Consequential

Are the robots coming for your job? The answer isn’t quite that simple. We look at what’s real and what’s hype in the narrative of industry disruption, how we might be able to better predict future technological change and how artificial intelligence will change our understanding of the nature of intelligence itself.

Our future isn’t a coin flip. In an age of artificial intelligence and increasing automation, Consequential looks at our digital future and discusses what’s significant, what’s coming and what we can do about it. Over the course of our first season, hosts Lauren Prastien and Eugene Leventhal will unpack the narrative of technological change in conversation with leading technologists, ethicists, economists and everything in between.

Today we're asking our experts: how do you coordinate a crisis response to an issue like COVID-19, where every public health decision has economic ramifications, and every economic decision has a direct impact on public health? To answer these questions, we speak to Dean Ramayya Krishnan of Heinz College; Professor of Machine Learning and Public Policy, Rayid Ghani; and Distinguished Service Professor Richard Stafford.

With consideration to the events of the past week and in order to hold space for the voices that are boldly challenging systemic racism and injustice, we have decided to postpone the release of our new episode. We would also like to echo the sentiment expressed by Carnegie Mellon's President Farnam Jahanian, that it is up to each one of us – no matter our background – to confront and dismantle racism and injustice wherever they exist.

Can teams still be effective when working together remotely? Is working from home the future of work? In this week’s episode, hosts Eugene and Lauren talk to Professor Anita Williams Woolley of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business to learn about how communication and collaboration change once teams are no longer face-to-face, and we hear from people in a variety of fields about their experience working remotely.

In light of recent developments related to COVID-19, we have decided to push back our second season to focus instead on what we can learn from the coronavirus in terms of technology and society. In our mini-season, we will cover the use of large-scale public health data, remote education, and the future of work.

Inside the black box, important decisions are being made that may affect the kinds of jobs you apply for and are selected for, the candidates you’ll learn about and vote for, or even the course of action your doctor might take in trying to save your life. However, when it comes to figuring out how algorithms make decisions, it’s not just a matter of looking under the hood.