What's Your Problem?

Can a Robot Build Better, Cheaper Houses?

Jason Ballard is the co-founder and CEO of ICON. Jason's problem is this: Can you use 3-D printing to build houses that are cheaper, better and more interesting than the

Did AI Write This?

Celebrated novelists, countless students and at least one billionaire have recently been accused of using AI in their writing. The most commonly cited AI detector in thes

Blockers | A Preview of Michael Lewis's New Audiobook

I'm here with a preview of Blockers, a new audiobook from Michael Lewis, the author of Liars Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short and more. In Blockers, Lewis tells the story

Can We Defeat Deepfakes?

We’ve all heard that nothing ever gets deleted from the internet. Luke Arrigoni says that just isn’t true. His company deletes thousands of deepfakes every day. Luke is

The Printing Press: The Invention Built on Debt and Sin… from Business History

Before 1450, books were written out by hand. It was slow and expensive. But Johannes Gutenberg borrowed a ton of money to create a printing press that could crank out Bib

Should We Pause AI?

Everybody’s worried about the risks of AI. So we called up one of the most insightful writers we know on the subject: Zvi Mowshowitz. Zvi writes about AI and AI risks at

Bonus: Planning for Your Financial Future

On this bonus episode of What’s Your Problem, Jacob talks to Christine Chase, a Vice President, Financial Consultant at Fidelity Investments. Christine’s problem is this:

Can a Robot Kill Fish Humanely?

The fish we eat usually die slowly, suffocating after they’re pulled out of the water. Saif Khawaja is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Shinkei. Saif's problem

Using Satellites to Prevent Famines

Catherine Nakalembe is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland and the head of the Africa program at NASA Harvest, which uses satellite images to track agric

The Quantum Shift in Biomedical Discovery from Smart Talks with IBM

When Dr. Lara Jehi began treating epilepsy patients in the 2000s, critical surgical decisions were driven more by clinician intuition and expertise than data. Today, she

Can We Slow Down Aging?

Nir Barzilai is a physician and a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where he runs the Institute for Geroscience. Nir’s problem is this: H

Why Doctors Use Evidence but Managers (Mostly) Don’t

Helen Pearson is the author of the book “Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works.” Helen's problem is this: How do you get people to make important decisions

The Job AI Was Supposed to Kill

In 2016, Geoffrey Hinton, one of the inventors of modern AI, predicted that AI would replace radiologists within years. Ten years later, we have a shortage of radiologist

How China Won the Car Industry

After spending decades as marginal players in the global auto industry, Chinese carmakers have become the world’s biggest exporters of cars. Chinese cars are some of the

Using Viruses to Fight Disease

Phages are viruses that attack bacteria. People have been using phages to treat infections for over a hundred years, but in most cases they just don't work as well as ant

How AI Could Reduce Inequality

David Autor is a labor economist at MIT. He has written about how the arrival of personal computers increased inequality among American workers. But when it comes to AI,

Racing Wildfires to Warn the Public

John Mills is the CEO and co-founder of a nonprofit called Watch Duty. His problem is this: How do you build an app to warn people when they are in immediate danger from

How AI Could Actually Make the World Better

Josh Tyrangiel is the author of “AI for Good: How Real People Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Fix Things That Matter.” On today’s show, Josh talks about some of thes

Finding Meaning (and Money) in the AI Age

Betsey Stevenson is a labor economist at the University of Michigan, and she was an economic adviser to President Obama. Betsey’s problem is this: How can we create a wor

Using Pokémon Go to Map the World

Maps have gotten much better over the past few decades. But they're still mostly two dimensional, and they struggle to keep up with a world that is always changing. Brian