The Aboard Podcast

How can nonprofits introduce—and embrace—AI? On this week’s episode, Paul and Rich are joined by Allison Fine, the president of Every.org, a technology platform that helps nonprofits collect donations via a wide variety of methods. Nonprofit workers might be getting high-level directives from their boards to utilize AI, but what should they actually be doing in practice? Allison talks through some concrete use cases, as well as ways to handle reticence around AI within the org.

Paul and Rich are ready to answer your questions about AI—and beyond. On the inaugural episode of “Ask Aboard,” they tackle a trio of queries from some familiar faces. First, NYU’s Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education, Clay Shirky, asks how we can personally protect ourselves in the wake of the Hugging Face incident. Next, an anonymous letter-writer wants to know how to deal with clients who can’t stop generating bad AI artifacts. And finally, journalist and editor Josh Tyrangiel gets to the heart of it all, asking: What’s the software equivalent of yacht rock?

How can we get politicians and Silicon Valley on the same AI page? On this week’s episode, Paul and Rich welcome on Jason Goldman, whose long career in tech has taken him from Blogger to Twitter to the Obama administration to his current endeavor, the Center for Shared AI Prosperity. “AI capabilities are advancing faster than the political system is responding,” CSAIP’s website reads; Jason explains the challenges around and different approaches to redressing this gap. Plus: as the host of the movie podcast Escape Hatch, Jason ranks his expectations for the fall tech industry films, and makes a big prediction about Dune: Part Three.

How is AI reshaping internet culture? On this week’s episode, Paul is joined by a journalist who has truly looked into the digital abyss: Business Insider’s Katie Notopoulos. Using a few recent AI-related stories Katie reported as a lens, they discuss the increasingly blurry boundaries between the real and the artificial on our social feeds. Katie is known for, among other things, her lists of the worst things on the internet; with AI, Paul asks, has “worst” somehow gotten “even worser”? Plus: In a classic reporter move, Katie flips the script and quizzes Paul about his 2014 essay on YouTube, “The American Room.”

LLMs are often far too powerful for the small tasks they’re asked to complete. Is the more-contained Jev the alternative? On this week’s episode, Paul and Rich read a question from tech writer John Pavlus about Jev, a new model from Typesafe AI that’s been a major topic of discussion in programming circles recently. LLMs, Rich suggests, are often like using a power riding mower to cut the grass of your tiny lawn. As Paul breaks down Jev and others like it into layman’s terms, they debate whether this kind of technology is the future—or if it’ll just be one more thing absorbed by the AI giants?