EP 1021 Will Your Next Doctor’s Visit Be with a Robot?
Our guest, a computer scientist, envisions a world of ‘autonomous health,” in which machines and human doctors work in partnership. The clinicians focus on empathy and human connection while the machines take on the difficult tasks of diagnostics, prediction, and prevention. To Anmol Madan, author of “The Machines Will See You Now,” he said that we are on the path toward a new type of AI-led health care experience and economy. Telemedicine and digital health, propelled by COVID, is just the beginning. And while he says that predictions in this space are difficult to make, the rapid pace of change is accelerating. He thinks the shift, which requires planning and regulation, will increase access to care, reduce costs and make care more personalized. There is much to make you take note of in his book and presentation. For example, he posits that in a decade you will be able to see an AI doctor for common health care needs and day to day management. Now that’s interesting.
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While we often catastrophize about the perils of AI, if we walk on the sunny side of the street, could it be that the tools available with the new technology may help us to save our broken politics and governance? Our guest, Beth Simone Noveck, not only thinks that these tools can be beneficial, if used with that intent, but she’s put a number of these practices in action and seen it work. She is a professor and director of the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University, and she leads the Governance Lab and InnovateUS, the fastest growing AI learning community for public sector professionals. She is the author of the new book, “Reboot: AI and the Race to Save Democracy.” In it, she provides a number of examples of how governments across the globe are using AI to write better laws, deliver services more efficiently and fairly and create useful opportunities for citizen participation in a meaningful way. The transparency and openness created by these approaches help government re-earn trust that has been lost over the years. She’s a compelling presenter.
Energy transition is accelerating and solar power itself is having a moment after a turbulent adaption over recent decades. And while Big Oil still gets subsidies, the efficiencies that have occurred in bringing solar online are allowing this renewable, and others like wind, to prove their viability in the energy marketplace. Clearly, federal policy with its incentives to make these renewables part of the energy mix has been erratic and America really does not have a national energy policy. Much of the action is at the state level. And as our guest solar energy executive, Jared Schoch, author “SOLAR COASTER: The Untold Story of the Solar Industry and One Man’s Journey Leading with Soul,” points out fifty percent of the states truly believe in a clean energy future, twenty-five percent support energy independence and an all of the above strategy of sourcing and twenty-five percent are fossil adherents waiting for gas and coal to again predominate in this space. Schoch has seen it all, but he is very hopeful that in the not- too- distant future, no matter the vicissitudes of the alternative energy industry and regulatory setbacks, renewables soon will represent about fifty percent of the industry. He’ll give you a colorful look at what’s in store for a cleaner, more environmentally sound energy policy.
Steve Hirsch, a thirty- year veteran of the CIA who held senior positions spanning counterterrorism, intelligence analysis, public affairs and organizational transformation, now retired, is working to help people like you and me understand how the agency operates, particularly given the many changes that have taken place since 9-11. Our discussion is serious and protracted and involves critical issues about the quality of the product produced by the agency, current threats to its objectivity, the bright line between domestic activities of the FBI and foreign concerns of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, particularly when the two intersect. Given cuts under the Trump Administration and the older generation of leaders in the CIA deciding it may be time to move on, are we equipped to deal with current threats? You may be surprised to learn what his main concerns are here at home. It’s really worth a listen.
While we are in the midst of the worst measles outbreak in decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suddenly changed the way that deaths are attributed to measles. At one point, Pennsylvania health officials had a death toll at 4 measles-associated deaths, while the CDC counted none. Those numbers have changed and gone up but America, and its top health official, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have a serious case of health denialism owing to his many years in the fringe community of anti-vaxxers and those who do not believe in germ theory. Seth Kalichman, Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut and author of “Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories and Pseudoscience in a Post-COVID World”, is our guest today and he says a clear sign of denialism is the moving of goalposts in measuring health risks and mortality associated deaths. As we see declining vaccination rates in this moment along with weakened regulatory oversight, the risks for all of us go up, but particularly for those in underserved communities, already struggling with health costs and access.
Since the pandemic made work at home a thing, it has become routine for many office workers in our country. Finally, studies are revealing that while many truly appreciate the flexibility, there are downsides when it comes to productivity, social isolation and team building. While attempts to get employees to return-to-office (RTO) are often met with howls of disapproval, the reasons given are to improve results, greater productivity, the desire to use empty office space and support more commerce in the area. While there are many aspects of this issue we discuss on this podcast, it’s becoming clear that a consensus is building for a form of hybrid work arrangements–three days in the office and two at home, for example. This matter has become the defining workplace argument of the decade. Joining us to discuss it is Renee Loth, a long-time columnist for The Boston Globe and its former editorial page editor who wrote a piece called “Remote Work Made Life Easier. It Also Made Us Rusty.’
Description: I recently moderated a discussion titled ‘Democracy on the Edge: Election 2026 Key Issues Forum’ sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the Waterbury campus of the University of Connecticut. This podcast is a reprise of that event featuring:
The University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation, under the direction of Steven Kull, has been out surveying people in 11 competitive states and 28 competitive U.S. House districts in advance of the midterm elections. Perhaps, surprisingly, on key issues like fixing Social Security’s impending fiscal crisis, which would require recipients to accept up to 20 percent less each month, the affordability of housing and health care and the onrush of AI, there is widespread agreement on those polled as to common sense fixes, regardless of party affiliation. So, I ask, in this podcast why does so little get done in Congress? The answer may well lie in how our campaigns are funded and the impact of maintaining the status quo on behalf of the few and not for the many. Other tweaks to our elections processes, like dealing with extremes who control gerrymandered districts, couldn’t hurt either. What you are about to hear is not what is conventionally thought of as being the case in our fractured politics of the moment.
Labor unions taught many activist groups how to organize to improve working conditions and how to push back against strong corporations. For the last fifty years or so, union strength has eroded and corporate America has had a stranglehold on the politics of this nation. We’ve seen the results–jobs shipped overseas, inferior quality coming back in return and further environmental degradation. If corporate interests, particularly in the aftermath of the Citizens United decision in 2010, bankroll so much of our politics who is left to stand up and fight for social justice, environmental and health standards? In many cases it’s been left to corporate campaign movements to stop bad practices as whistleblowers, non-profits and non- governmental organizations do battle for what is right. Michael Marx, once a corporate insider, has been fighting the good fight more recently as an internationally respected environmental corporate campaign director and founder of Corporate Ethics International. In his book “Reining in the Bulls: How to Stop Corporate Abuse in an Age of Unbridled Greed,” he lays out the strategies that he employed in taking on companies like Mitsubishi, Home Depot, Walmart and Exxon/Mobil.
About one-fifth of the adult population in America experiences mental illness in any given year, yet less than half of them receive treatment. Often, our approach is to prevent disaster rather than foster positive outcomes for the patient. And media coverage exaggerates the danger involved in dealing with most people who experience serious mental illness, like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, among others. While we closed down many large facilities housing people with mental illness our community-based approaches have been spotty and often lacking a critical component–connecting people dealing with these conditions with others who have similar lived experiences. Hundreds of thousands of individuals with mental illness live in jails and prisons when they would be better served by working with peer respites, stand-alone crisis centers and other innovative efforts now underway in various communities. Our guest, University of Alabama Law professor, Fredrick Vars, is the author of “Through the Fire: How People with Mental Illness are Empowering Each Other.” He speaks from his own experience as one who suffered a hallucinogenic break. It’s an important discussion of a topic often left in the shadows.