Stanford Radio

Happy New Year from the team here at The Future of Everything. To kick off 2024, we're bringing you an episode that's been one of our most popular. The timing is just right as many of us are headed into the new year thinking about how to live better. In this episode, Professor Helen Blau, a stem cell biologist, tells us all about how she's recruiting stem cells to regenerate youthful muscle in older people. We're thrilled to bring this episode out of the archives for another listen and renewed hope about possibilities ahead in the world of health.

Alex and Evelyn discuss CSAM in machine learning datasets, big DSA news from Europe, Meta's moderation around Israel & Hamas, Substack's Nazi problem, and another entry in the Netchoice Restatement of the Law.

A curated playlist of six episodes from our archive to accompany you through the holiday season. Whether you're thinking about giving during this season, ways to improve your health, or you're simply excited to revisit compelling conversations with people who are impacting the future, we hope you'll find something thought-provoking in this playlist. We are so grateful to you for taking the time to listen this year and we look forward to returning in the new year with more captivating discussions about the future of everything.

Alex and Evelyn discuss US military information operations, Threads testing ActivityPub integration, ridiculous statistics about TikTok, YouTube Magic Dust, the Meta Oversight Board moving with all deliberate speed, and First Amendment retaliation claims.

The holidays are here, and with that many of us are preparing to enjoy meals with family and friends. One of my previous guests on the show, Professor Michael Fischbach, tells us that the “gut biome” – that is, the complex community of bacteria that lives in our gastrointestinal tract – is what makes digesting and extracting nutrients from those meals possible. It's a fascinating conversation about the important role bacteria plays in the human digestive system. I hope you'll tune in.

Hi everyone, it's your host, Russ here. We're re-running our episode with Professor Stephen Quake today. Stephen's research has helped countless patients avoid the pain and suffering that can come with invasive diagnostic testing. He's developed a number of noninvasive blood tests to help detect preterm births, genetic disorders like Down Syndrome, cancer, and organ transplant rejection. It's an episode that reminds us of the power of good science. I hope you'll take another listen and enjoy.

Alex and Evelyn discuss whether telling your most important customers to go eff themselves is a good business strategy; the continual challenges of moderating CSAM; Meta's preparations for the 2024 elections; the injunction of Montana's TikTok ban; and the most important AI story no one is talking about.

Guest Percy Liang is an authority on AI who says that we are undergoing a paradigm shift in AI powered by foundation models, which are general-purpose models trained at immense scale, such as ChatGPT. In this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Liang tells host Russ Altman how foundation models are built, how to evaluate them, and the growing concerns with lack of openness and transparency.

Alex and Evelyn discuss the ongoing drama at OpenAI and how to think about AI safety; whether app stores should be doing age verification; India's jawboning of streaming platforms; rumours about rumours on TikTok; the scary threat to free expression coming from AGs investigating groups when Musk complains about them.

Guest Alex Konings studies fundamental links between the global cycle of water percolating into the ground and evaporating into the skies and a similar cycle of carbon moving through the world, shaping ecosystems, droughts, and fires. These cycles are inextricably bound, she says, and understanding how they function individually and in tandem is key to life on planet Earth. These important cycles may be easily overlooked but they cannot be ignored, Konings tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn talk about generative AI and elections, renewed calls to ban TikTok, more reporting about India pressuring platforms, Supreme Court argument about whether politicians can block people on social media, and apparently there's some big sportsball game this weekend?

Hi everyone, it's your host Russ Altman here. Today, we're re-running a fascinating conversation I had with Zhenan Bao back in 2017 about the work she and her lab are doing to develop artificial skin. The possible applications of a material that could replicate properties of human skin range from restoring a sense of touch for amputees to creating bendable electronics. Thank you for tuning in, we hope you enjoy this episode from the archives.

Space exploration and travel are two topics that are always exciting, and that have sparked a lot of enthusiasm about the future. Debbie Senesky, a previous guest on the show, researches ways to develop tiny, tough electronics that could help augment our abilities to further explore extreme environments, such as those found in space. Today we're re-running a conversation I had with Debbie in 2017 on this topic. I hope you'll tune in, and enjoy.

Alex and Evelyn discuss the new Executive Order on AI, content moderation in the stack putting pressure on Telegram, the one year anniversary of Elon Musk buying Twitter, and a multi-state lawsuit against Meta for misleading young users about the addictive and harmful properties of its platform.

Guest Gordon Wetzstein is an expert in using math to improve photographs. Such methods have exploded in recent years and have wide-ranging impacts from improving your family photos, to making self-driving cars safer, to building ever-more-powerful microscopes. Somewhere in between hardware and software, he says, is the field of computational imaging, which makes cameras do some pretty amazing things. Wetzstein and host Russ Altman bring it all into focus on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn discuss the "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" posted by Marc Andreessen this week and whether one can love technology and also think about risk management at the same time. Tricky! They then discuss the ongoing challenges of moderating during war, the Supreme Court's cert grant of the jawboning case out of the 5th circuit, and Threads' position on news.

