Me, Myself, and AI

Latest Episodes:

Ethically Sourced Creativity: Shutterstock's Alessandra Sala Oct 01, 2024

Show notes

Alessandra Sala, senior director of data science and AI at Shutterstock, brings an impressive background in responsible AI to her role. Also the global president of Women in AI and cochair of the Women4Ethical AI platform at UNESCO, Alessandra joins this episode to describe how Shutterstock, widely known as a stock photo company, has become a go-to destination for creative assets — and AI training data.

Alessandra outlines Shutterstock’s content acquisition and royalty models, which reward contributors whose assets are used to train third parties’ AI models and have set the standard for other stock media companies. She argues that these ethical approaches aren’t just a moral choice — they offer strategic advantage, given that these assets are integral to shaping the future of AI-generated content. Learn how Alessandra’s team is leading the charge in ethical AI and redefining the creative landscape. Read the episode transcript here.

For more on model collapse — when AI models are trained on AI-generated content — see this recent New York Times article, “When AI’s Output Is a Threat to AI Itself.”

Guest Bio

Alessandra Sala is the senior director of AI and data science at Shutterstock. She has acquired more than 10 years of experience in research and innovation through her work in both academic and commercial environments. Sala is passionate about advanced analytics, machine learning, and computational models, with a focus on transitioning innovation from research to products.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Alanna Hooper.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Meet Your New Teammate, AI: Asana’s Saket Srivastava Sep 17, 2024

Show notes

Saket Srivastava, CIO at work management platform Asana, has had technology roles at organizations such as General Electric, IBM, and Fujitsu, moving from back-end IT services positions to more strategic business leadership roles. Asana has already been working with artificial intelligence for several years, Saket notes, and has seen the technology’s role evolve: Rather than simply optimizing tasks, it now often acts as more of a teammate as it’s integrated into core workflows to enhance productivity by taking on cognitive tasks like writing project status updates.

Saket joins this episode to share his observations about the evolution of CIOs from back-end IT managers to front-line business leaders driving innovation and strategy, especially in the context of AI. He also discusses the benefits of being part of a CIO community in which people freely share their knowledge and experience and support one another as they navigate a rapidly evolving tech environment.

Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Saket Srivastava is the CIO for work management platform Asana. He oversees the company’s educational and information technology organization, which involves optimizing technology systems and processes, connecting technology strategy to overarching business strategy, and ensuring that technology infrastructure supports organizational goals. Previously, Srivastava held executive positions at Square, Guidewire Software, and other leading technology companies. He holds a master’s degree from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Feed Drop: Why Only 10% of Companies Succeed With AI With Sam Ransbotham, Professor at Boston College Jul 30, 2024

Show notes

In the time before Me, Myself, and AI returns for Season 10, we're pleased to bring you a special episode from our friends at the Modern CTO podcast. Read the episode transcript here.

From Modern CTO:

Today we’re talking to Sam Ransbotham, professor at Boston College. Sam shares with us the reason that the vast majority of companies are falling behind the AI curve, why most people just slap AI onto a problem instead of fixing it, and the ways in which technology can improve not only our business processes but also our quality of life.

Building Connections Through Open Research: Meta’s Joelle Pineau Jun 25, 2024

Show notes

Joelle Pineau’s curiosity led her to pursue a doctorate in engineering with a focus on robotics, which she describes as her “gateway into AI.” As vice president of AI research at Meta, Joelle leads a team committed to openness in the service of high-quality research, responsible AI development, and community contribution.

In this episode, Joelle, who is also a professor at McGill University, weighs the advantages industry and academia each have for conducting artificial intelligence research. She also describes specific AI research projects Meta is working on, including scientific discovery initiatives focused on addressing societal problems like carbon capture. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Joelle Pineau is vice president of AI research at Meta and a professor at McGill University. Her research focuses primarily on developing new models and algorithms for planning and learning in complex, partially observable domains. She also applies these algorithms to robotics, health care, games, and conversational agents. Pineau serves on the board of the <cite>Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research</cite> and the <cite>Journal of Machine Learning Research</cite>. She has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Waterloo and master’s degree and doctorate in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Authoring Creativity With AI: Researcher Patrick Hebron Jun 12, 2024

Show notes

If you’ve played with Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature or worked in Nvidia’s Omniverse platform, you’ve touched tools that Patrick Hebron’s work has made possible.

A dual major in philosophy and film production, Patrick approaches creative pursuits with a deep curiosity and the belief that if a “tool gets used in exactly the way that we anticipated, then we have really failed catastrophically.” He believes that emerging digital design tools will elevate human creativity, and he aims to develop technology solutions that will empower creative end users to continue to push boundaries.

On this episode, Patrick describes some of the technical challenges in building generative AI solutions for creative pursuits, as well as their vast potential. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Patrick Hebron is a designer, software developer, teacher, and author. His work explores the intersection of machine learning, design tools, programming languages, and operating systems. In particular, he has focused on the development of AI-driven digital design tools. He founded the Machine Intelligence Design groups at Nvidia and Adobe and was vice president of R&D at Stability AI. He is the author of Machine Learning for Designers, published by O’Reilly Media, as well as numerous articles, including Rethinking Design Tools in the Age of Machine Learning and A Unified Tool for the Education of Humans and Machines. He has also worked as an adjunct graduate professor and scientist in residence at New York University.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

If 10% of the World Were Developers: GitHub’s Mario Rodriguez May 28, 2024

Show notes

When Mario Rodriguez emigrated from Cuba to the United States at age 14 with his parents — a university professor, and a teacher turned electrical engineer — they had already instilled in him the value of education and a love of learning. That passion has guided him throughout his career — as a program manager with Microsoft; then as part of GitHub, following Microsoft’s 2018 acquisition of the developer platform; and as a cofounder of a charter school in North Carolina. Now, as senior vice president of product at GitHub, Mario oversees the team developing the GitHub Copilot AI-assisted software development tool.

