The Future of Everything

Guest Matt Abrahams is a master communicator who helps others overcome their fear of speaking — before live audiences, in small groups, or even one-on-one. His catchphrase, “Think Fast, Talk smart,” describes a mindset that, he says, is key to speaking well. Thinking fast is the ability to recognize and respond to patterns in order to talk smart — becoming more salient, relevant, and concise in th...

We’re bringing you a timely best-of episode, given the recent advances in generative AI tools like ChatGPT. A couple years ago we interviewed Jeff Hancock, a Stanford professor of communication whose research explores the psychological and interpersonal processes at play when people communicate with each other and with computers. At the time of this conversation, ChatGPT wasn’t yet available to th...

Astrophysicist Risa Wechsler studies the evolution of the universe. She says that our understanding of how the universe formed and how it will change over time is changing as new technologies for seeing and measuring space come online, like a new high-resolution camera that can quickly map the full sky to see everything that moves, or new spectrographs that will map the cosmos in 3D and enable us...

Guest Jeannette Bohg is an expert in robotics who says there is a transformation happening in her field brought on by recent advances in large language models. The LLMs have a certain common sense baked in and robots are using it to plan and to reason as never before. But they still lack low-level sensorimotor control — like the fine skill it takes to turn a doorknob. New models that do for roboti...

Guest Sergiu Pasca is a physician-scientist who turns skin cells into stem cells and then into brain tissues he calls “organoids” and “assembloids” in order to study psychiatric and neurological illness in a dish instead of in living human beings. With this knowledge, Pasca hopes to develop new treatments for conditions ranging from schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders to chronic pain, he t...

With TikTok in the hands of 170 million Americans, cybersecurity expert Amy Zegart says it’s time to talk about consequences. Foreign access to all that data on so many Americans is a national security threat, she asserts. For those as concerned as she, Zegart has good news and bad. The government has gotten better at fighting cyberthreats, but artificial intelligence is making things very complic...

A best of episode where Russ interviews one of his bioengineering colleagues,   Fan Yang, about some of the fascinating work she’s doing in the realm of tissue engineering. Hear more about the ways her lab is modeling human tissue to help develop a better understanding of how we might effectively replace damaged tissues and alleviate a number of health concerns. Episode Reference Links: Fan Yang's...

A best of episode where Russ interviews computer scientist and electrical engineer, Dorsa Sadigh . They had a fantastic conversation about the work she’s doing to train robots to better understand humans, and as she shares, it turns out that one key to this work is better understanding human behavior.  If you’re curious about how we’re going to make human-robot interaction work, this is a great ep...

We’re bringing back an episode about trust and AI. In a world where the use of Artificial Intelligence is exploding, guest computer scientist Carlos Guestrin shares insights from the work he’s doing to support the development of trust between humans and machines. We originally recorded this episode in 2022, but the insights are just as if not more relevant today. We hope you’ll take another listen...

Guest Anna Lembke is a psychiatrist and a specialist in the behavioral sciences who studies addiction. While there is tremendous variety in the things people can be addicted to, all forms are tied to dopamine, a biochemical that is key to human senses of pleasure, reward, and motivation. She says that new treatments are combining traditional abstinence with programs that help patients reenergize d...

Humans and computers making music together, it’s the best of both worlds. Ge Wang is a professor of music, a computer scientist, and director of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra – an orchestra in which human musicians and computers collaborate to make music. “I once thought computer music was abstract and inaccessible, but it can be very playful, too,” he says. Humans and computers making music toget...

Laura Simons is a clinical psychologist and an authority on pain, particularly chronic pain in childhood, which is much more common than widely understood. Most people don't even think chronic pain happens in children, says Simons. The consequences, however, are serious, ranging from learning gaps from missed school to social isolation and even depression. Better treatment begins with a better und...

Guest Olivier Gevaert is an expert in multi-modal biomedical data modeling and recently developed new methods in the new science of “spatial transcriptomics” that are able to predict how cancer cells present spatially and will behave in the future.  Tumors are not monolithic, he says, but made up of various cell types. Spatial transcriptomics measures cells in the undisturbed organization of the t...