Almost everyone knows someone who has battled cancer. Today, on The Future of Everything, we're re-running our episode with Professor Jennifer Cochran who is bringing some hope in this area through work she and her lab are doing to find ways to localize therapies directly to the site of cancer tumors for more efficient and effective treatment. You won't want to miss this one, it's full of inspiring insights that will hopefully move us toward a future of improving outcomes for cancer patients.

Alex and Evelyn talk to Brian Fishman, the former Policy Director for counterterrorism and dangerous organizations at Facebook/Meta, about the history of terrorism online, the challenges for platforms moderating terrorism, and the bad incentives created by misguided political pressure (looking at you, EU).

Guest Karl Deisseroth is a bioengineer and a psychiatrist who has developed two of the most transformational research techniques shaping our understanding of how the brain works — optogenetics, which allows neuroscientists to control brain cells with light, and CLARITY, a way to render the brain's gray matter transparent yet retain all its intricate wiring for easier study. There is a vast chasm between neuroscience and psychiatry, Deisseroth says of the reasons he felt compelled to develop technology ahead of pursuing science. It was never a trade-off of one over the other, however. It was simply where we had to go to get better at the science, Deisseroth tells fellow bioengineer and host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn discuss how the horrific events in Israel over the weekend make clear how important social media is during fast-moving historical events, and how X/Twitter has fundamentally degraded as a source of information. They also discuss China's ramped up crack down on app stores, and the Supreme Court's cert grant in the Netchoice cases, that could reshape the internet.

A perspective on the need for diversity and empathy in the engineering profession. As we enter a new academic year, it's an opportune time to think about how we're educating the next generation of engineers. Russ's conversation in 2020 with Sheri Sheppard, an emeritus professor of mechanical engineering and founder of the Designing Education Lab at Stanford, sheds light on this important topic. Professor Sheppard shares about ways that will help us educate engineers who not only are technically trained but also bring empathy into their work.

Guest Jane Willenbring is a geoscientist who studies accelerating coastal erosion. The challenge lies not in understanding why coasts are receding today, but in determining what they looked like a thousand years ago to know how much they've changed — a secret revealed in coastal rocks through isotopes shaped by cosmic radiation. But measurement is only one part of the equation, she says. We must now think about erosion's impact on humans, Willenbring tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Guest KC Huang is many things: A bioengineer. A microbiologist. An inventor. But mostly he's an expert on the ecology of the human gut. He and his collaborators have developed a device that can sample bacterial DNA and create a living map of the gut microbiome from mouth to … ah, well … you know. Every step of the way, he says, we play host to trillions of guests we know very little about. It's time we got to know them, Huang tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Guest Monika Schleier-Smith is a physicist who says that quantum principles, like entanglement, can make atoms do funny things, such as allowing two atoms to share secrets across great distances. While entanglement opens tantalizing possibilities like quantum computing, there's still much we don't know about quantum mechanics. She now uses lasers to “cool” atoms to near motionlessness as a starting point for controlling and proving entanglement, as she tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn record an episode in front of probably their entire active listener base. They talk about an update on SIO's investigations into child sexual abuse material on platforms; the fight for free speech in India; the poor outlook for election integrity at X in 2024, and what this might mean for other platforms; platform transparency mandates with Daphne Keller; and challenges to age verification laws with Alison Boden, the Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition.

Alex and Evelyn discuss reporting on a proposed deal between TikTok and the US government for it to continue to operate in the country, and the broader geopolitical context of US-China relations; how to think about search-term blocking; YouTube preventing Russell Brand from monetizing his videos on its platform; the Musk stories from the week that matter; and the enjoining of the California Age Appropriate Design Code by a California judge.

Evelyn sits down with Genevieve Lakier, a Professor at University of Chicago Law School, to discuss the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Missouri v. Biden, narrowing but affirming a district court injunction prohibiting large parts of the federal government from communicating with platforms about content moderation.

Guest Rania Awaad is a psychiatrist who studies mental health in the U.S. Muslim community. There are promising approaches, like talk therapy derived in historic Muslim settings, that can also apply to other faith communities. The deeper lesson, she says, has been that Muslim approaches are in line with mainstream ideas of holistic health and healing. Like others, Muslims believe you can't be physically well if you're not mentally well, Awaad tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn discuss a bunch of things that happened while they were on "summer break": OpenAI recommending using GPT-4 for content moderation, but not enforcing its own political content moderation rules for ChatGPT; the EU's Digital Services Act coming into force and a report from the Commission that has us worried; Meta rejecting its Oversight Board's recommendation to suspend Hun Sen's account; a bunch of First Amendment decisions; and much more!

