Podcast
Humans + AI
Hosted by Ross Dawson · EN
Exploring and unlocking the potential of AI for individuals, organizations, and humanity
27episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
David Weinberger on beautiful particulars, healing the mind/body split, morality, and the case for optimism (HAI Ep53)
2w ago00:37:45Tap to summarizeIn this episode, David Weinberger—author of 'Beautiful Particulars' and researcher at Harvard MetaLab—explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping Western ideas about universal laws, human cognition, and the value of lived, bodily experiences. Listeners will discover why AI thrives on processing immense particulars and how integrating human generalization with AI’s specificity can build complementary intelligence. Weinberger offers insight into the philosophical impact of technology, the centrality of embodiment for meaning and morality, and an optimistic vision for using conversational AI to deepen learning and curiosity in real-life situations.
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Nirit Cohen on uniquely human contribution, questions over answers, horizontal knowledge sharing, and intentional chaos (HAI Ep52)
3w ago00:34:48Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Nirit Cohen—founder of Workfutures and former senior global people leader at Intel—explores the shifting boundaries between work and life in an era shaped by technology and automation. Drawing on her expertise in digital workplace transformation, Cohen discusses why uniquely human contributions remain critical, how to uncover hidden value within organizations, and the dangers of viewing people as interchangeable with AI. Listeners will gain new perspectives on nurturing adaptability, collaboration, and human-centered leadership as organizations evolve in the face of automation and changing roles.
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Mickey McManus on co-thinking, beautiful complexity, pro-social design, and evolutionary social science (HAI Ep51)
4w ago00:39:04Tap to summarizeJoin Mickey McManus, Executive Coach and Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group, as he explores the frontiers of embodied intelligence and cognitive scaffolding in AI-driven transformation. Drawing from evolutionary design principles and his experience in innovation labs, Mickey explains how human cognition extends into our environments and how feedback loops—both augmenting and corrupting—shape the future of pro-social AI and organizations. Listeners will gain valuable insights on pace layering, spatial thinking, and hands-on strategies for adopting AI, including ethical considerations at the cutting edge of synthetic biology.
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Ramez Naam on cognitive prostheses, the infinite resource, AI and human rights, and mass empowerment of humanity (HAI Ep50)
Jul 1500:58:23Tap to summarizeJoin author, investor, and climate innovator Ramez Naam—co-chair of Singularity University’s Energy & Environment group—as he explores how cognitive prosthesis and brain-to-AI interfaces are reshaping human expertise and collaboration. Drawing from his background in clean energy and science fiction, Naam discusses how decentralized, open-weight AI models and a climate solutions mindset can foster resource abundance, democratize intelligence, and fuel curiosity-driven progress. Listeners will gain insight into the promise of augmenting human agency and the societal risks and rewards of rapidly evolving AI technologies.
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Gideon Nave and Steven Shaw on system 3 thinking, strategic delegation, cognitive surrender, and the ethics of AI in marketing (HAI Ep49)
Jul 800:38:53Tap to summarizeJoin Gideon Nave, Associate Professor of Marketing at Wharton, and Steven Shaw, postdoctoral researcher, as they unpack their influential work on 'system three' cognition—the idea of AI as an artificial thinking system. They explain the distinction between cognitive offloading and the deeper dangers of cognitive surrender when humans rely too fully on AI, and reveal both the improvements and risks this shift poses for our reasoning and critical thinking. Drawing from empirical research, the episode explores strategies for intentional AI use, the psychological and ethical implications for society, and why calibrated trust and thoughtful guardrails are now essential in automated decision-making.
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Daniel Fallmann on democratizing expertise, dynamic interfaces, judgment amplification, and organizational intelligence (HAI Ep48)
Jun 2400:27:00Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Mindbreeze CEO Daniel Fallmann explores the evolution of AI from automation to the augmentation of human expertise, focusing on how organizations can leverage agentic workflows, context-aware decision support, and collective intelligence. Listeners will learn strategies for balancing human judgment and AI in complex decisions, how connecting distributed knowledge across organizational silos empowers better outcomes, and the importance of explainability and traceable audit trails. Gain insights into judgment amplification, enterprise simulations, and the future of end-to-end agentic AI for informed, transparent decision making.
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Natalie Buda Smith on AI in libraries, human at the center, deeper storytelling, and language recreation (HAI Ep47)
Jun 1700:33:57Tap to summarizeJoin Natalie Buda Smith, Director of AI at the Library of Congress, as she explores how digital interfaces and AI are revolutionizing access to human knowledge and cultural memory. In this episode, you'll learn about the shift from primary source access to information intermediated by AI, the importance of preserving historical context through multiple digitization versions, and the challenges of navigating proprietary data and open APIs. Natalie Buda Smith shares firsthand insights into empowering staff with AI tools, fostering personalized information delivery, and how collaborative, AI-powered projects are surfacing new connections and creative storytelling across diverse collections.
