

While fears of imminent catastrophe caused by Artificial Intelligence may be overblown (at least in the immediate future), as suggested in your recent series, its impacts are already significant and representative of a worldview that is incredibly dehuman … (read more)

Artificial Intelligence is a confusing term because it encompasses quite a lot. Take for instance cruise control in your car, that’s artificial intelligence, as is the autopilot on airplanes that keep flights safe and timely.

We’re halfway into the fall, 2024, academic term, and chatter suggests anxiety about the future of education and artificial intelligence.  That AI will replace human teachers entirely. Students using AI tools are always cheating. Learning to use AI isn’t … (read more)

I’ve heard that someday, on its unstoppable and accelerating march to becoming sentient and subjugating humanity, artificial intelligence (AI) is going to put writers out of work.

Pablo Picasso had paint, Michelangelo worked with marble. Bristol artist James Merrill’s medium is computer codes. 

“I feel that AI is just another chapter in a long and winding road of developments in the creative arts,” said photographer Eric Killorin.