Mario joins this episode to share his views on product development, GitHub Copilot’s effect on productivity and job satisfaction, and a future in which more people can easily develop their own software. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Mario Rodriguez leads the GitHub Product team as senior vice president of product. His core identity is that of a learner, and his passion is creating developer tools — so much so that he has spent the past 20 years in leadership roles across Microsoft and GitHub. His most recent work involves overseeing GitHub’s AI strategy and launching and growing the GitHub Copilot product line across thousands of organizations and millions of users.

Rodriguez also cochairs a charter school that he cofounded in an effort to help progress STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education in rural regions of the United States.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

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AI Hype and Skepticism: Economist Paul Romer May 14, 2024

Show notes

Paul Romer once considered himself the most optimistic economist. He rightfully predicted that technology would blow up as an economic driver coming out of the inflation of the 1970s but acknowledges he did not foresee the inequality that technology advances would lead to.

On this episode, Paul shares his views on AI advances and their implications for society. Rather than pave the way for full automation, he is a proponent of keeping humans in the loop and believes that, rather than slowing down technology, it can be pointed in a direction for more meaningful and beneficial use, citing education as an area ripe to benefit from AI. Listen to the episode transcript here.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Lights, AI, Action: Wonder Dynamics's Tye Sheridan Apr 30, 2024

Show notes

Actor Tye Sheridan may not consider himself a technology expert, but his knowledge of visual effects (VFX) processes led him to cofound AI-driven startup Wonder Dynamics. With the company’s new product, Wonder Studio, creators can upload 2D video and transform it into 3D animations at a fraction of the cost of the motion-capture animation process typically used by Hollywood studios.

Tye joins this episode to talk about the genesis of his company, plus he shares his views on artificial intelligence’s impact on creativity in the film industry and the opportunities it can offer creators. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Tye Sheridan is an actor and producer who has appeared in a number of films, including <cite>Ready Player One</cite> and <cite>X-Men: Apocalypse</cite>. In 2017, with Nikola Todorovic, he cofounded Wonder Dynamics, a technology company that’s creating AI-powered film production tools. Its proprietary AI software, Wonder Studio, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically animate, light, and compose computer-generated characters in live-action scenes. The company is on a mission to build AI tools that enable creators to produce studio-level visual effects and CGI-heavy content for a significantly lower cost than the traditional motion-capture process.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Fashioning the Perfect Fit With AI: Stitch Fix’s Jeff Cooper Apr 16, 2024

Show notes

Jeff Cooper parlayed his interest in neuroscience and human behavior into a career in data science and today works as a senior data science director for online retail subscription service Stitch Fix. Jeff joins Me, Myself, and AI to share how the company pairs human employees with intelligent technologies to keep up with customer preferences while realizing operational efficiencies. He also talks about how the company sustains extremely high feedback rates from consumers and how humans are training models, as well as vice versa, leading to interesting feedback loops. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Jeff Cooper is a senior data science director at Stitch Fix, the global leader in personalized styling, where he oversees the Client Algorithms team, which develops models for product recommendations, style, and growth. He previously held data science leadership roles at Tradesy, FabFitFun, and Disney, as well as research roles in decision neuroscience at Caltech and Trinity College Dublin. Jeff has a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Solving Real User Problems With Generative AI: Slack’s Jackie Rocca Apr 02, 2024

Show notes

Like many product leaders in the technology space, Jackie Rocca took a somewhat circuitous path to that role. After beginning her career in management consulting with Bain, she earned her MBA at Stanford and then worked at Google, where she helped launch YouTube TV. Now, she serves as vice president of product at Slack, where she focuses on the collaboration platform’s Slack AI product.

As a product leader, Jackie had continually heard from users that they were experiencing a common challenge: It was a struggle to keep up with the pace of information and prioritize where to focus their attention and energy. So she looked to AI as a potential source of solutions and is now leading a team that’s focused on launching AI-driven features to address user pain points. The Slack AI team’s work is already helping customers take advantage of the wealth of knowledge within Slack exchanges by providing features such as channel recaps, thread summaries, and the ability to ask questions to surface information that’s embedded within conversations.

On this episode, Jackie describes how her team approaches new product design in the generative AI space and offers up some predictions for what lies ahead. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio

Jackie Rocca is vice president of product at Slack. In that role, she oversees the vision and execution of Slack AI, which brings generative AI natively and securely into the collaboration platform’s user experience. Rocca has delivered on a number of AI initiatives in her five years with the company and is now on a mission to help customers further accelerate their productivity and get even more value out of their conversations, data, and collective knowledge.

Before joining Slack, Rocca spent more than six years as a product manager at Google, where she helped launch and grow YouTube TV.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

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