Hosted by Jennifer Strong, SHIFT is a weekly podcast taking a closer look at the far-reaching impact of automation on our daily lives. From policy to process, we seek to understand how lives are changing alongside rapid breakthroughs in frontier technologies and artificial intelligence. Join us as we navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by this reshaped reality. ]]>
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June 10, 202622 min
Meet the CIA's Former Digital Chief
What do you think it would be like to lead AI efforts and the overall digital transformation of the CIA? This week, we find out as we dive into a world of espionage and secrets in the latest installment of our oral history project. We Meet: Retired Deputy CIA Director for Digital Innovation Jennifer Ewbank Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.This episode originally aired in October 2025.
June 4, 202622 min
Quantum Computing’s Hardest Path Reaches a Breakthrough
Microsoft EVP Jason Zander on the materials breakthrough that closed the gap, how AI agents cut the roadmap in half, and why he believes quantum's real job might be to make AI smarter.We Meet: Microsoft EVP of Discovery & Quantum Jason Zander Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
June 3, 202631 min
Digital Citizens or Digital Subjects?
Frank McCourt is an American executive and philanthropist. He’s also the author of “Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age”. We talk to him about that fight before a live audience in New York City at a gathering held by the responsible technology non-profit, All Tech Is Human.This episode originally aired in 2024.We Meet:Frank H. McCourt, Jr., civic entrepreneur and executive chairman of McCourt Global, founder and executive chairman of Project LibertyCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
May 27, 202625 min
How to Build AI for the Physical World
For as far as we’ve come with AI and robotics, there’s still a huge gap when it comes to combining the two. AI excels in the digital space, and in the physical world, robots are often pre-programmed. That’s where physical AI comes in. It’s critical for things that can’t tolerate the kinds of mistakes that are common in today’s statistics based AI, like self driving cars or managing the power grid. In the latest installment of our oral history project, we meet a central figure in these efforts, MIT's Daniela Rus.We Meet: Daniela Rus is the Director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
May 20, 202620 min
AI's Survival of the Fittest
The spray-and-pray approach to AI investing is dead. Join us as we discuss what it takes to stand out in a saturated market as we move beyond the hype to identify real moats and what’s next for investors in this space. This episode was taped before a live audience at Web Summit Vancouver. We meet: Andy McLoughlin is a seed-stage investor at Uncork Capital focused on B2B software, developer tools, and applied AI — and before VC, he co-founded Huddle, an enterprise collaboration platform that was acquired in 2016. George Mathew is a self-described "deep operator turned venture capitalist" at Insight Partners, with 20+ years building companies including as CEO of Kespry and President & COO of Alteryx, which he scaled through its IPO. Emily Fontaine leads IBM's $500 million Enterprise AI fund and quantum investing strategy — she's spent 15 years at IBM, previously serving as Executive Advocate to IBM's Chairman and CEO, and as AI Federal Leader for IBM Consulting. Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
May 13, 202615 min
Teaching Kids to Think About AI—Not Just Use It
What if we've all become so focused on what technology is capable of that we've lost track of what children are capable of? We Meet: Andrew Sliwinski is the VP and Head of Product Experience for Lego Education. Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
May 6, 202624 min
AI Ethics Needs a Nightmare, Not a North Star
What if the standard approach to responsible AI, built around aspirational values like fairness and transparency, is fundamentally broken in the age of AI agents? We Meet: Reid Blackman is the author of the new book The Ethical Nightmare Challenge and the founder of AI ethics consultancy Virtue.Episode Links:Reid and Jennifer are speaking at the Drawing Room Salon on May 20:https://thedrawingroom.ai/Reid's new book:https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Nightmare-Challenge-Avoid-Worst-ebook/dp/B0GRC1ZPYXCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
April 29, 202619 min
Built to Trust: Designing Safe, Smart Systems
How do you build intelligent systems that people trust? Then, how do you keep that trust when things go wrong? Because when things do, it’s not the tech that loses face but the brand people relied on. This episode was taped before a live audience on stage at the HumanX Conference in San Francisco.We Meet: Radha Basu, Founder & CEO of iMeritShuman Ghosemajumder, Co-founder & CEO of RekenAndrea Thomaz, Co-founder & CEO of Diligent Robotics Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
April 22, 202612 min
Capital One on the Last Mile Problem
Capital One is the largest issuer of credit cards in the U.S. It’s also one of the largest banks, and car finance companies, in the country. We learn from its experience building proprietary AI across fraud prevention, agentic workflows, customer experience, and risk and compliance in the latest installment of our oral history project.We Meet: Capital One’s Head of AI Foundations Milind Naphade Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
April 15, 202624 min
Reliability at the Speed of Change
Engineers charged with maintaining secure and reliable sites and services need to be able to observe what’s going on inside their systems. That observability data helps them spot issues sooner, fix problems faster, and learn from the whole experience.A live conversation from the stage at the HumanX Conference in San Francisco.We Meet: Christine Yen is the Co-founder and CEO of Honeycomb,Jennifer Tejada is the CEO and chairperson of PagerDutyCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.
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