Bad science is a big problem for society, says guest Jonathan Osborne, an expert in science education, but we don't have to surrender to it. Beating bad science requires young people to learn three skills, Osborne says. First is an ability to size up conflicts of interest. Second, to evaluate a source's qualifications. And third, to more rigorously question those who go against consensus. The whole goal of science is consensus, Osborne tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Today we're rerunning a conversation Russ had in 2020 with Mykel Kochenderfer, a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Mykel's research has impacted anyone who has been on a plane recently for any kind of travel. His research led to the creation of a program known as the Airborne Collision Avoidance System, or ACAS X , which as he explains in more detail, is a critical tool in keeping air travel safe. Thank you for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy this episode from the archives.

Guest David Rehkopf is an expert in population health who says that where we live is one of the strongest influences on how long we live. While we know diet and health care are important, it has been tough to tease out what about these places allows people to live longer and healthier lives. By examining environmentally induced changes in DNA, we may be able to more quickly and more accurately quantify what aspects of environments promote longer, healthier lives, Rehkopf tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn discuss Ex-Twitter's latest examples of "free speech absolutism"; Apple removing an independent Russian media outlet's podcast from its podcast app; the Cambodian Prime Minister's return to Facebook; TikTok's new For EU measures; skyrocketing demand for Perspective API to moderate LLM hate speech; the reasons the dismissal of a First Amendment challenge to Utah's age verification law is so scary; and your weekly dose of random sports news.

Alex and Evelyn discuss some of the week's headlines, including Ex-Twitter's continued trust and safety, er, best practices and a baseless threat to try shutdown research it doesn't like, before being joined by Josh Tucker and Jen Pan, two academics part of a research partnership with Meta to examine the impact of Facebook and Instagram on key political attitudes and behaviors during the US 2020 election. The group released the first four papers this week and Josh and Jen discussed their findings and what they mean for platform design.

Alex and Evelyn discuss trust and safety challenges for federated social media, following a report from the Stanford Internet Observatory about child safety problems in the fediverse. Also: Bluesky's flailing, Tw-... X's rebrand, a First Amendment challenge to Texas' TikTok ban impeding academic research, and more.

Alex and Evelyn discuss the very successful launch of Meta's Twitter competitor Threads, and the content moderation challenges ahead. Elon's taking it very well. Europe and the US reached a data sharing agreement -- Alex has thoughts. Scary rhetoric out of the EU about banning platforms makes Evelyn sad. A US Court upholds FOSTA.

Explore the frontiers of 3D printing in healthcare and its potential to revolutionize personalized medicine, reshape prosthetics, and reimagine drug delivery systems. In this episode we're re-sharing a conversation Russ had in 2021 with Joseph DeSimone, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University. This one is about health, and Joe tells us how 3D printing is transforming healthcare. His group is using it to make vaccine delivery easier and more effective. They're also creating implantable chemotherapy that kills tumors, while having fewer side effects for the patients. We hope you enjoy this glimpse of how 3D printing technologies are being used in novel and unexpected ways.

Neuroscientist Kalanit Grill-Spector studies the physiology of human vision and says that the ways computers and people see are in some ways similar, but in other ways quite different. In fact, she says, rapid advances in computational modeling, such as deep neural networks, applied to brain data and new imaging technologies, like quantitative MRI and diffusion MRI, are revolutionizing our understanding of how the human brain sees. We're unraveling how the brain “computes” visual information, as Grill-Spector tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

A lot to cover this week. Alex and Evelyn discuss AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery; the first draft of history on Telegram during the mutiny in Russia; Musk's meetings with Indian PM Modi and EU officials; link taxes causing Meta to stop serving news content in Canada; YouTube taking down an RFK Jr video; Meta buckling to government demands in Vietnam; and a disappointing Supreme Court decision about cyberstalking.

Guest Debra Kaysen is a psychologist specializing in treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who says that promising new cognitive and behavioral therapies are, quite literally, giving people “their lives back.” These therapies work without drugs to help patients manage their disease and its symptoms and, perhaps, even cure PTSD. We're providing tools to change how they think, Kaysen tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast. For interested listeners, Kaysen offers a list of PTSD resources: Resources Previous TFoE episode with Shaili Jain on treatments for PTSD - https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/shaili-jain-treatments-ptsd-are-more-effective-ever https://istss.org/public-resources/trauma-basics https://istss.org/public-resources/find-a-clinician https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/what-youre-feeling-ptsd-what-do-help Free apps from the VA for PTSD and other related concerns https://www.ptsd.va.gov/appvid/mobile/ https://www.abct.org/get-help/ For a Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) trained therapist https://cptforptsd.com/cpt-provider-roster/ Stanford's PTSD clinic https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/patient_care/ptsd.html International resource for a Prolonged Exposure (PE) trained therapist https://www.med.upenn.edu/ctsa/find_pe_therapist.html

Alex and Evelyn discuss the Reddit blackout in response to its decision to start charging for API access; Dorsey confirming that India has threatened to shut down Twitter if it doesn't remove certain content; Spotify's Joe Rogan problem; Meta's new Covid-19 policies; and the latest round of DDoS attacks in state platform regulation legislation from Texas, Louisiana and Florida.

