Cities Decoded

Hi Cities Decoded community🙂 My podcast Mindful Notions has been nominated for its first award. While I focus Cities Decoded on cities x AI, Mindful Notions looks at young professionals x AI. If you have enjoyed listening to any of my conversations across either podcast, I would be so grateful for you to take a minute to vote for the podcast. Every vote counts towards a potential win! Vote here:...

Hi Cities Decoded community🙂 My podcast Mindful Notions has been nominated for its first award. While I focus Cities Decoded on cities x AI, Mindful Notions looks at young professionals x AI. If you have enjoyed listening to any of my conversations across either podcast, I would be so grateful for you to take a minute to vote for the podcast. Every vote counts towards a potential win! Vote here:...

Hi Cities Decoded community🙂 My podcast Mindful Notions has been nominated for its first award. While I focus Cities Decoded on cities x AI, Mindful Notions looks at young professionals x AI. If you have enjoyed listening to any of my conversations across either podcast, I would be so grateful for you to take a minute to vote for the podcast. Every vote counts towards a potential win! Vote here:...

This episode is all about an industry that does affect most major cities: the legal profession! This is probably the pinnacle of knowledge work and a big question is how much AI will actually disrupt the legal profession, and what good, if any can come out of that disruption. To help me start answering that question, I’m joined by Justin Curl — a 3L at Harvard Law School , a Schwarzman Scholar , a...

Read about what comes next for Cities Decoded here . Read the latest from the Daily TEA here . Read the latest from Elif here . Read the latest from Jon here . * See Jon in person at his next speaking event here . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samlicitiesdecoded.substack.com

Over the weekend, I stumbled upon the Interact fellowship . It is a fellowship of technologists that “come together to collaborate, seek out difficult conversations, and push each other to do good in the world.” Sounded like a good time! As someone who slightly missed the age cut off (I am in the age category where applicants are considered “on a case-by-case basis”), I figured why not send in an...

For those who have wanted to know, “what’s the tea with AI?” since the beginning of 2025, there hasn’t been a more consistent source than TEA (The Era Arc) . That’s why I was so happy to announce last month that the creator of The Era Arc would be coming to the pages of Cities Decoded . Every Monday and Tuesday, I have the privilege of sending out the Daily TEA alongside this creator. Every Friday...

👋Hey Cities Decoded community, I’ve got news that I’m so excited to share: Cities Decoded is partnering with The ERA Arc for a new 2026 content collaboration. If you’re here because you want to understand whats happening in AI without drowning in it , this partnership is for you. Whats changing: Starting tomorrow, you’ll see two new rhythms from this partnership: * Weekday: Daily TEA * A crisp, m...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samlicitiesdecoded.substack.com

When I joined the AI Collective team at the beginning of the year as Creative Director, DC Decoded was just an idea. Now, let me make one thing clear. Ideas themselves are not bad. They’re great! We wouldn’t possess anything we currently have without the initial idea. But ideas are a dime a dozen. The much harder part is knowing how to execute the good ideas. And boy, did DC Decoded teach me how t...

Juan’s contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmcontreras/ Aymara: https://www.aymara.ai/ * “ The Aymara LLM Risk & Responsibility Matrix ” * “ AUTOMATED SAFETY EVALUATIONS ACROSS 20 LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS: THE AYMARA LLM RISK AND RESPONSIBILITY MATRIX ” * “ We Tested 13 AI Image Generators. We Found Gender Bias That Poses a Major Business Risk ” * “ AUTOMATED EVALUATION OF GENDER BIAS ACROSS 13 LARG...

in this episode, deniz joins me to discuss the differences in the innovation culture in the us and in europe, while we cook a traditional turkish dish, hünkâr beğendi . we share how we use ai in our day to day lives, and disagree over whether it’s okay to name your ai chatbot. my dearest friend caroline kuria also joins us to add to the discussion from her beautiful soul, talks about how ai is mis...