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Scott Wolfson on cognitive fitness, System 3 thinking, mastery skill games, and Strategic Imagination Machines (HAI Ep46)
Jun 1000:35:41Tap to summarizeIn this episode, CentaurianAI Co-Founder shares how becoming 'unbottable' is essential in the age of AI and explores the Centaur chess mindset for thriving alongside intelligent machines. Listeners will discover practical techniques—like brain dumping, ignorance mapping, and the 'think, prompt, check' approach—to boost cognitive fitness, foster independent thinking, and future-proof their unique value. The conversation delves into mastery skill games, motivational intelligence, and the power of collective, connected intelligence for building a truly wisdom-driven future with AI.
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Hala Nelson on human machine coexistence, ontology first, AI driven digital twins, and bidirectional connections to reality (HAI Ep45)
Jun 300:32:26Tap to summarizeExplore how AI is redefining the boundaries between uniquely human intelligence and machine capabilities, and discover which aspects of intelligence remain distinctly human. This episode delves into building smarter, more efficient organizations by leveraging the complementary strengths of people and AI—focusing on the critical role of an ontology-first approach, knowledge graphs, and live digital twins in digital transformation. Listeners will gain actionable insights into integrating dynamic processes for real-time decision-making, structuring enterprise knowledge, and eliminating organizational inefficiencies using practical, AI-powered solutions.
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Ross Dawson on cognitive friction, beyond Human-in-the-loop, and AI-augmented strategy (HAI Ep44)
May 2700:17:48Tap to summarize"The value is created in the friction, in the engagement between humans and AI—the pushing back by the humans, the pushing back by the machines." –Ross Dawson About Ross Dawson Ross Dawson is a futurist, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, author, and host of Amplifying Cognition podcast. He is Chairman of the Advanced Human Technologies group of companies and Founder of Humans + AI startup Informivity. He has delivered keynote speeches and strategy workshops in 33 countries and is the bestselling author of 5 books, most recently Thriving on Overload. Website: rossdawson.com LinkedIn Profile: Ross Dawson What you will learn The dangers of aiming for a frictionless experience between humans and AI Why meaningful engagement—rather than passive approval—between humans and AI is crucial for cognitive augmentation How human judgment and reasoning differ, and where AI excels versus where humans add irreplaceable value The four key pitfalls of the traditional 'human in the loop' approach to decision-making with AI Why too much delegation to AI can erode human vigilance, judgment, and accountability The importance of adversarial, not just assistive, collaboration with AI for complex, high-stakes tasks How 'living strategy'—AI-augmented, continuously updated organizational strategy—addresses the limitations of static strategic planning The role of AI in surfacing diverse perspectives, supporting dialogue, and enabling truly adaptive decision-making Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: I love speaking to the wonderful guests I have on my podcast. I always learn an enormous amount, but in this episode, I’ll share a little bit of an update for myself and delve into a few interesting things I’ve been seeing and doing lately, including some of the most interesting research papers I’ve seen on humans plus AI lately, looking at human in the loop and the ways in which we should be thinking about that, and AI and strategy. So, just a quick scan of what’s going on in humans plus AI. I’ve been traveling quite a bit, doing a lot of keynotes as much as possible on humans plus AI, and the resonance around the theme is really rising very rapidly. In fact, somebody recently mentioned that humans plus AI was a cliché, or just overworn at the moment. Since I first started using the phrase three and a half years ago, I think it’s wonderful that now it is gaining a lot of currency. People are talking about it, framing that. Yes, some phrases outlive their usefulness, but I think I’ll stick with humans plus AI for the foreseeable future. The research papers I’ve been looking at are focused on essentially cognitive augmentation and erosion, and that’s this critical domain where it’s not really clear around whether, or in which circumstances, our cognition erodes, and what it is we can do to make it augmenting. One of the excellent papers is titled Cognitive Agency Surrender: Defending Epistemic Sovereignty via Scaffolded AI Friction. It’s a bit dense, but it has some great research and analysis in it. The key finding, which it begins with, is that in human-computer interface research literature over the last while, we saw that last year, 2025, there was a big, big rise in this idea of driving human sovereignty in how it is we interact with computers. However, since last year to the first part of this year, we’ve in fact seen that fall dramatically, where the human sovereignty paradigm is reducing dramatically, and we are seeing this big rise in what is called the frictionless paradigm, saying: how do we get as little friction as possible between humans and AI? There are a number of really important points made in the paper, and really, the starting point is saying that we should stop treating frictionless AI as the goal. If we start to be frictionless, that is starting to essentially take the human out of the loop. The nature of humans is that we need to engage, we need to think, so we need to start building devil’s advocate agents into the systems and to aim for this thing where we start to have both this high degree of engagement with the AI, but also high friction. That friction is where we are trying to, essentially, the more complex one rising, having more and more friction, and in lower frictions, it’s just more so. Label tasks, but where we’re not just showing the reasoning, giving people the ability to think through tasks and how they think about that, but to be able to challenge, actively challenge people as they are thinking through things. More broadly, ensuring that the way in which we are designing systems is not emphasizing this frictionless, seamless flow between humans and AI, because that is where the value is created: in the friction, in the engagement between the humans and AI, the pushing back by the humans, the pus...
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