Paths of Curiosity in an AI World

Acadia and Alora Holve
  • 4.3 (4)
  • Education

Welcome to Paths of Curiosity in an AI World — a podcast created by two sisters who wanted to understand what the future of work actually looks like before they got there. We started this show because we kept hearing about AI changing everything, but nobody was explaining what that meant for real careers, in plain language, for students our age. So we decided to find out ourselves — by going directly to the people living it. Each quarter, we release a focused mini-series diving deep into one major domain: Health & Life Sciences, Law & Governance, Creativity & Culture, and Engineering & the Physical World. You'll hear from working professionals who break down what their jobs actually look like today, how AI fits into their work right now, and where they see their fields heading over the next decade. We're students figuring this out alongside you. This podcast is how we do it — one conversation at a time. Designed for students, parents, and college advisors who want real clarity, not hype.

  1. 4d ago

    Q3 Recap - Data, Behavior & Human Systems: How Data Shapes What We Do, Think, and Become

    Who Really Makes Your Choices? Six Researchers on the Hidden Systems Shaping Your Life Paths of Curiosity in an AI World You get to pick. Make the predictions yourself, or hand the job to an algorithm. You get paid for how accurate they are. And before you choose, you watch the algorithm practice — and it's wrong a lot. But it's still better than you. It would earn you more money than you would yourself. Most people still didn't pick it. The people who never saw it work trusted it. The people who watched it make mistakes fired it, bet on themselves, and made less money doing it. They picked being wrong their own way over being less wrong the algorithm's way. That is the question this whole quarter. When you make a choice, how much of it is really yours? In this recap episode, Alora and I revisit all six conversations from our Data, Behavior, and Human Systems miniseries — and trace the single thread running through all of them. Together, we work through: How a text message and a wristband made tuberculosis patients in Kenya two-thirds more likely to finish treatment — and what that tells you about every choice environment you are inside right nowWhy your credit score is a black box that punishes you for being new, and how your email address, your phone type, and what time you shop predict your financial future better than most people realizeHow algorithmic management gives companies total control over gig workers without ever calling them employers — and why the drivers who value the flexibility most are also the ones most exposed when something goes wrongWhy the original Luddites were not afraid of technology — and what it means that the question they were asking two hundred years ago is the same one we need to ask about every app on your phoneWhat the law of amplification says about who actually benefits when AI gets more powerfulWhy seeing an algorithm fail makes you trust it less even when it is still better than you — and the one fix that worksWe also trace the career paths of all six guests, because not one of them started where they ended up. A would-be diplomat who became a field experimentalist. A teenage organizer who ended up writing financial policy. A historian who spent seven years riding with gig workers and then went inside the company she had been studying. A chemist who changed his major on a single elective. A physicist who spent a decade building technology and came home with a law about what it cannot do. A finance major who realized he did not want to make predictions — he wanted to understand how people make them. None of them planned it. All of them found the crossing point between two things they cared about and followed it. This conversation is for anyone who has spent this quarter wondering how much of their life is a choice they made — and how much was designed for them to make. Because the illusion is not that the choice is fake. It was never fully free and was never fully taken. There is a real decision buried in there somewhere. Finding it is the work. And that work is wide open. Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