The Era Arc : Come to our upcoming events: AI, Art & Culture Rooftop Social @ The LINE Hotel DC https://luma.com/h6nt7szk AI Build Blitz https://luma.com/buildblitz Beyond MWN Community Workshop: Washington, DC https://luma.com/aic-dc-10-2-25 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samlicitiesdecoded.substack.com

in this episode, sam li, head of knowledge at ai collective, joins elif to discuss what it means to build real community in the age of ai. we dive into trusting ai systems, building strong partnerships, integrating ai into daily life, as well as elif's ongoing yogurt obsession. hope you enjoy listening as much as we did recording it! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with...

Find out more about Glenn here! https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennparham/ GovBench Advisories: Advisory: Block China-hosted LLM Services on All Government Networks (2025-08-21) Advisory: Ban China-Trained LLMs from Government Production Environments (2025-08-21) Context for this episode⬇️ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episo...

White House AI Action Plan: “ Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan ” John’s blog: “ What the Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan Means for Enterprises ” 🚨Upcoming AI Collective DC events Generative Series X AI Collective Rooftop Social: https://luma.com/aic-dc-8-27 “Come grab a drink with us, enjoy live A.I. and art demos, and fascinating, funky speakers with the finest tech, art, and...

SUNDAY, AUG 17 UPDATE: We will now be releasing this course after the Make with Notion conference in September. In the meantime, please consider following the “ Mindful Notions” Substack to stay up to date with Notion features leading up to the conference! As the debate over which AI tool is the best continues online, the AI Collective’s DC chapter is committed to trying different tools ourselves...

Learn more about Allison’s work here! https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonshapira/ 🚨Upcoming AI Collective DC events The AI Collective x Notion Series — Part 3: https://lu.ma/notionxgenaicollective “​Join fellow Notion enthusiasts for our third event out of our three-part series showcasing Notion - the tool that helps you do your work better.” Mic Drop: AI Builders Pitch & Pod Social: https://lu.m...

Learn more about Cameron’s work here! https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronpowell/ 🚨Upcoming AI Collective DC events The AI Collective x Notion Series — Part 3: https://lu.ma/notionxgenaicollective “​Join fellow Notion enthusiasts for our third event out of our three-part series showcasing Notion - the tool that helps you do your work better.” Mic Drop: AI Builders Pitch & Pod Social: https://lu.ma...

Learn more about Victor’s work here! https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-shilo/ 🚨Upcoming AI Collective DC events The AI Collective x Notion Series — Part 3: https://lu.ma/notionxgenaicollective “​Join fellow Notion enthusiasts for our third event out of our three-part series showcasing Notion - the tool that helps you do your work better.” Mic Drop: AI Builders Pitch & Pod Social: https://lu.ma/p...

The AI Collective’s founding director Catherine and new DC lead Jabari Grubb join DC chapter creative director Sam Li to recap the chapter’s three June events. 🚨Upcoming AI Collective DC events Notion Mail pt. 3 (publishing soon): https://lu.ma/ai-collective-dc 🎁A gift for startups — 3 months of Notion Business and Notion AI FOR FREE As a token of appreciation to one of the backbones of this Sub...

Jessica Hall joins to talk about her work as Chief Growth Officer at OpsCanvas, her experience navigating the DC tech scene for most of her life, and the most transferrable skill from her ski instructor certification to tech leader. Jess’ work at OpsCanvas was one of the inspirations for my latest piece on startups creating Responsible AI products. Read that piece here . Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:...

Austin Nellessen joins to talk about my newly published piece in his Substack, ATLAS . By the end, I *think* that I have convinced him to be “Team Responsible AI startups” (bonus points if they are DC-based!). Plus, we break down what’s hype and what’s reality about a pressing AI paradox: Young professionals need to learn how to use a tool that is rapidly displacing the very jobs they need to adva...

GenAI Collective’s founding director Catherine , operations lead (DC chapter) Anna D’Aprile join creative director (DC chapter) Sam Li to recap the chapter’s most recent event: Inbox Intelligence pt. 1: Out with the old . The team talks about what Notion even is…and then what Notion Mail is. They cover what makes a demo event engaging. Plus, the team provides thoughts on the growing AI disruption...

Monica Lopez, PhD , wants to bring a human intelligence perspective to the design, development, and deployment of AI-enabled systems. What does that actually mean? “It’s all about integrating the fundamentals about human intelligence into machine intelligence…to create more beneficial systems.” And she has plenty of ways to do this important work. Right here in DC. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:42 Dr...