Podcast appearances and mentions of tom simonite

Artificial intelligence has made headlines all year long, but the turn of events this week was extraordinary. OpenAI was thrown into chaos with the firing and eventual rehiring of CEO Sam Altman. There was a shakeup in the company's board of directors and fierce debates about how much influence ethics should have on the company's direction. That uncertainty of how to philosophically approach artificial intelligence will keep casting a shadow over the tech industry even after the dust settles around the OpenAI drama. Researchers, proponents of ethical AI, and corporate customers of these new generative AI tools will continue to ask how these technologies are going to shape our future, and what influence they will have over our lives. This week, we're bringing you an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast in which New Yorker writer Joshua Rothman talks to Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called godfather of AI, about how rapidly AI has advanced and how it may alter the future of humanity. Show Notes: This episode originally aired on November 21, 2023. You can find a full transcript here. Listen to the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you get your podcasts. Read Joshua Rothman's profile of Geoffrey Hinton in The New Yorker. Tom Simonite can be found on social media @tsimonite. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Gadget Lab is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom Simonite is a senior writer for WIRED covering AI. Previously, he was San Francisco bureau chief at MIT Technology Review, and he wrote and edited technology coverage at New Scientist magazine in London. He speaks with us about his writing process and the challenges of keeping the general public informed about AI and health.If you like what you hear, let a friend know, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and connect with us on Twitter @AIHealthPodcast.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. And increasingly, it's becoming a critical part of healthcare. Doctors use it to try to suss out symptoms of deadly infections like sepsis; companies like Google are developing apps to help you identify ailments just by uploading some pics.  But AI is only as good as the data sets fed into these systems. And when the data sets are flawed, or the results are not properly interpreted, the software can misidentify symptoms (or fail to identify them entirely). In some cases, this may even result in false positives, or exacerbate already stark racial disparities in the healthcare system. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Tom Simonite joins us to talk about the blind spots in medical AI and what happens when tech companies put these algorithms into their users' hands. Show Notes:  Read Tom's story about the flaws in the AI that predicts sepsis here. Read his story about Google's new dermatology app. Read more about the racial bias in AI systems (and how those algorithms might be fixed). Also check out Lauren's story about how the internet doesn't let you forget. Recommendations:  Tom recommends the novel No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. Lauren recommends the book Girlhood by Melissa Febos. Mike recommends the album Acustico by Céu. Tom Simonite can be found on Twitter @tsimonite. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple held its annual WWDC event this week, where it announced a whole bunch of new software features for its mobile and desktop platforms. It was also yet another opportunity for Apple to insist that all you need to do to simplify your life is buy more Apple products. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior associate reviews editor Adrienne So and WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu join us to talk about WWDC and the pros and cons of assimilating into Apple's ecosystem. Show Notes:  Read Lauren's story about Apple's walled garden of products. Read Julian's story about the biggest features coming to your iPhone this fall. Check out everything Apple announced at WWDC here. Recommendations:  Adrienne recommends Anve Swimwear for this post-pandemic hot mess summer. Julian recommends the Secretlab Magnus Desk. Lauren recommends Tom Simonite's WIRED profile of ousted Google researcher Timnit Gebru. Mike recommends the browser extension Minimal Twitter built by Thomas Wang. Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Julian Chokkattu is @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is it time we regained control of our data and found new and better ways to protect it? You and I know that the social media platforms and internet sites we visit collect data on us. In many ways, they monetize our data and use it as a product that can be purchased. In this episode of Short and Sweet AI, I talk about personal data as private property and whether there is a way for us to choose who gets to use our data. In this episode find out: The true value of data Whether we should get paid for our data Who Professor Song is How Professor Song and her company “Oasis Labs” are working on a system that could potentially help users protect their data and even get paid for it How you could potentially make your data your private property Professor Song's vision for the future and why she believes that we should get revenue by sharing our data Important Links & Mentions https://www.oasislabs.com/ (Oasis Labs) https://drpepermd.com/podcast-2/page/4/ (Are Machine Learning and Deep learning the Same as AI?) Resources: https://www.wired.com/story/dawn-song-oasis-labs-data-privacy-wired25/ (Oasis Labs' Dawn Song on a Safer Way to Protect Your Data) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/technology/artificial-intelligence-dawn-song.html (Building a World Where Data Privacy Exists Online) https://www.aitrends.com/data-privacy-and-security/get-paid-for-your-data-reap-the-data-dividend/ (Get Paid for Your Data, Reap the Data Dividend) https://medium.com/oasislabs/giving-users-control-of-their-genomic-data-e9ae8685d9ca (Giving Users Control of their Genomic Data) https://www.wired.com/video/watch/oasis-labs-dawn-song-in-conversation-with-tom-simonite (Oasis Labs' Dawn Song in Conversation with Tom Simonite) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMh5YqKopjE (deeplearning.ai's Heroes of Deep Learning: Dawn Song) https://www.npr.org/2019/09/18/762046356/u-s-military-researchers-work-to-fix-easily-fooled-ai (Computer Scientists Work To Fix Easily Fooled AI) Episode Transcript: From Short and Sweet AI, I'm Dr. Peper, and today I want to talk with you about personal data as private property. You and I know that social media platforms and internet sites we visit are collecting data on us. We know they're selling our data to advertisers. I mean, that's their business model. They provide a platform for us to connect with each other and we give them our personal data as payment. Data is valuable. Data is the new oil. It brings in billions of dollars of income for Google, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and countless other companies. When we're online and we click on a pop-up that says “accept”, we're essentially giving away our personal information to that company. And do we really have a choice? You either have to accept the terms or you're not allowed to use that site. Well, what if we could be paid for our data, what if we could determine who gets data about what sites we visit, what apps we use on our phones, what physical locations we go to, what conversations we have, basically what if we could be paid for all the information companies are gathering on us now on a daily basis.  And what if we had a system that only provides our data to who we say with great privacy protection using the security of a block chain type technology. Enter Professor Dawn Song and her company Oasis and we are one step closer to that reality. Professor Song is considered to be one of the world's expert on computer security. She is a Mac Arthur “genius' recipient and a professor at UC Berkley. Much of her work is in the area of machine learning which I've talked about in a previous podcast and in adversarial AI. Adversarial AI is the study of how computer systems are hacked to transmit the wrong information. While still a graduate student at Berkeley, her research drew attention for showing machine learning algorithms can infer what someone is typing. She showed...

