Life, Automated

About Life, Automated

Life, Automated explores how to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. Through thoughtful conversations with researchers, practitioners, artists, and more, we do our best to make sense of how technology is changing—and how it is changing us. We ask: What does the economy look like if AI can do much of what humans can? Will AI tools isolate us further, or steer us back toward community and common ground? Can the average person expect to be better off a decade from now? And what the heck should we tell a sixteen-year-old who wants to know whether learning German (or design, or coding, or the piano) is still worth it? Life, Automated is grounded and non-ideological, going deep without getting too technical. Because you shouldn’t need to be an “AI person” to understand the future we’re collectively building. Host Jess Love is a science writer with a PhD in cognitive psychology and is the Sr. Director for the Ryan Institute on Complexity at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Her writing has appeared in The American Scholar, Discover, Quartz, and more.

Publisher

Ryan Institute on Complexity at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management

Category

society & culture · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Jun 2026

Latest episode

14 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

10 of 11 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   14 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Is Technology Making Our Lives Less Gratifying? (with Ian Bogost)

   Host Jess Love interviews author and academic Ian Bogost about how technology may be diminishing everyday pleasures and how we can reclaim gratification.

2. 

   30 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The Cybersecurity Crisis Is About More Than “Rogue AI” (with V.S. Subrahmanian)

   Cybersecurity researcher V.S. Subrahmanian and host Jess Love explore how AI escalates cyber threats and discuss the critical need for industry responsibility in securing our digital infrastructure.

3. 

   16 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Will We Still Learn Languages When Machines Can Translate? (with Abby Walker)

   Sociolinguist Abby Walker discusses with host Jess Love why humans will continue learning languages despite AI translation advancements, exploring deeper motivations beyond communication.

4. 

   2 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   AI, Artists, and the Future of Creative Work

   Host Jess Love interviews economists Ben Jones and Sam Goldberg, and artist Yevgenia Nayberg about AI's impact on creative work and what we value in human labor.

5. 

   19 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Why AI Might Not Change Education Much at All (with Justin Reich)

   MIT education researcher Justin Reich discusses with host Jess Love why historical technology adoption suggests AI's impact on education may be less revolutionary than predicted.

6. 

   12 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT

   An Optimist’s Take on AI and the Future of Learning (with Sébastien Martin)

   Kellogg Professor Sébastien Martin shares his optimistic view on how AI can revolutionize education, discussing its potential and challenges in an interview with host Jess Love.

7. 

   5 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Our Chatbot Friends and Lovers (with Pat Pataranutaporn)

   Host Jess Love interviews MIT Media Lab researcher Pat Pataranutaporn about how AI chatbots impact human relationships and well-being.

8. 

   29 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Chatbots Don’t Fool Us, We Fool Ourselves (with Joshua Jay)

   Host Jess Love interviews magician Joshua Jay about how humans fool themselves, drawing parallels between magic and our interactions with AI chatbots.

9. 

   22 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Does AI Have to Be Bad News for the Planet? (with Meghan Busse)

   Host Jess Love interviews economist Meghan Busse about whether AI's energy demands accelerate or hinder clean energy investment, offering insights into AI's true climate impact.

10. 

    15 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

    To Thrive Alongside AI, Find the Bottlenecks (with Ben Jones)

    Economist Ben Jones explains to host Jess Love how humans can thrive alongside AI by identifying and solving operational bottlenecks, an interview on Life, Automated.

11. 

    23 Jun 2026

    Coming July 15th! Life, Automated

    Host [Host Name] interviews [Guest Name] about the profound impact of AI and automation on our daily lives and future.

Inside a recent episode

Is Technology Making Our Lives Less Gratifying? (with Ian Bogost)

Published 14 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] And then you touch the produce to figure out which ones met your desired level of ripeness and all the rest of it. And, you know, you can kind of fill in all those blanks. So it's like we automatically got this rich and diverse sensory experience just by doing things that we had to do every day. And we may not have thought of those things as desirable. Like, oh, I got to go to go do the grocery shopping. But since you had to go do it, you couldn't just Instacart your way out of that problem. All this other stuff kind of like came along for the ride. So what we lost in part wasn't just all of those sensory encounters I just mentioned, but the very idea that they were being delivered to us continuously, so much so that we almost didn't notice them happening. […]

Who has been a guest on Life, Automated

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Ian Bogost
• VS Subrahmanian
• Abby Walker
• Ben Jones
• Sam Goldberg

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.2 / 5

21 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

7 ratings

Contact Life, Automated

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about Life, Automated