New Books in Artificial Intelligence

Marshall Poe

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

  1. 3d ago

    Seth C. Lewis, Rodrigo Zamith, and Tomás Dodds, "Journalism in the Age of AI: From Acceleration to Reimagination" (Polity, 2027)

    What if AI’s biggest impact on journalism isn’t replacing journalists, but forcing us to rethink what journalism is for? In this episode, Joanne Kuai speaks with Seth C. Lewis, Rodrigo Zamith, and Tomás Dodds, authors of Journalism in the Age of AI: From Acceleration to Reimagination (Polity, 2027). For decades, journalism has been caught on a “hamster wheel” of acceleration: producing more stories, for more platforms, with fewer resources. AI promises even greater efficiency, but is doing more with less really what journalism needs? Lewis, Zamith, and Dodds argue that the current AI moment offers something more consequential: an opportunity to reimagine journalism itself. The conversation explores what remains distinctly human about journalism when machines can increasingly perform creative and cognitive tasks; how dependence on AI companies and digital infrastructure is reshaping media power; what AI means for journalism education and human judgement; and whether journalism can harness these technologies in ways that strengthen, rather than erode, its democratic purpose. The conversation also raises a more fundamental question: is preserving journalism as an institution the goal, or should we rethink how society meets its information needs altogether? Journalism in the Age of AI is available open access. Learn more and access the book here. About the authors Seth C. Lewis is the inaugural Elcan Jefferson Scholars Foundation Distinguished Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Media Studies at the University of Virginia. Previously, he was the founding holder of the Shirley Papé Chair in Emerging Media and Director of Journalism at the University of Oregon. In his research, Lewis examines the social implications of emerging technologies and their consequences for news and public life. Rodrigo Zamith is an Associate Professor and former Chair of the Journalism Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of journalism and technology, with a focus on understanding the social implications of emerging technologies for how news is produced, distributed, and consumed. He is a recipient of UMass’ Distinguished Teaching Award. Tomás Dodds is an Assistant Professor in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Director of its Public Tech Media Lab. His research examines the evolving relationship between journalism and technology, with a focus on how journalists and media organizations can develop open-source tools and artificial intelligence systems that serve the public interest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. Aug 3

    James W. Cortada, "Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

    Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times (Bloomsbury, 2025) describes tacit knowledge, what it is, how it used and its role in our current data driven world. Author James Cortada argues that fuzzy, hard-to describe information is greater and more, important than just hard facts. What is tacit knowledge? It is what we might consider knowledge that is unable to be fully communicated; knowledge that we understand implicitly, but it is a bit hard to explain. For example, it is the kind of knowledge one needs to ride a bicycle, but that cannot be described precisely on paper in the way one might be able to explain how to cook a dish. Tacit knowledge is the least understood type of information and one of the most difficult to communicate. Yet there is more tacit knowledge in our lives than the specific facts one can find in a book, on the Internet or in the simple form of a fact. This book is designed to introduce the reader to the concept of tacit knowledge and how to recognize and use it. This book offers definitions of tacit knowledge and compares the topic to explicit knowledge, then describes how the former is used today. The author argues that both types are used today and explains how one can use both types of knowledge in their lives. This book is essential primer to understanding tacit knowledge and learning how to use it to your advantage.  Guest: James (Jim) Cortada is a senior research fellow at the University of Minnesota. He is a leading authority on the role of modern information. He holds a PhD in modern history but worked at IBM Corporation for nearly 40 years in sales and consulting. He has written several books on the business history of the computer industry and just over a dozen on the history and use of information over the past two centuries. So, he straddles the subject between historical evolution and its current uses.   Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. Jul 31

    Devin Kennedy, "Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy" (Columbia UP, 2026)