Rebecca Silverman is an expert in how humans learn to read. It’s a complex process, she says. First we must connect letters and sounds to decode words in texts. Researchers know a lot about the decoding process and how to teach it. But, beyond that, we must also comprehend what the words in texts are conveying. Comprehension is complex, and researchers know much less about the comprehension proces...

Professor and cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand’s latest book, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers , explores notions of what she calls “tight” and “loose” cultures, and how each shapes us as individuals and the world around us. Tight cultures closely follow unwritten cultural norms, while those on the looser side have more latitude. Culture is complicated, she says, but understanding its nuances is ke...

We’re taking you into our archive of over 250 episodes to re-share an interview Russ Altman did in 2022 with Stanford Medicine Professor of Surgery, Carla Pugh .  Performing surgery is profoundly complex and requires precision, dexterity and lots of practice. Dr. Pugh shares about how she’s studying the movements of skilled surgeons to better understand what makes them successful, which can in tur...

Mark Skylar-Scott is one of the world’s foremost experts on the 3D printing of human tissue, cell by cell. It’s a field better known as bioprinting. But Skylar-Scott hopes to take things to a level most never imagined. He and his collaborators are working to bioprint an entire living, working human heart. We’re printing biology, Skylar-Scott tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engin...

Cognitive scientist Michael Frank studies differences in how children and AI learn language. There is a “data gap” between the billions of words ChatGPT has to work with and the millions of words a toddler is exposed to. But, says Frank, children learn in a rich social context that supports their learning. He’s currently conducting the “ BabyView Study ,” where he puts cameras on young children's...

We’re re-running an important episode on Alzheimer’s disease — a topic that touches many people. We still don’t have a complete understanding of the disease and that makes it hard to design effective therapies. In 2022, Russ Altman sat down with mechanical engineer Ellen Kuhl who offered a glimpse into the way she’s using computational modeling to help improve our understanding of Alzheimer’s dise...

Ran Abramitzky studies the economic history of immigration by tapping into now-public government records and using AI to chart changing attitudes on immigration captured in written documents and official speeches. What’s revealed is a remarkable story that often diverges from conventional wisdom. Not all streets were paved with gold, Abramitzky tells host Russ Altman , himself a descendant of immi...

We’re re-releasing a wonderful episode about the positive impact art has on individual and societal health. Guest Deborah Cullinan, vice president for the arts at Stanford, shares how including just 10-20 minutes of art in your day — whether through drawing or dancing to your favorite song — can contribute to improved health. Her insights remind us, and hopefully will remind you as well, that art...

As the pandemic made a doctor visit as easy as a Zoom call and computer vision proved able to distinguish a benign blemish from something more worrisome, guest Eleni Linos , MD, DrPH, grew fascinated with the many ways digital technologies will impact all of medicine, not just her specialty, dermatology. She now believes the future of digital health is the future of health, period. But much work r...

To kick off 2024, we’re bringing you an episode that’s been one of our most popular. The timing is just right as many of us are headed into the new year thinking about how to live better. In this episode, Professor Helen Blau , a stem cell biologist, tells us all about how she’s recruiting stem cells to regenerate youthful muscle in older people. We’re thrilled to bring this episode out of the arc...

Russ's curated playlist of six episodes from our archive to accompany you through the holiday season & into the new year. Curated Episode Links : Is it time to rethink philanthropy? (Robert Reich) --> YouTube or Episode Page The future of the gut microbiome (KC Huang) --> YouTube or Episode Page How 3D printing is changing medicine (Joseph DeSimone) --> YouTube or Episode Page The future of comput...

Professor Michael Fischbach, tells us that the “gut biome” – that is, the complex community of bacteria that lives in our gastrointestinal tract – is what makes digesting and extracting nutrients from those meals possible. We hope you’ll tune in. Connect With Us: Episode Transcripts >>> The Future of Everything Website Connect with Russ >>> Threads / Bluesky / Mastodon Connect with School of Engin...