Invisible Machines podcast by UX Magazine

Massive amounts of system change are necessary to put AI to work in ways that elevate humanity, and Robb and Josh welcome author and experience designer Sheryl Cababa for a deep discussion of the road ahead. Author of the Rosenfeld Media book, Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, Sheryl has worked as an experienced designer at Phillips, Adaptive Path, and Frog and is currently the Chi...

In a moment when unprecedented amounts of money are flowing toward projects involving AI, Robb and Josh welcome Jake Saper for a lively exploration of the VC mindset. Since 2003, Emergence Capital has invested in companies collectively worth $450B+, including Salesforce, Box, Yammer, and Zoom. As a General Partner, Jake has embraced the transformative power of generative AI. This conversation expl...

Robb and Josh welcome Brad Stulberg for a deep conversation about how humans can best respond to the massive changes AI is thrusting upon us. As the bestselling author of Master of Change, Stulberg has explored the cycle of order, disorder, and reorder, and he shares the principles for developing a rugged flexibility mindset—which applies to both personal well-being and AI integration. A former Mc...

Robb and Josh welcome Cammy Crolic for an enlivening discussion of hedonic escalation and anthropomorphization. As a professor at Oxford's Saïd Business School, Cammy's research into how human-like bots affect consumer behavior has been featured in the Wall Street Journal. She is currently exploring human perception around AI-generated content.

Robb and Josh welcome Ben Goertzel for a deep exploration of the narrow AIs we are quickly growing accustomed to and our fraught transition to artificial general intelligence, or singularity. As the founder and CEO of SingularityNET, Ben has been working to democratize access to artificial intelligence through decentralization. He's also a leader of both the OpenCog Foundation and the AGI Society,...

Robb and Josh welcome David Bingham for an exploration of design and conversational AI, from our homes, to our workplaces, to industrial settings. David is a senior experience design executive who’s held positions at GE and Workday and is currently Director of User Experience at Schneider Electric (named one of Fortune’s Most Desirable Companies four years running and deemed the world’s most susta...

Robb and Josh welcome industry veteran Yoav Shoham for a thoughtful examination of the inner-workings of AI. As the co-founder of AI21 labs and a former professor in the Computer Science Department of Stanford University, Yoav has a rich history of working with these technologies and thinking through some of their more profound applications. This thoughtful discussion examines just how much the wa...

Robb and Josh welcome Shep Hyken for a conversation about the evolution of customer experience and the role AI will take in moving it forward. As a sought-after keynote speaker and the bestselling author of numerous books, including "Be Amazing or Go Home," Shep has a deep understanding of what companies are up against when it comes to creating truly dynamic experiences. This lively discussion exp...

Robb and Josh welcome food futurist Mike Lee for a sprawling and fascinating exploration of the surprisingly similar worlds of food safety and technology regulation. As the founder of The Future Market, a consultancy in food innovation and strategy, Mike's investigations into the food industry led to hands-on work with generative AI. This conversation provides forward thinking in how we might regu...

Robb and Josh welcome Cassie Kozyrkov, Google's First Chief Decision Scientist, for a conversation about the limitations of data and the need to put a face on technology. Cassie is now CEO of Data Scientific and helped shape the technology all around us, and this far-ranging discussion of conversational AI examines the composition of the technologies that go into artificial intelligence, the ways...

Robb and Josh welcome renowned publisher and information architect Lou Rosenfeld for a conversation that gets into the roots of experience design, while exploring the full bloom of generative AI. Running Rosenfeld Media for nearly two decades has given Lou incredible insights into the publishing world as well as UX, which most Rosenfeld titles explore in specific ways. This great conversation brin...

Robb and Josh welcome Jenna Fizel (Senior Director, Emerging Technology) and Danny DeRuntz (Executive Design Director) of IDEO for a practical exploration of building conversational experiences focusing on their creation, Lotbot. The conversation branches out into the many facets of digital twins, the languages machines might use to communicate with each other, and the blurring edges between bots...

