AI-Curious with Jeff Wilser

Is AI making creators more powerful… or more replaceable? And if you start with a blank page for a living, there’s an even sharper question underneath it: should AI write for you… or write with you? In this episode of AI-Curious , we sit down with Victor Varnado —a New Yorker cartoonist, comedian, actor, and creative technologist—to explore a grounded, practical philosophy for using AI without bec...

What’s actually happening with AI adoption inside U.S. businesses—and how much of the public discourse is just vibes? In this episode of AI-Curious , we dig into the hard numbers behind AI spend and adoption with Ara Kharazian , an economist at Ramp and the leader of Ramp Economics Lab . Using anonymized, real-time corporate spend data across tens of thousands of businesses, Ara shares what the “r...

What does an AI-driven economy actually look like when you zoom out far enough—and what does that mean for jobs, power, and policy? In this episode of AI-Curious , we talk with Anindya Ghose (NYU Stern; author of Thrive ) about the “AI economy blueprint”: how the modern economy starts to resemble a vertically layered tech stack—from energy and chips all the way up to consumer-facing apps—and why t...

Could AI actually make healthcare more human —less paperwork, less burnout, fewer errors—or is it mostly hype layered on top of a legacy system? In this episode of AI-Curious , we talk with Dr. Michael Karch , an orthopedic surgeon (hip + knee replacement) with ~30 years of clinical experience who also made a serious pivot into data, machine learning, and AI strategy for healthcare. We dig into wh...

Could AI help you lead —not just do—especially if you’re thinking about building something entrepreneurial? In this episode of AI-Curious , we talk with Miri Rodriguez , formerly a “storyteller” at Microsoft, now the CEO of Empressa. AI, about what it means to go from Doer to Leader in an AI era—and how an AI-first operating style can give a small team outsized leverage. Miri shares how storytelli...

Could AI agents become better traders than humans—and what happens when “decision-making” gets outsourced to software that can act at machine speed? In this conversation, we go deep with Saad Naja , founder of PIP World , on the rise of AI agent auto-traders : multi-agent “swarms” that resemble a miniature trading desk—specialist analysts feeding into an AI “portfolio manager” that can decide whet...

Can AI actually help eradicate poverty for real people, right now—not in some vague future? We talk with two leaders from Opportunity International who are trying to do exactly that, using AI to support smallholder farmers and low-cost private schools across Africa and beyond. In this episode of AI-Curious , we sit down with Ama Akuamoah and Paul Essene from Opportunity International’s Digital Inn...

Is AI making us smarter or dumber—and how do we make sure we’re on the right side of that divide? In this episode of AI-Curious, we talk with Professor Vasant Dhar , author of the new book Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI . Vasant isn’t just a historian of AI; he’s part of the story. In the 1990s, he helped bring machine learning to Wall Street, founded one of the world’s first ML...

Can a city use AI to cut red tape, fill potholes faster, and shave minutes off commutes—without sliding into surveillance? We sit down with San José’s mayor, Matt Mahan, to unpack how a highly regulated public institution can adopt AI pragmatically and responsibly. In this episode, we dig into the playbook: pilots that become policy, guardrails that build trust, and workforce upskilling that actua...

Does AI make us more creative—or quietly replace us? In this episode of AI-Curious, we sit down with Dr. Maya Ackerman—author of Creative Machines: AI, Art, and Us —to probe where human creativity ends and machine creativity begins, and how incentives in Big Tech and venture capital shape the tools we all use.  We explore why today’s dominant systems skew “convergent” (safe, samey, oracle-like) in...

What does hiring look like when AI is embedded into the world’s largest professional network—and how should leaders, recruiters, and job-seekers adapt? We sit down with Deepak Agarwal, LinkedIn’s Chief AI Officer, for a practical playbook on AI at work: production-grade AI agents for hiring, how semantic job search changes discovery, why “relevance” is the antidote to spammy outreach, and how to b...

Will GEO replace SEO? (Spoiler alert: Probably!) We dig into how generative engines are reshaping discovery, why executives are already making decisions from AI answers, and what brands should do now to show up accurately and credibly in AI results. In this episode of AI-Curious , we sit down with Curtis Sparrer , co-founder and principal at Bospar PR (and president of the San Francisco Press Club...

