TED AI Podcast: Examining Artificial Intelligence (AI) From All Angles

 There is an effort in many states to secure election integrity by training election officials to spot AI and deepfakes, which almost exclusively spread disinformation. It's a smart move. For example, in Arizona, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes recently had an AI representation of himself made and distributed in video as a training tool. You cannot tell the difference between AI Fontes and the human Fontes. 

The opportunity for abuse is significant.

 As you know, TED Talks have a brand, and an impressive one at that. These "talks" are smart people saying smart things that other people either haven't noticed, have misinterpreted, or have ignored. How about a collection of podcasts for those not trapped by confirmation bias, meandering into misinformation, and shackled to conventional wisdom?

The TED Audio Collective is a collection of podcasts for the curious. They're for listeners as excited by psychology and design as science and technology—who want to dig deep into today’s most exciting ideas.

Their hosts range from TED speakers with viral TED Talks to veteran podcast producers, doctors, and academics. What do all of our hosts have in common? They explore big ideas, foster debate, and inspire change on a global scale. The TED Audio Collective includes podcasts like

TED Talks Daily, How to Be a Better Human, Conversations with People Who Hate Me, and more.

In this article, we'll look at The TED AI Show, a brand-new podcast hosted by AI-focused online personality Bilawal Sidhu. This new podcast will feature TED Talks regarding AI and aims to be AI-optimistic, but AI-realistic as well.

And the podcast won’t just be broadcasts of TED Talks; it’ll also feature interviews with figures from all sides of the AI world, like OpenAI’s Helen Toner – one member of the board that fired Sam Altman.

 Sure, some predictions about AI are just hype – but others suggest that everything we know is about to fundamentally change. Creative technologist Bilawal Sidhu talks with the world’s leading experts, artists, and journalists to explore the thrilling, sometimes terrifying, future ahead.

 Bilawal Sidhu is a creator, engineer, and product builder obsessed with blending reality and imagination using art, science and technology. His work has been featured by TED, BBC, The Verge, PetaPixel, Forbes, Benzinga, Esquire and more.

With more than a decade of experience in the tech industry, he spent six years as a product manager at Google. There, he made significant contributions to groundbreaking projects such as Google's Immersive View, ARCore Geospatial API and YouTubeVR. His work with organizations and people – including Warner Music, Pepsi, Elton John and Gorillaz – underscores his talent for crafting engaging experiences through technology.

If the first episode is any indication of the intellectual depth and technological entanglement of the show, then The TED AI Show will be an absorbing journey for listeners. In the first episode, Bilawal and human rights activist and technologist Sam Gregory discuss how to protect our sense of reality.

Gregory is a fascinating guest, explaining the mechanics of deepfakes. At one point Gregory gives Bilawal and listeners an acronym used by experts to detect deepfakes. It's SIFT -- STOP before you're emotionally triggered, INVESTIGATE the source, FIND alternative sources, TRACE the original.

Sam Gregory concludes that, "We may end up in a world where you cannot upload imagery without having your identity tied to those images."

"That is a scary world," Gregory adds in a plaintive voice.

Gregory concludes that, "There is a huge gap in access to detection tools for people who need it most, like journalists or election officials."

It's an episode that is not doomscrolling about AI, but more like a preparatory drill. In essence, host and guest agree that, "We can handle this if we are ready."

Technology is typically agnostic, worshiping neither good nor evil. It's how people use the tech. Einstein knew that before the atomic bomb was built. Oppenheimer learned it after.

While AI via deepfakes audio and video can cause people to question their legitimacy, sadly, that ingrained skepticism has already been implanted in people by a human -- Donald Trump, who called the media "Fake News" anytime a new story did not coincide with his version of facts. Witness past and present crowd size exaggerations.

Check out The TED AI Show. It's easy to fear what we don't understand. This show can help us control what we can learn to understand.