  2. Sep 16

    Q3 - AI in Data, Behavior, and Human Systems with Berkeley Dietvorst, BS, PhD

    Why Seeing an Algorithm Fail Makes You Trust It Less — Even When It's Still Better Than You Paths of Curiosity in an AI World What if the algorithm was actually right and you still refused to trust it? Dr. Berkeley Dietvorst discovered that people abandon algorithms the moment they see them make a mistake — even when those algorithms consistently outperform humans. And then he found something even more surprising: giving people just a tiny amount of control over the output is often enough to fix it. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Dietvorst, Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the researcher who coined the term algorithm aversion. Together, we explore: What algorithm aversion actually is — and why seeing an algorithm perform makes people less likely to use it, not moreWhy a small ability to tweak an algorithm's output changes everything psychologicallyThe critical difference between a prediction and a decision — and why algorithms should only ever be responsible for one of themWhat randomness in a domain has to do with whether you should trust an algorithm at allWhy hiring, parole, and medical diagnosis feel different — and what your resistance to algorithms there might actually be telling youWhat a student sorted by algorithms their entire life should understand about the systems shaping their choicesDr. Dietvorst also shares his own unexpected path — from a finance major fascinated by investing to a behavioral scientist studying why humans make the decisions they make — and why following what genuinely interested him at each step was the only strategy that worked. This conversation will change how you think about every algorithm nudging your decisions, from college applications to career choices to what your feed decides you should see next. Because in a world where algorithms are often better than us at prediction, the real question was never whether to trust them. It's understanding exactly what they can and cannot do — and who gets to make the final call. LinkedIn Post: What if the algorithm was right and you still refused to use it? Dr. Berkeley Dietvorst discovered that people abandon algorithms the moment they see them make a mistake — even when those algorithms consistently outperform humans. He coined a term for it: algorithm aversion. And then he found something even more surprising: giving people just a tiny amount of control over the output is often enough to fix it entirely. In our latest episode of Paths of Curiosity in an AI World, we sat down with Dr. Dietvorst, Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Here's the framing that changed how I think about every AI tool I use: Algorithms are for predictions. Humans are for decisions. A prediction tells you there's a 20% chance of rain. The decision — whether to go to the outdoor concert anyway — depends on how much you hate getting wet, how much you love the band, and how you'd feel if you stayed home and it didn't rain. No algorithm can know that. Only you can. The same logic applies to college admissions, hiring, parole, medical diagnosis. The resistance people feel toward algorithms in those domains isn't always aversion. Sometimes it's the right instinct — because those aren't just prediction problems. They're value problems. And value problems belong to humans. What else we got into: Why seeing an algorithm perform makes people trust it less, not moreHow a tiny tweak to the output changes everything psychologicallyWhy some domains are too random for any algorithm to ever look good — even when it's still beating humansWhat growing up sorted by algorithms does to how young people make decisionsDr. Dietvorst started as a finance major drawn to investing, took one class on human decision-making, and never looked back. His advice: take the econ class, take the psychology class, take the statistics class — and then go read the actual academic papers, not the summaries. That's where the real skill starts to build. When was the last time you trusted an algorithm's prediction but made a different decision anyway — and were you right to? #AI #BehavioralScience #AlgorithmAversion #DecisionMaking #FutureOfWork #PathsOfCuriosity Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

  3. Sep 3

    Q3 - AI in Data, Behavior, and Human Systems with Kentaro Toyama, AB, PhD

    Technology Doesn't Fix Broken Systems. It Makes Them Worse. A Warning From Inside Microsoft. Paths of Curiosity in an AI World What if the most honest thing anyone in tech has ever said is that technology almost never does what we think it will? Dr. Kentaro Toyama spent a decade at Microsoft building technology for some of the world's most underserved communities. What he found changed everything he thought he knew — and led him to write a book called Geek Heresy. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Toyama, W.K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan and author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. He co-founded Microsoft Research India, ran over fifty humanitarian technology projects, and came to a conclusion that Silicon Valley still doesn't want to hear. Together, we explore: The law of amplification: why technology makes already positive situations better and broken systems even worseWhat happened when Microsoft built a brilliant solution for rural schools in India — and why it failed anywayWhy the people who build educational technology often send their own children to schools with almost no electronicsWhat it means that AI is the first technology that can actually change your mind — and why that breaks the rulesWho really has power over AI right now, and what their actual behavior tells us about what gets amplifiedWhy if the AI guidance is free, your brain might be the productDr. Toyama also reflects on a career that took him from physics at Harvard to computer science at Yale to Microsoft to a research lab in Ghana to one of the most cited critics of technology utopianism in the world — and why none of it was planned. This conversation will change how you think about every promise you have ever heard about what AI will do for education, healthcare, and hiring. Because in a world where technology amplifies everything underneath it, the most important question was never what the tool can do. It's who controls it — and what they actually want. Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

