Me, Myself, and AI

In this bonus episode, Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu joins Sam to challenge some of the most common assumptions about artificial intelligence’s future. Drawing on his book Power and Progress, Daron argues that technology doesn’t have a fixed destiny — and that today’s choices will determine whether AI boosts workers or simply accelerates automation and inequality. He makes a case for focusing on new tasks that complement human skills, rather than replacing them, and warns that current incentives push AI toward centralization and automation by default. The conversation tackles productivity myths, reliability risks, and why regulation should proactively steer AI toward social good. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Daron Acemoglu is an institute professor at MIT, faculty codirector of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work, and a research affiliate at MIT’s newly established Blueprint Labs. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, the British Academy of Sciences, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty. He has authored six books, including Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity with Simon Johnson. His work in economics has been recognized around the world, notably with the Nobel Prize in economic sciences, along with co-laureates Johnson and James A. Robinson, in 2024.

*Please take our listener survey: ⁠⁠mitsmr.com/podcastsurvey⁠⁠

It's short — we promise! — and all respondents will receive a free MIT SMR article collection, "Maximizing the Value of Generative AI."

Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.

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

ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.

In this bonus episode, Princeton University professor and artificial intelligence researcher Tom Griffiths joins Sam to unpack The Laws of
Thought, his new book exploring how math has been used for
centuries to understand how minds — human and machine — actually work.

Tom walks through three main frameworks shaping intelligence today — rules and symbols, neural networks, and probability — and he explains why modern AI only makes sense when you see how those pieces fit together.

The conversation connects cognitive science, large language models, and the limits of human versus machine intelligence. Along the way, Tom and Sam dig into language, learning, and what humans still do better — like judgment, curation, and metacognition. Read the episode transcript here.

*Please take our listener survey: ⁠mitsmr.com/podcastsurvey⁠

It's short — we promise! — and all respondents will receive a free MIT SMR article collection, "Maximizing the Value of Generative AI."

Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.

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

ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.

On today’s episode, Wendy’s product manager Will Croushorn joins Sam to share how FreshAi, the fast-food restaurant’s voice-based AI ordering system, is reinventing the drive-through experience for millions of customers. From handling 200 billion ways to order a Dave’s Double burger to making fast food more accessible for guests in multiple languages, Will reveals how empathy and innovation will positively impact the future of convenience. Learn how his team turns speech data into insight, builds trust in automation, and can even hide a few Easter eggs in your next order. Read the episode transcript here. That's a wrap on Season 12!

We'll back in January with a bonus episode.

*Please take our listener survey: mitsmr.com/podcastsurvey

It's short — we promise! — and all respondents will receive a free MIT SMR article collection, "Maximizing the Value of Generative AI."

Guest bio:

Will Croushorn is a product leader at Wendy’s and cocreator of its drive-through voice agent, FreshAi, which handles more than 150,000 orders each day across hundreds of stores throughout the U.S. Recognized by Fast Company as one of the “Next Big Things in Tech,” the artificial intelligence platform shows that AI can deliver measurable impact at enterprise scale. Croushorn’s career has been shaped by relentless curiosity: He started a school in northern Iraq, became fluent in Behdini Kurdish, and now advances vision and multimodal AI serve customers in entirely new ways.

Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.

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

ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.

On this episode, OpenAI’s chief economist Ronnie Chatterji describes how artificial intelligence is reshaping both the economy and scientific innovation. Ronnie discusses the dual economic impacts of AI — the near-term boost from infrastructure investments like chips and data centers, and the longer-term productivity gains as AI tools integrate into enterprises and consumer life. Beyond consumer convenience, he notes, the key question for economists and corporate leaders alike is when — and how — AI will unlock sustained economic value inside organizations.

Tune in for Ronnie's perspective on how AI can help researchers test ideas faster, combine insights across disciplines, and make better choices about which problems to pursue. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Aaron (Ronnie) Chatterji is OpenAI’s first chief economist. He is also the Mark Burgess & Lisa Benson-Burgess Distinguished Professor at Duke University. He served in the Biden administration to implement the CHIPS and Sciences Act and was acting deputy director of the National Economic Council. Before that, he was chief economist at the Department of Commerce and a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He also previously taught at Harvard Business School, worked at Goldman Sachs, and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Chatterji is on leave as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He holds a Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in economics from Cornell University.

Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.

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

ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.

AI isn’t taking jobs — it’s changing what jobs are. On today’s episode, GeekWire’s Todd Bishop joins host Sam Ransbotham to dive into how artificial intelligence is reshaping work, learning, and creativity — not by replacing humans but by amplifying what we can do.

From classrooms where students use AI on exams to newsrooms rethinking how news stories get written, they explore the opportunities (and headaches) of this new era. It’s a smart, funny, and refreshingly real look at how we’re all learning to work with our newestcoworker — artificial intelligence. Read the episode transcript here.

 Guest bio:

Todd Bishop is cofounder of GeekWire, the Seattle-based business and technology news site, where he covers topics like AI, Microsoft, and Amazon, in addition to hosting a weekly podcast.
A native of Orland, California, the longtime journalist previously worked at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Puget Sound Business Journal, and the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer.

Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.

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

ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.