Robb and guest-host Michael Salamon have a conversation with Don Scheibenreif, Vice President, Distinguished Analyst with Gartner's Customer Experience research group. As the co-author of When Machines Become Customers, Don provides insights into the logistical and trust issues that arise as machines begin buying things on behalf of humans.

Robb and Josh jump into a philosophical but ultimately pragmatic discussion of conversational AI with Tim Wood, Principal Designer for AI and AI Platforms at Amazon Web Services. A veteran designer well-steeped in the waves of technology that have shaped our modern world, Tim shares ideas surrounding anthropology, anthropomorphism, systemic change, real-world implementation, and unwelcome outcomes...

Robb and Josh welcome digital transformation expert and bestselling author Charlene Li for a conversation about the trajectory technology has taken over the last 20 years and how decision-makers need to reframe their expectations and goals as generative AI continues to transform the marketplace. The explosive power of LLMs to enhance the experience of writing and providing thought leadership also...

Robb and Josh enjoy a vigorous conversation with Emmy-winning investigative travel journalist Peter Greenberg. His reporting on the broken experiences and deceitful practices heaping ruin on the travel and hospitality industry reveal opportunities for the technologies associated with AI to make sweeping and meaningful improvements. The catch: these changes will require systemic change, which will...

Robb and Josh have a philosophical conversation about art, creativity, and perception with Laura Herman of the University of Oxford. As a tool for creating, generative AI is changing the way we think about art what constitutes artistry. The artistic process will always require human hands and human input, as a piece of art isn't really finished until someone experiences it. Covering synesthesia, U...

Robb and Josh go deep on a conversation with Dr. Jim Webber, Chief Scientist at Neo4j, about the convergence of large language models (LLMs) and graphDB. Popularized by Neo4j, graphDB creates a relational database that connects individual data points (or nodes) accross a network of information. LLMs are capable of doing real work and providing more reliable responses when they are given context. G...

Robb and Josh take a deep dive into technology and healthcare with Leroy Hood, MD, PhD (Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of ISB) and Nathan Price, PhD (Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne HealthTech), auhtors of The Age of Scientific Wellness. Hood played a pivotal role in the Human Genome Project and he and Price have uncovered the ways that science and technology can move us toward 4P medici...

With MosaicML acquired last week for 1.3 Billion, we rushed to get you an episode we've been working on with Mosaic's Chief Scientist, Jonathan Frankle. It's here and the episode is packed with a lot of practical thinking and perspective on the incredible work they're doing at Mosaic. Robb, Josh and Jonathan Frankle have a fun and useful conversation for anyone who's just wrapping their head aroun...

Robb and Josh welcome inventor, entrepreneur, and researcher Adam Cheyer for a conversation about the long road leading up to the breakthrough ChatGPT moment. As one of the co-creators of Siri, Adam shares stories from his time at Apple, including a memorable design debate with Steve Jobs that he wishes he'd won. This is a fascinating exploration of conversational AI with two innovators who have b...

For the season one finale, Robb and Josh welcome legendary researcher, professor, and author Don Norman. His book "The Design of Everyday Things" helped define the parameters of human centered design, and his new book "Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered" expands the process to account for the global ecosystem our designs call home. Don shares powerful insights in...

Robb and Josh welcome conversation designer Rebecca Evanhoe for a discussion about the detailed work of creating meaningful conversational experiences. Rebecca is co-author of "Conversations with Things" (Rosenfeld Media) and teaches courses at Pratt Institute on UX writing and conversational design. Here, she shares insights into the nature of writing, the application of technology like ChatGPT,...

Robb and Josh have a thought-provoking conversation with Tim O'Reilly, the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, whose Global Network Navigator site was the first web portal and commercial site on the Internet. Tim adds perspective to this unique moment in history, having been an integral part of the emergence of the World Wide Web. The three also dig into ideas surrounding the regulation of technolo...

Robb and Josh welcome bestselling author and entrepreneur Seth Godin for a conversation about ideas from his new book, The Song of Significance. They explore how imperative it is that we rethink our relationship with productivity and actively find ways to make “work” more rewarding.