  4. Aug 17

    Q3 - AI in Data, Behavior, and Human Systems with Jathan Sadowski, PhD

    Sorted, Scored, and Steered: The Political Economy of AI With a Real Luddite Paths of Curiosity in an AI World You've been sorted, scored, and steered by systems you never agreed to. Someone built those systems. Someone profits from them. And the word we've been taught to use as an insult is actually the most precise tool we have to fight back. In this episode, we continue our AI, Data, Behavior, and Human Systems miniseries with Dr. Jathan Sadowski, Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow at Monash University's Emerging Technologies Research Lab and author of Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World, and The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism. Together, we explore: What the original Luddites actually believed — and why recovering that history changes how you think about AI resistance todayHow smart technologies from school laptops to John Deere tractors are built around two imperatives: extracting data and expanding controlWhat it means that your data isn't just collected but accumulated like capital — and what that means for someone who has been datafied since childhoodThe landlord model of tech platforms, and how AI deepens a system where you rent access to the infrastructure your life depends onWhy "the algorithm did it" is always a lie — and who is actually making decisions about your life behind itWhat the Marie Kondo test for technology actually looks like in practiceDr. Sadowski also shares his own sliding-door moment: a single philosophy elective at a technology university that pulled him out of a polymer chemistry degree and onto a path he never could have planned — studying the systems that shape all of our lives before most people knew those systems existed. This conversation will change how you think about every platform you use, every form you sign, and every choice a company tells you that you're making freely. Because in a world designed to prevent you from thinking critically about it, the most radical thing you can do is ask: does this thing actually make my life better? Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

  5. Aug 4

    Q3 - AI in Data, Behavior, and Human Systems with Alex Rosenblat, BA, MA

    Inside the Algorithm: What 5,000 Miles With Gig Workers Taught One Researcher About Power, Control, and Design Paths of Curiosity in an AI World What if the app that decides your Uber driver's next ride was specifically designed to make them feel free while controlling almost everything they do? Dr. Alex Rosenblat spent seven years finding out. In this episode, we continue our AI, Data, Behavior, and Human Systems miniseries with Dr. Alex Rosenblat, Director of Sociotechnical Research at The Markup and Cal Matters, and author of Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules at Work. She rode over five thousand miles with gig workers across twenty-five cities, then did something almost no outside researcher has ever done — she went inside Uber to try to change it. Together, we explore: How algorithmic management gives companies total control over workers without ever having to call them employeesWhy drivers crowdsource the rules in online forums because the platform never actually tells them what the rules areWhat dark patterns look like in the real world — from gig apps to hospital registration tablets — and how they steer choices you didn't know were being steeredWhat happened when Dr. Rosenblat tried to get a copy of her own child's hospital consent forms after surgeryWhy surveillance pricing — getting charged a different amount than the person standing next to you — may be the most underreported story in tech right nowWhat ethnography gives researchers that no dataset ever couldDr. Rosenblat also reflects on what it means to study a system from the outside, work inside it, and come back out to investigate again — and why understanding how every stakeholder thinks is the skill most researchers never develop. This conversation will change how you read every form you're handed, every app you open, and every choice a platform tells you that you're making freely. Because in a world where design is policy, the most important question isn't what the system can do — it's what it's been built to make you do without noticing. Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

  6. Jul 22

    Q3 - AI in Data, Behavior, and Human Systems with Aaron Klein, AB, MPA

    Paths of Curiosity in an AI World For decades, banks discriminated against borrowers in person. Then algorithms inherited those same biases and made them invisible. Aaron Klein says AI could finally fix that — or make it far worse. In this episode, we continue our AI and Human Decision-Making: Choices, Bias, and Behavior miniseries with Aaron Klein, Miriam K. Carliner Chair and Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department, and former Chief Economist of the Senate Banking Committee — a person who helped write the laws that govern the financial system you're already living inside. Together, we explore: What actually happens in the first seconds after you apply for a credit card — and why a mysterious black box number you've never heard of may already be shaping your financial lifeHow banks once decided loans in person, face to face, and why that created the discrimination that federal law was written to stopWhat your device, your email address, your shopping hours, and even your name might already be telling a lender about you — before you've said a wordWhy the same characteristic — gender — is perfectly legal in car insurance but completely illegal in credit cards, and what that contradiction reveals about how financial rules actually get madeHow AI could finally extend credit to people the current system has locked out for generations — and what's standing in the wayWhy the entire financial system is tuned to an out-of-tune oboe, and how hard it is to get everyone to retune at onceKlein also shares his own path from organizing his rundown high school in Silver Spring, Maryland to the Senate Banking Committee to the Treasury Department during the 2008 financial crisis — and why the only two professions people describe as a calling are the priesthood and public service. This conversation will change how you think about every financial decision you make — and every decision already being made about you. Because in a world where an algorithm decides whether you get a loan before a human ever looks at your name, the question isn't just whether the system is fair. It's whether anyone with the power to change it actually will. Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

