Bonus Episode: Artificial Intelligence Podcasts With Jennifer Strong

**Allison** (0:02)
Hi, everyone. Allison again. Really excited to share today's bonus episode on which Jennifer Strong joined Sam and Shervin to talk about a host of podcasts and artificial intelligence related topics. They will be talking about their favorite episodes of Me, Myself, and AI, what goes into producing a podcast, and other really fun stories about what they've uncovered as they've researched and told stories about technology and business. We hope you enjoy it, and again, really encourage you to continue to rate and review our show so we can continually improve and make this a podcast you really enjoy.
So let's jump in.

**Jennifer Strong** (0:35)
I'm Jennifer Strong from Shift Podcast.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (0:39)
I'm Shervin Khodabandeh.

**Sam Ransbotham** (0:40)
I'm Sam Ransbotham.

**Jennifer Strong** (0:42)
And you're listening to Me, Myself, and AI.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (0:47)
Hi, everyone. Today, we have a special kind of guest for you. Today, we're joined by Jennifer Strong, who is an audio journalist, award winner, creator of Shift Podcast for Public Radio Exchange.
Jennifer, welcome to the show.

**Jennifer Strong** (1:01)
Thanks so much.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (1:03)
Jennifer, you've been covering AI for quite some time and have perspective on what is going on and what you're seeing. What is top of mind for you these days?

**Jennifer Strong** (1:12)
Ooh, what isn't top of mind for me right now?
I feel like, yes, I have been covering AI for a while. I think 2017 is when I first entered this beat over at The Wall Street Journal. But it's not my background. I feel like I need to say upfront, you know, I'm in no way a technologist. I came at this as I'm a journalist. I'm endlessly curious. Journalism has always felt like a great privilege, this opportunity to be trusted with people's stories, to see the world and witness particular moments in history as they unfold.
I feel that way about AI too. I would say right now I'm dedicating a significant portion of my time to gathering oral histories because I think in the not-so-distant future, even maybe just a few years from now, we're going to look back at this time and all of the change and be happy to have that body of work.

**Sam Ransbotham** (2:00)
That aligns well with your I was there when type of approach from the machines we trust that trying to capture these sound bites and moments in history, because actually one of them that I was paying attention to, made the point that this is probably a fleeting moment here.

**Jennifer Strong** (2:15)
Yes.

**Sam Ransbotham** (2:15)
It's nice that we're capturing some of that before we blow past it.

**Jennifer Strong** (2:19)
You're right, Sam. I started this work at MIT. I was a director at the Tech Review until this past summer, just collecting all of these stories. And we're not quite ready to announce this yet, but the oral histories that are being collected both in my last role and in my current one, hopefully will find their way into museum sometime in the next probably couple years. It's like something of a time capsule.
Anyway, you know, I have my favorite episodes of the show. I've been a fan of you guys for a while now.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (2:46)
You're very kind.

**Jennifer Strong** (2:47)
I'm thinking Yashu last year. Well, no, it's true. It's fun. Also, a lot of the folks you have on are people I know too, and it's really a lot of fun for me. But thinking of some of my favorite episodes, Yashu from LinkedIn was one. More recently, you had Naba Banerjee from Airbnb.
And I'm curious, what are some of your favorites or most memorable episodes that you've worked on?

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (3:08)
Do you want to go first, Sam?

**Sam Ransbotham** (3:11)
Yeah, so I think it's kind of like saying, all right, which of your kids do you like the best? You know, you can't help but Maline One, if you mentioned some others. But, you know, there are some that just keep showing up over and over again, that we end up bringing them up as examples. There's a recency effect. I thought our NASA episode, one, amazing person and super interesting to talk to. And honestly, flying helicopters on Mars is cool.
But just also how we talk about all the planning that must go into using technology in that context. And then at the same time, she was searching for unexpected.
They want to find things they are not expecting.
And, you know, I think that's an interesting analogy. I was thinking more about this, that a lot of what we're trying to do with this technology is push a lot of boring stuff into the background and highlight all the interesting stuff. And that's happening clearly in Mars, but it's happening lots of places. So NASA was a big one.