Another month, another Apple event. This time around, we saw three new Macs, all with a shiny new chip inside them. Apple's M1 processor is a great big leap forward for the company. It marks a shift from Intel-made chips to designs that Apple produces entirely in-house, a change that gives the company much greater control over the products it creates. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Tom Simonite and WIRED senior associate editor Julian Chokkattu come on to talk about Apple's new chips, operating system, and MacBooks, and what it all means for the future of the company. Show Notes:  Read Tom’s story about Apple’s new chips here. Check out everything Apple announced this week here. Stay tuned for our reviews of the new M1-powered Macs, which should publish in the coming weeks. Recommendations:  Tom recommends getting a mesh Wi-Fi router (he likes the TP Link Deco). Julian recommends The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Mike recommends the new Werner Herzog documentary Fireball on Apple TV+. (Read WIRED’s look at the film here.) Tom Simonite can be found on Twitter @tsimonite. Julian Chokkattu is @JulianChokkattu. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Deepfake videos, which are manipulated with AI technology to appear authentic, have been increasingly circulated online, raising concerns about the ethics of their use and the potential to spread misinformation ahead of the 2020 election. Tom Simonite, senior writer at Wired, joins us to discuss what deepfakes are and the concerns that come along with them.

Next week, we’ll be bound for the largest consumer electronics showcase of the season. CES starts on January 7 in Las Vegas, and we’ll be heading into the fray to touch, swipe, drive, cuddle, ride, and otherwise experience all of the latest gadgets the consumer tech industry wants to put in front of our eager eyeballs. On this week’s show, Michael Calore, Lauren Goode, and special guest Tom Simonite run through all the trends we expect to see at CES, from the practical (5G, smartphone tech, autonomous driving features) to the ludicrous (flying cars, AI refrigerators, internet-connected vibrators). Show Notes Read more about folding screens. Qualcomm’s 5G announcements came early this year. Read up on Honda’s augmented driving initiative. Mashable on the overabundance of men as CES 2019 keynote speakers, and the Verge report about 2018. Follow all of our CES coverage. Recommendations Tom recommends shopping offline whenever you can, especially for things like shoes. Lauren recommends The Morning Show on Apple TV+. Mike recommends the Oxo Compact Cold Brew Coffee Maker. Lauren Goode can be found on Twitter @LaurenGoode. Tom Simonite is @TSimonite. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our consulting executive producer is Alex Kapelman (@alexkapelman). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. You can also download an app like Pocket Casts or Google Podcasts, and search for Gadget Lab. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may not realize it, but when you send a spit-filled tube off to a lab that’s going to analyze your DNA, you’re linking the most unique identifier possible (your gene sequence) to other sensitive personal information, like your name, home address, and credit card number. How can you know that the DNA lab will properly decouple your genetic data from your personal information? Well, you just have to trust them. Obviously, that arrangement isn’t ideal, which is why a new startup called Nebula is using robust digital privacy protocols—encrypted email, VPNs, and blockchain technology—to guard its customers’ information. WIRED reporter Megan Molteni joins us this week to talk about genetic sequencing, how personal data is handled, and what this startup is doing to change the best practices within the industry. Also, there’s a new Facebook Portal in the world, Amazon is cracking down on shady shopping apps, and we’ll tell you why you should wait to upgrade to iOS 13. Show Notes: Read Megan’s story about Nebula’s use of blockchain technology here. Tom Simonite tells us about the new Facebook Portal. Lauren Goode on iOS 13’s many bugs. Louise Matsakis on Amazon’s app crackdown. Recommendations: Lauren recommends the new Netflix series Unbelievable. Megan recommends the true-crime podcast In the Dark. Mike recommends the meta-interview show Everything Is Alive. Arielle recommends the book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. Follow Megan Molteni on Twitter @meganmolteni. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren Goode is @laurengoode. Arielle Pardes can be found at @pardesoteric. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Our theme song is by Solar Keys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, James speaks to Tom Simonite, senior writer for WIRED magazine. Tom's interested in discovering technologies that are changing the world we live in, particularly artificial intelligence. His passion took him from the UK to LA, in pursuit of the abundance of ground-breaking tech being developed in the city. Tom discusses how AI is being used to search for emotions within photos, how it's proving life-changing in India in the treatment of diabetes and loss of eyesight, and why the magazine is launching in the Middle East.