Hi everyone, Russ here, we're running a best-of episode this week to re-share a conversation I had in 2021 with Karen Liu, an associate professor of computer science here at Stanford Engineering. The conversation is relevant today because, as we all know, AI is having a moment, and robotics is an important part of that. Karen and her lab have a goal of enabling robots to contribute in caregiving roles - think of tasks like helping medical patients get dressed each day - and they're using physics-based simulations to do that. I hope you'll take some time to tune into this discussion, it's a timely and relevant one given larger societal conversations about AI. Enjoy!

Evelyn and Alex talk to David Thiel and Renée DiResta, Alex's two co-authors on a report released by the Stanford Internet Observatory last week with findings from an investigation into the distribution of illicit sexual content by minors online. They talk about the findings, how social media companies should be and have been responding, and the public and political response to the report.

Guest Bill Mitch says it's no secret the world is running short of fresh water. As a civil and environmental engineer, he sees wastewater as a potential solution, if only we can eliminate the impurities. Mitch designs systems to remove toxic chemicals from wastewater to enable its reuse as a drinking water supply. It's not easy, but it costs half as much as desalinating seawater, Mitch tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn cover a of stories you'd definitely want to hear on your first day as the CEO of Twitter: Twitter has been failing to remove dozens of known images of child sexual abuse, as revealed by an investigation by Stanford Internet Observatory; ad revenue is way down; Senators are concerned the company cannot comply with its obligations under the FTC consent decree; this is not helped by the fact it recently lost two high ranking trust and safety employees... and more! Good luck Linda! Meanwhile, YouTube is no longer enforcing its 2020 election misinformation policy; Instagram has reinstated RFK Jr's account; TikTok has been sharing user on an internal messaging tool accessible by ByteDance employees; and the Surgeon General issued an Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health.

Guest Matteo Cargnello approaches the challenge of greenhouse gases from a different perspective. He doesn't study how harmful chemicals got in the skies, or even the consequences. Instead, Cargnello is using his skills as a chemical engineer to turn them into other benign or useful chemicals. So far, he's turned greenhouse gases into valuable industrial chemicals, polymers, renewable fuels, and even ethanol. Useful products from greenhouse gases, that's the dream, Cargnello tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering'sThe Future of Everything.

This episode of The Future of Everything podcast with Srabanti Chowdhury first ran in 2022. We're sharing it again to offer a glimpse into research being done to identify new materials for semiconductors that could lead to smaller, faster, more powerful and more energy efficient electronics. Since we recorded this episode, the CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law, creating a $280 billion dollar investment in the field over the next 10 years, and in light of the renewed commitment to this technology, we're excited to share this conversation on the future of semiconductor materials.

Alex and Evelyn discuss the Supreme Court decisions in Gonzalez and Taamneh; Montana passing its state-wide TikTok ban and the immediate legal challenge filed against it; Meta's $1.3 billion dollar fine under the GDPR; OpenAI's charm offensive; and just another Monday at Twitter.

Deborah Cullinan's job is to integrate arts of every form across campus. She says art has the power to heal and may be the answer to many of our present-day societal problems, such as growing political polarization and social isolation borne by the pandemic. Art advances equity, improves health, and enhances well-being for all, she says. Everyone should see themselves as artists—engineers, physicians, political scientists alike. "We all want to have creative lives," Cullinan tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.

Play the sad trombone 5 times for this week's Twitter Corner: Musk censors political content at the behest of the Turkish Government in the final days of a close and historically important election; Linda Yaccarino is announced as the new CEO; Tucker Carlson announces he's going to stream his new show to Twitter; the platform announces not-so-encrypted messaging; and continues its ad hominem content moderation practices. Also: Singapore, Pakistan, Russia all crack down on internet freedom, and the European Court of Human Rights releases a wild ruling holding politicians responsible for third-party comments on their Facebook pages.

Helen Bronte-Stewart is a neurologist and an expert in movement disorders, like Parkinson's. She says new approaches, such as closed-loop deep-brain stimulation, and new digital health technologies that chart subtle changes in movement are reshaping the field, leading to new understandings and new treatments for this once-untreatable disease. To modulate behavior, you first have to measure it, Bronte-Stewart tells host Russ Altman. It's the future of movement disorders in this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.