  7. Jul 7

    Q3 - AI in Data, Behavior, and Human Systems with Syon Bhanot, PhD

    Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Every cafeteria, every app, and every website you use today was designed to push you towards a decision before you even knew you were making one. And the people who built it? They're not thinking about you. In this episode, we kick off our AI and Human Decision-Making: Choices, Bias, and Behavior miniseries with Dr. Syon Bhanot, Associate Professor of Economics at Swarthmore College and Senior Researcher at MIT's Applied Cooperation Team, whose field experiments with governments, cities, and international organizations — including the World Bank and the U.S. Federal Government — have changed how millions of people save, conserve, and make decisions about their own lives. He is the recipient of the 2024 Exeter Prize for his research on attention and decision-making. Together, we explore: How a text message and a wristband made people two-thirds more likely to finish tuberculosis treatment in Kenya — and what that tells us about why we fail to do even the things that matter mostWhat TikTok and Instagram actually know about your psychology — and why calling you a "user" is no accidentWhy telling people they're losing a water conservation competition caused them to use more water, not lessThe moment money ruins everything: why adding $11 to helping a friend move makes you less likely to show upWhy the happiest people aren't optimizers — and what that means for every major decision you're about to makeWhat AI nudging looks like when the system doing the nudging answers to an advertiser, not to youDr. Bhanot also shares his own winding path from a year at a refugee camp in Kenya to stumbling into microeconomics in grad school to running experiments that shape federal policy — and why the best metaphor for a career is surfing, not planning. This conversation will change how you think about every choice you make — and every choice that's already being made for you. Because in a world where algorithms, platforms, and institutions are all nudging you somewhere, the question isn't just whether you're being influenced. It's whether anyone nudging you actually has your interests in mind. Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

  8. Jun 24

    Q2 - Power, Law, and Civic Life: When Algorithms Govern Your Life Miniseries Recap

    AI, Power, and the Laws That Haven't Caught Up Yet: A Miniseries Recap Paths of Curiosity in an AI World A 17-year-old boy had never been arrested. Never charged with anything. Never convicted of anything. But he was in a secret intelligence file, flagged by an algorithm as likely to become a criminal — and officers were showing up at his door before he had done a single thing wrong. This is one story from one county. Seventeen thousand kids had their data in that system. In this recap episode, Alora and I revisit all six conversations from our AI, Power, Law, and Civic Life miniseries — and ask what they add up to. Together, we work through: Why winning a landmark Supreme Court case on digital privacy didn't actually close the door — and how law enforcement found a workaround before the ink was dryWhat algorithmic wage discrimination means for anyone who has ever picked up a gig shift, and why there is currently nothing stopping platforms from using a desperation scoreHow a deepfake audio clip requiring minutes to generate and nothing to detect could already decide a custody caseWhose values actually get encoded into the platforms billions of people use — and what happens to democracy when algorithms replace shared realityWhy the kids being flagged by predictive policing were the same kids the system had already failedWhat it means that lawyers are only reaching ten percent of the Americans who need them — and whether AI finally changes that mathWe also trace the career paths of all six guests, because none of them were straight. A field organizer who became a Supreme Court advocate. A clinical psychologist who went back to law school in her thirties. An engineer who spent six months on the Silk Road with cassette tapes and came back asking different questions entirely. The combination that feels random right now might be exactly what makes you irreplaceable later. This conversation is for anyone who has spent this quarter wondering where they fit in a field being rewritten in real time. Because the legal frameworks for the AI era are being written right now. The tools that courts will use are being designed right now. The policy decisions are being made right now. By people — which means students who are curious have a place in this. Paths of Curiosity in an AI World Exploring tomorrow’s careers through the lens of AI Follow us: @pathsofcuriosity Website: https://pathsofcuriosity.com/ Youtube: youtube.com/@PathsofCuriosity X: https://x.com/PathsCuriosity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paths-of-curiosity-in-an-ai-world-2117803aa/

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4.3
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About

Welcome to Paths of Curiosity in an AI World — a podcast created by two sisters who wanted to understand what the future of work actually looks like before they got there. We started this show because we kept hearing about AI changing everything, but nobody was explaining what that meant for real careers, in plain language, for students our age. So we decided to find out ourselves — by going directly to the people living it. Each quarter, we release a focused mini-series diving deep into one major domain: Health & Life Sciences, Law & Governance, Creativity & Culture, and Engineering & the Physical World. You'll hear from working professionals who break down what their jobs actually look like today, how AI fits into their work right now, and where they see their fields heading over the next decade. We're students figuring this out alongside you. This podcast is how we do it — one conversation at a time. Designed for students, parents, and college advisors who want real clarity, not hype.

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