What happens when “space robots” stop being sci-fi set dressing and start punching a clock? We dig into a new breed of microgravity robots that do the unglamorous work—so astronauts can do more science. In this episode of AI-Curious , we talk with Ethan Barajas (CEO) and Jamie Palmer (CTO) , co-founders of Icarus Robots , fresh out of stealth with a $6M raise. Their pitch is simple and radical: pu...

What if “AI teammates” aren’t sci-fi at all, but the next mundane tool that quietly kills Monday dread? In this episode of AI-Curious , we sit down with David Shim , CEO of Read.ai , to unpack what workers actually want from AI, how teams are adopting agents from the bottom up, and what a practical “digital twin” might do at work—minus the Black Mirror vibes. We cover fast-path ROI (meeting notes...

AI is often framed as a climate problem—energy-hungry data centers, ballooning carbon emissions, and talk of nuclear power just to keep the servers running. But could AI also become part of the solution? In this episode of AI-Curious , we sit down with Josh Dorfman—climate tech entrepreneur and host of Supercool —to explore how artificial intelligence might help tackle climate change. Josh doesn’t...

Can artificial intelligence actually be funny, or is humor still a human stronghold? We explore that question with Eric Doyle, co-founder of ComedyBytes , a Brooklyn-based multimedia comedy show where AI and humans face off in roast battles, dating games, and other interactive formats. Doyle combines the craft of stand-up with the tools of generative AI, building AI characters like “AI Kanye West”...

Is Kant the new code? If AI can write, code, and even plan, which human skills suddenly become scarce—and valuable? In this conversation with Robert Capps (former Editorial Director of Wired , contributor to The New York Times Magazine ), we dive into his widely shared NYT Mag feature, “AI Might Take Your Job. Here Are 22 New Ones It Could Give You.” We unpack the three big buckets of new work he...

Could AI actually improve public education? Not just automate it, but make it more personalized, more equitable — and even more human? We explore this possibility with Dr. Michael Everest, founder of edYOU, an AI tutoring platform being piloted in a Denver-area school district. While many worry that AI could become a shortcut for students to avoid real learning, Everest argues the opposite — that...

What happens when AI becomes a co-pilot for writers, researchers, and journalists — not in theory, but in practice? In this episode of AI-Curious , we speak with Bill Wasik , Editorial Director of The New York Times Magazine , who recently oversaw their special issue, “Learning to Live with AI.” We explore how AI is already transforming journalism, nonfiction writing, and historical research — and...

What are the top minds in AI actually talking about behind closed doors? At the HumanX conference—arguably the flagship event in the AI ecosystem—hundreds of speakers (from CEOs to policymakers to Kamala Harris) shared their unfiltered thoughts on the state and future of artificial intelligence. But with so much happening at once, even attendees couldn’t absorb it all. So HumanX did something nove...

What if we’re all chasing the wrong kind of AI? Dr. Ruchir Puri, Chief Scientist of IBM, argues that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is overrated—and that we should be focusing instead on AUI: Artificial Useful Intelligence. This is a pragmatic, business-focused approach to AI that emphasizes real-world value, measurable outcomes, and implementable solutions. In this episode of AI-Curious ,...

What exactly is AGI— Artificial General Intelligence —and how close are we to achieving it? Will it transform the world for better or worse? And how can we even tell when true AGI has arrived? In this episode of AI Curious , we sit down with Dr. Ben Goertzel, the iconic computer scientist who coined the term AGI more than 20 years ago. As the founder of SingularityNET and the Artificial Superintel...

What happens when an AI agent says something harmful, or makes a costly mistake? Who’s responsible—and how can we even know who the agent belongs to in the first place? In this episode of AI-Curious , we talk with Evin McMullen, CEO and co-founder of Billions. Network, a startup building cryptographic trust infrastructure to verify the identity and accountability of AI agents and digital content....

What exactly are AI agents doing out in the wild — and are they actually helping sales teams, or just adding noise? We explore the fast-evolving world of AI sales agents with a real-world case study from Alta, a startup deploying purpose-built AI agents named Katie, Alex, and Luna. In this episode of AI-Curious , we speak with Stav Levi-Neumark, Alta’s CEO and co-founder, about how agentic AI is a...

What does it mean to grow up in a world where AI is simply… normal? In this episode of AI-Curious , we're joined by Matt Britton, branding strategist and author of Generation AI: Why Generation Alpha and the Age of AI Will Change Everything , for a wide-ranging discussion about how artificial intelligence is transforming childhood, education, branding, healthcare, and the very fabric of socie...