A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook? This episode we go behind the scenes of an investigation that uncovered how sensitive photos taken by an AI powered vacuum were leaked and landed on the internet.  Reporting: A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook? Roomba testers feel misled after intimate images ended up on Facebook We Meet: Eileen Guo, MIT Technology Review Albert Fox Cahn, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Credits: This episode was reported by Eileen Guo and produced by Emma Cillekens an ..read more

Our reporting about farming, AI and satellites turned into three episodes of this podcast, which you can find linked here in the show notes, and as part of this reporting we also toured a satellite factory in downtown San Francisco, called Planet Labs. This week we bring you along for one of our audio postcards to hear how these satellites are built and tested. We meet:  Jacob Stern, director of test engineering at Planet Labs Credits: This episode was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Mat Honan and mixed by Garret Lang, w ..read more

A panel of luminaries join us live on stage at MIT Technology Review’s flagship conference, EmTech MIT, and discuss the path forward for AI research. We Meet: Will Douglas Heaven, Senior Editor of AI at MIT Technology Review Ashley Llorens, Vice President & Managing Director at Microsoft Research Raia Hadsell, Senior Director of Research and Robotics at DeepMind Yann LeCun, NYU Professor, VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta Credits: This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts with special thanks to Will Douglas Heaven, Amy Lammer ..read more

From chess to Jeopardy to e-sports, AI is increasingly beating humans at their own games. But that was never the ultimate goal. In this episode we dig into the symbiotic relationship between games and AI. We meet the big players in the space, and we take a trip to an arcade. We Meet:  Julian Togelius Will Douglas-Heaven David Silver  David Fahri  We Talked To:  Julian Togelius Will Douglas-Heaven Karen Hao David Silver  David Fahri  Natasha Regan Sounds From: Jeopardy 2011-02:The IBM Challenge https://archive.org/details/Jeopardy.2011.02.The.IBM.Challeng ..read more

Algorithms now determine how much things cost. It’s called dynamic pricing and it adjusts according to current market conditions in order to increase profits. The rise of ecommerce has propelled pricing algorithms into an everyday occurrence—whether you’re shopping on Amazon, booking a flight, hotel or ordering an Uber.  We Meet:  Lisa Wilkins, UX designer  Gabe Smith, chief evangelist, Pricefx Aylin Caliskan, assistant professor, University of Washington Joseph Harrington, professor of business, economics and public policy, University of Pennsylvania Maxime Cohen, Scale AI Ch ..read more

Cameras in stores aren’t anything new—but these days there are AI brains behind the electric eyes. In some stores, sophisticated systems are tracking customers in almost every imaginable way, from recognizing their faces to gauging their age, their mood, and virtually gussying them up with makeup. The systems rarely ask for people’s permission, and for the most part they don’t have to. In our season 1 finale, we look at the explosion of AI and face recognition technologies in retail spaces, and what it means for the future of shopping. We meet: RetailNext CTO Arun Nair, L'Oreal's Technology I ..read more

AI is used in farming in some ways you might not expect, like for tracking the health of crops—from space. We travel from test farms to labs in the second installment of our series on agriculture, AI, and satellites.  We Meet: Joseph Liefer, senior product manager of autonomy at John Deere Julian Sanchez, director of emerging technology at John Deere Shely Aranov, CEO of InnerPlant Rod Kumimoto, CSO of InnerPlant Credits: This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong, Emma Cillekens and Anthony Green. It was edited by Mat Honan, and mixed by Garret Lang, with original music ..read more

AI is used in agriculture to precisely target weeds and optimize irrigation practices. It’s also being used in ways you might not expect, like for tracking the health of cow pastures—from space. We travel from test farms to orchards in the first of a two-part series on agriculture, AI, and satellites.  We Meet:  Greg Brickner, Veterinarian and grazing specialist at Organic Valley Geoff Klein, irrigation manager of Bullseye Farms John Bourne, SVP Ceres Imaging Deanna Kovar, VP of Production and Precision Ag Production Systems at John Deere Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere Credits: T ..read more

We’re in the middle of another major disruption in retail—one that’s been accelerated by the pandemic, and looks to take the convenience of e-commerce and apply it to physical environments. In this episode, we examine how AI is at the center of this transition. We meet: Prakhar Mehrotra, VP, Walmart Jordan Fisher, Chief Executive Officer, Standard AI Terrence Griffin, Quality Control Specialist, Standard AI Suresh Kumar, Global Chief Technology Officer and CDO, Walmart This episode was produced by Anthony Green and Emma Cillekens. It was edited by Jennifer Strong and Mat Honan and mixed by G ..read more

Face mapping and other tracking systems are changing the sports experience in the stands and on the court. In part-three of this latest series on facial recognition, Jennifer Strong and the team at MIT Technology Review jump on the court to unpack just how much things are changing. This episode was originally published December 8, 2020. We meet:  Donnie Scott, senior vice president of public security, IDEMIA Michael D'Auria, vice president of business development, Second Spectrum Jason Gay, sports columnist, The Wall Street Journal Rachel Goodger, director of business development, F ..read more