    Long before Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, computer technology shaped how people worked, how markets operated, and how businesses became big. After World War II, military officials and their partners in industry looked to the newly invented electronic computer as they sought to cut costs, speed up labor, manage supply chains, and—they hoped—bring stability to the postwar economy. Their efforts would shape early computer science and the first applications of computer technology in manufacturing and business, with profound consequences for workers and managers alike. By the 1960s, practices originally developed to improve industrial efficiency were being used by Wall Street, influencing how markets worked and even how traders thought. Digital technology became central to finance, tying together far-flung trading floors and automating decision making—with alarming consequences, including the 1987 Black Monday crash.  In Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy (Columbia University Press, 2026), Dr. Devin Kennedy offers a new history of the digital economy, showing how the computer emerged from—and transformed—capitalism in the United States. He traces how computer science and technology were made by industry, which molded computation to manage factories, financial markets, and entire firms. Drawing on the archives of businesses, computer researchers, regulators, and financial institutions, Coding Capitalism retells the story of the postwar economy and the computer, revealing how mid-century business laid the foundations of the digital world. Bridging business and economic history with the history of science and technology, this book uncovers the prehistory of big tech and demonstrates how capitalism has shaped computing since its invention. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. Jul 12

    The Emerging Anocracy: AI, Tech Oligarchs, and the Future of Democracy with Alexis Cruz

    In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny sits down with Alexis Cruz, founder of Enough Consulting and former strategic advisor for governance at Meta. Cruz explores how the proliferation of AI and digital platforms has shifted global politics into an "anocracy"—a precarious gray zone situated between traditional democracy and authoritarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. Jul 10

    Ali Fard, "Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

    Since the 1990s, technologists have promoted a vision of the “cloud” as a shapeless and intangible entity. Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data (University of Minnesota Press, 2026) by Dr. Ali Fard peers through this hazy façade to reveal the earthly material foundations of global computing and data extraction. Tracing the historical and technological development of the cloud computing paradigm, Dr. Fard exposes an ever-evolving project in which ideologies, economic models, and marketing images collude to shape our shared urban environments. Demonstrating how technology’s spatial footprint now stretches to nearly every corner of the globe, Grounding the Cloud analyzes the often-hidden infrastructures that facilitate platform capitalism—from the mines extracting rare earth minerals in remote regions to the vast global network of fiber-optic cables at the bottom of the oceans to the nondescript data centers that sit on the peripheries of major urban areas. Meanwhile, with compelling examples of smart-city initiatives and corporate campuses, Dr. Fard shows how the future of urbanism is deeply intertwined with the growing economies of data extraction. Breaking down the myth of a clean and efficient tech urbanism, this book makes visible the complex material geographies and geopolitics that undergird today’s most powerful and omnipresent corporations. A timely critique of the growing agency of tech platforms in determining the future of urban space, Grounding the Cloud offers an essential framework for understanding the shifting relationship between technology and urbanization. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. Jul 3

    Joseph Turow, "The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

    A respected voice on technology shows how seemingly simple ads help dismantle democracy and public discourse. Whether you’re intentionally shopping or casually browsing social media, something is following you: ads. Their creators seem to know your income bracket, politics, age, location, medical conditions, and tastes in clothing, food, and romantic partners. As advertising firms use predictive AI to discover your hot buttons and generative AI to push them, your online world becomes an increasingly bespoke—and isolated—place. The fervid competition around personalization in digital marketing has given rise to an ecosystem of advertisers, media outlets, tech companies, and retailers who monetize your data while threatening the health of our media, discourse, and sense of community. In this urgent book, award-winning author Joseph Turow shows how we got here, and how to change direction.The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age (University of Chicago Press, 2026) shatters common beliefs about advertising history by showing that individualized ads are not new. Today’s AI-enabled advertisers draw on past aspirations and assumptions about personalization while weaponizing data in unprecedented ways that drive social fragmentation and the disappearance of shared social reality. Informed by interviews with marketing insiders and covering the latest technology advances, Turow accessibly explains how artificial intelligence sifts through our data to tag and target us wherever we go with personalized videos, pictorial billboards, audio messages, and more. A logical next step for advertiser support is tailored entertainment and news, a shift that further destroys the common ground necessary for a functioning democracy. A must-read for all who care about the future of public discourse, The Problem with Personalization reveals how targeted advertising has altered how we’re seen and what we see in return. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  7. Jun 25

