Prompt and process with Ethan Mollick [AI miniseries]

07/05/23 • 56 min

What if you could tweak the questions you ask ChatGPT and make you ten times more effective or productive? Ethan Mollick is an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship, and also examines the effects of artificial intelligence on work and education. He’s also an insightful and leading voice in the AI space, especially on Twitter. In the final episode of our AI miniseries, Reid, Aria, and Ethan discuss how society can prepare for a future with AI and how AI enhances learning in—and beyond—the classroom. Ethan shares his specific advice for people of varying experience with AI who are looking to get more out of their interactions with ChatGPT.

Read the transcript of this episode here.

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all of the episodes, visit www.possible.fm/podcast.

Topics:

Hellos and intros - 3:59

Changes that can make AI more exciting—and functional - 5:36

Considering more futures involving AI - 8:00

Three tiers of prompting advice - 11:42

Novel applications of AI - 15:34

What education is needed to seize AI’s potential? - 19:16

AI as a tool for reflection - 25:10

When AI falls into scripts - 26:35

AI in the classroom - 28:24

AI for lifelong learners - 38:19

The humanization of AI - 41:11

How we elevate humanity using AI - 43:39

Rapid fire questions - 47:41

Debrief with Reid and Aria - 53:47

Possible is a podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. Most of all, it asks: what if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way? In its first season, hosts Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger spoke with visionaries across many fields, from climate science to criminal justice, and from entertainment to education. For this special miniseries, they’re speaking with expert builders and skilled users of artificial intelligence. These conversations also feature another kind of guest, AI. Whether it’s Inflection’s Pi or OpenAI’s GPT-4, each episode will include an AI-generated element to spark discussion.

Possible is produced by Wonder Media Network and hosted by Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger. Our showrunner is Shaun Young. Possible is produced by Edie Allard and Sara Schleede. Jenny Kaplan is our Executive Producer and Editor. Special thanks to Surya Yalamanchili, Ian Alas, Greg Beato and Ben Relles.

Read the transcript of this episode here.

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all of the episodes, visit www.possible.fm/podcast.

Topics:

Hellos and intros - 3:59

Changes that can make AI more exciting—and functional - 5:36

Considering more futures involving AI - 8:00

Three tiers of prompting advice - 11:42

Novel applications of AI - 15:34

What education is needed to seize AI’s potential? - 19:16

AI as a tool for reflection - 25:10

When AI falls into scripts - 26:35

AI in the classroom - 28:24

AI for lifelong learners - 38:19

The humanization of AI - 41:11

How we elevate humanity using AI - 43:39

Rapid fire questions - 47:41

Debrief with Reid and Aria - 53:47

Previous Episode

Socially assistive robots with Maja Matarić [AI miniseries]

What if we each had a personal “buddy” to support us? Maja Mataric is a computer scientist, roboticist and AI researcher at the University of Southern California. She pioneered the field of socially assistive robotics: the design of robots to help humans—especially vulnerable people such as kids with autism, the elderly, and people struggling with illness—navigate complicated social needs. In the second episode of our AI miniseries, Maja, Reid, and Aria discuss AI, robots and our future with both. Throughout her career, Maja has sought to understand human needs and desires in order to create the right kind of robot. How big should it be? Should it be a humanoid? Animal? Or... WALL-E? These questions lead to the nature of empathy itself—and what it means for robots to be empathetic. Maja also responds to an AI-generated story that speculates on the role that a socially assistive robot could play for a multigenerational family.

Read the transcript of this episode here.

Read the AI story here.

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all of the episodes, visit www.possible.fm/podcast.

Topics:

03:30 - What inspired Maja to pursue robotics?

06:09 - The pop culture perception of “doomsday robots”

07:32 - What are socially assistive robots?

10:20 - How socially assistive robots can enhance our humanity

12:55 - The relationship between an assistive robot and a human

16:19 - The hardware side of AI

20:05 - How our lives would look different with robots in them

24:06 - Why physically embodied robots are important

27:42 - AI story about intergenerational family and a robot assistant

31:16 - How VR/AR can be integrated with AI

38:34 - Rapidfire questions

44:10 - Debrief with Reid and Aria

Possible is produced by Wonder Media Network and hosted by Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger. Our showrunner is Shaun Young. Possible is produced by Edie Allard and Sara Schleede. Jenny Kaplan is our Executive Producer and Editor. Special thanks to Samantha Barber, Surya Yalamanchili, Ian Alas, Greg Beato and Ben Relles.

Next Episode

BONUS: Reid Hoffman’s commencement speech at Bologna Business School

What does AI mean for the leaders of tomorrow? On this bonus episode of Possible, Reid talks about the role of AI in shaping the future, the importance of beauty in technology, AI as a tool for amplification, and the responsibility of us all in using AI as a tool to benefit humankind.

This speech was originally delivered by Reid Hoffman in English on September 8, 2023 at the Bologna Business School at the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the Western world.

The transcript of the speech is here: https://www.reidhoffman.org/bologna-business-school-commencement-speech/

We’ve used AI—no human editing in this case to show what’s possible with the technology—to translate this speech into over 100 languages. View those versions here.