Darren Elias knows poker. The 32-year-old is the only person to have won four World Poker Tour titles and has earned more than $7 million at tournaments. Despite his expertise, he learned something new this spring from an artificial intelligence bot. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Elias was helping to test new software from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook.

In March, Matt Bratlien saw something odd in the spacious suburb of Silver Firs, north of Seattle. A six-wheeled robot with the Amazon Prime logo on its sky-blue carapace was driving up and down the sidewalks and curbs, watched by a company representative. “I was surprised, excited, and very curious,” says Bratlien, a partner at Net-Tech, an IT services company in nearby Bellevue. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED.

On Monday the House Judiciary committee announced a bipartisan antitrust probe that has Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon in its crosshairs. The news followed reports that the Federal Trade Commission is examining Amazon's power over online retailing. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Amazon's founder and CEO Jeff Bezos appeared untroubled by that attention at a company conference in Las Vegas Thursday.

Amazon's Alexa is ready to broaden its one-track mind. The virtual assistant can deliver weather forecasts and traffic updates, and tap more than 90,000 additional functions, or “skills,” contributed by outside developers. The catch is that you can generally do only one of those bounteous things at a time. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED.

It is unclear how many people died when Chinese troops cleared pro-democracy protests from Beijing's Tiananmen Square 30 years ago this week. Local authorities said it was 241. A cursory search of the web or social media will show that human rights organizations estimate a death toll many times higher—unless you're in China. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED.

In early April, the European Commission published guidelines intended to keep any artificial intelligence technology used on the EU's 500 million citizens trustworthy. The bloc's commissioner for digital economy and society, Bulgaria's Mariya Gabriel, called them “a solid foundation based on EU values.” Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED.

Millions of people routinely say “hey” to voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, even though the experience can be frustratingly glitchy. On Tuesday, Google previewed new technology that makes speech recognition strikingly more responsive, suggesting voice control could soon be seamless enough to be irresistible. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED.

Some people believe that decentralization is the inevitable future of the web. They believe that internet users will start to demand more privacy and authenticity of information online and that they’ll look to decentralized platforms to get those things. But would decentralization be as utopian as advocates say it could be? Host Manoush Zomorodi speaks to Eugen Rochko of Mastodon, an ad-free alternative to Twitter; Justin Hunter of Graphite docs, a decentralized alternative to GoogleDocs; Maria Bustillos who hopes to help eliminate fake news online through the Blockchain; David Irvine, the co-founder of MaidSafe who plans to make the centralized internet as we know it redundant; and Tom Simonite of WIRED, who comments on both the promise and also the pitfalls of decentralization. IRL is an original podcast from Mozilla, maker of Firefox and always fighting for you. For more on the series go to irlpodcast.org Help us dream up the next season of IRL. What topics should we cover? Who should we talk to? Let us know by filling out this survey. Try out the decentralized endeavors covered in this episode of IRL: Mastodon Graphite Docs MaidSafe Popula Decentralization efforts are proof that the age of internet innovation is far from over. In fact, Mozilla staff work tirelessly on decentralized web standards, which have been — and continue to be — widely adopted. Mozilla co-chaired the W3C Social Web Working Group 2014 through 2018, which produced several key decentralized social web standards. Some have dozens of implementations like Webmention (a standard for federating conversations across the decentralized web); and MicroPub (a standard API for client applications to post to decentralized web services). Check out IndieWeb.org for more on key decentralized web standards, and ‘become a citizen’ of the Indie Web. As a part of Mozilla’s dedication to decentralized innovation, Mozilla participated in the 2018 Decentralized Web Summit. See our Founder and Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker’s talk on revitalizing the web. Hear Tantek Çelik, Web Standards Lead, speak on taking back your content with practical decentralization steps; and watch Chris Riley, Head of Policy, lead a web panel on decentralization. So, are you inspired? Want to work on the decentralized web? Join Mozilla at one of these events: Feb 23-24, 2019: IndieWebCamp Austin; Mar 30-31, 2019: IndieWebCamp New Haven; May 4-5, 2019: IndieWebCamp Berlin; June 29-30, 2019: IndieWeb Summit in Portland. Questions about participating? Ask here. For more, we've teamed up with 826 Valencia to bring you articles written by students on IRL topics this season. Accompanying this IRL episode, Huy An N. from De Marillac Academy wrote about centralized social media platforms and privacy. And, see this article from Common Sense Media, on why we need more research on kids and tech (centralized and not).

WIRED writer Tom Simonite explains quantum computing to us. Kinda.