    The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest

    Research shows that honesty is the single most important characteristic a person can possess when it comes to liking them, respecting them, and understanding them. But honesty is eroding in many areas of society today, as we are confronted with honesty crises in politics, education, relationships, religion, celebrity culture, and technology. Over the past 50 years, no single philosopher has offered a comprehensive exploration of honesty—how we define it, how it diverges in private and public spaces, and how it depends on shared perceptions of reality. Dr. Christian Miller addresses this gap, while showing how modern life increasingly rewards dishonesty, with profound consequences for our relationships, institutions and culture—a phenomenon he names The Honesty Crisis (Oxford UP, 2026). From cases such as sermon plagiarism to AI-assisted cheating to the rise of fake news, Dr. Miller explores how dishonesty has become easier, more pervasive and even normalized in our society. Yet The Honesty Crisis does more than diagnose the problem: it proposes concrete, practical steps to preserve honesty where it matters most. Guest: Dr. Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. The author of numerous articles and books, he also directed The Honesty Project, one of the largest research initiatives ever undertaken on honesty. Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She holds a Ph.D. in history which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. She is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Understanding Disinformation When Your Professor Asks You To Cheat The Last Human Job Who Gets Believed The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking What Do You Want Out of Life The Museum of Failure The Well-Gardened Mind A Meaningful Life The Good- Enough Life Tell Me What You Want Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  8. Jun 18

    Reinvention in an Era of Volatility

    Caroline Stokes is a strategist who works with C-Suites and Boards to lead their organizations through AI disruption, climate risk, and geopolitical instability. Her new book Aftershock to 2030: A CEO's Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate, and Societal Collapse is published by Broad Book Press and serves as a roadmap for leaders navigating the tidal wave of change going on today. The founder of Workplace EQ, Caroline Stokes is previously the author of the business book Elephants Before Unicorns, about which she was interviewed by Dan Hill for his previous NBN podcast, “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” in 2020. Empathy, mental sovereignty, super hero: those three aspirations define this conversation well. Let’s unpack each term, in turn, to provide a sense of Caroline Stokes’ perspective on the world of work nowadays. One of Stokes’ points here is that emotional labor is of real value but the burden of getting it done rarely falls equally on people’s shoulders in business, with women often taking the greater load. Who should be stepping up more? CEOs, for whom empathy is rarely a Top 10 or even Top 30 strength of theirs. Sometimes hyper-masculinity gets in the way; other times, it might be that they feel blocked by the misperception that empathy entails just “dumping” one’s feelings on others at work, when in reality admitting vulnerability in relation to specific, mission-critical aspects of one’s job should really be the primary focus. In turn, what is “mental sovereignty” in Stokes’ work view? The term is meant to denote showing respect to everyone, regardless of rank, as part of creating a culture that highly values psychological safety. Finally, “super hero” enters the picture because, as a long-time executive coach, Stokes knows that within most if not all leaders lies a desire to be a difference-maker in ways that go beyond hitting the quarterly numbers alone. Within every leader, she believes, lurks a seven-year-old child eager to be a force for moral good as well as financial success for the enterprise overall. Real Transformations: Business Change That Works from the Inside Out is co-hosted by Julie Anixter and Dan Hill, PhD, entrepreneurs with deep experience as corporate change agents, devoted to helping companies make continuous change work for everyone through clarity and connection. To learn about their keynote talks, workshops and labs, check out Real-Transformation.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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About

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

Information

  • Creator
    Marshall Poe
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    30
  • Rating
    Explicit