AI & Human Insight

Martha Little

Hey, I'm Martha Little, and I've been making podcasts for a long time. But this one feels different. AI & Human Insight grew out of a question I just can't shake: now that we're living alongside powerful AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT, what's actually happening to our creativity, our curiosity, our empathy — the things that make us uniquely human? I'm not here to panic about it. And I'm not here to hype it either. I'm genuinely curious. So I'm doing what I do best — talking to people. AI founders building tools for creatives, marketers, filmmakers, advertisers — and the artists and everyday

Episodes

  1. Jul 2

    Episode 8: You Have to Be in the Room: Steve Jordan on Groove, Soul, and AI

    Steve Jordan has played drums for the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards' X-Pensive Winos, and some of the most iconic sessions in modern music. He's also got strong opinions about where AI belongs — and where it absolutely doesn't. In this episode, from somewhere above Wrigley Field, Jordan talks about what it means to actually be in the room, why he's not worried about AI writing songs but is worried about AI making military decisions, and the mantra he gives young musicians who want to skip straight to "rich and famous." Along the way: a story about Buddy Guy that will change how you think about a great take, and a tribute to Charlie Watts that says more about musicianship than any technical breakdown could. This is a conversation about groove, soul, and the parts of being human that no machine can replicate. #RollingStones #AIandCreativity #AIandmusic For more on the host, go to: LittleMediaco.com

  2. Jun 24

    Episode 7: Taking Back the Box: How Creatives Are Fighting to Own Their Work in the Age of AI

    Most of us assume the AI revolution is happening to us. Sally Herships and Mark Fiore decided to happen back. Herships, an award-winning journalist, and Fiore, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist, co-founded the SFAI Agency — the Artificial Intelligence Agency of San Francisco — after discovering that their life's work had likely been scraped into AI training data without their knowledge or permission. Their response wasn't litigation. It was a tool called Croquis, which can peer inside AI models and data sets to detect whether your creative work is in there. In this conversation with Martha, they talk about what it means to fight for the dignity of creative work, the paradox of using AI to push back against AI, and why the question of who owns your voice — literally your voice — is one every creator needs to be asking right now. David and Goliath never felt so relevant. For more on Martha Little, visit Littlemediaco.com

  3. Jun 17

    Episode 6: No Country Has a Secretary of the Future — David Brancaccio

    David Brancaccio spent decades waking up at 2am to report the day's news for Marketplace. Now, as the show's Future Effects Correspondent, he's asking a different question: what happens to us — not just our jobs — when AI reshapes the economy? Martha and David explore the painful gap between technological disruption and its promised benefits, why the Industrial Revolution is the wrong model for what's coming, and what it means for a society to lose the friction that makes us human. They also dig into who should be at the table when decisions about AI are made — and why it can't just be the engineers who built it. Born May 17, 1960 in New York City, David Brancaccio got his start in broadcasting at age fifteen on local radio. He went on to earn a B.A. from Wesleyan and a Master's in journalism from Stanford. AlchetronPrabook He hosted Marketplace's evening program from 1993 to 2003, then co-anchored PBS's NOW with Bill Moyers before taking over as solo anchor. Most recently, he served as host of Marketplace Morning Report from 2013 to 2026, before transitioning to his current "Future Effects Correspondent" role — the title he carries on your show. His work has earned him a Peabody, Emmy, and Walter Cronkite Award, among others.

  4. Jun 9

    Episode 5: The Soul of the Ad: Human Creativity in an AI-Driven Industry

    What happens to storytelling, creativity, and human judgment when the machines start running the ads? Martha sits down with Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab — the global technical standards body for the digital advertising industry — to explore how AI is reshaping one of the most human-centered industries there is. Tony offers a grounded, non-alarmist view of where AI genuinely helps, where humans must stay in the loop, and why, in a world of automated auctions and generative creative, focus groups might actually matter more than ever. A conversation about trillion-dollar markets, the Coca-Cola holiday ad, children's privacy, and whether AI will ever truly have soul. What we cover: The IAB Tech Lab and how technical standards work — why there can only be one global body setting the rules for a $1 trillion industry that runs auctions in under 500 milliseconds. Agentic advertising — the emerging world of AI agents buying and selling media autonomously, why the industry is still in the "first inning," and why no one is ready to let agents run wild with real money. Generative AI in creative — from the Coca-Cola holiday ad to small business empowerment, Tony explains why major brands will not hand their creative over to AI anytime soon, and where the real near-term opportunity lies. The "AI sniff test" — younger consumers, it turns out, can often detect AI-generated content, and they don't like it. What does that mean for authenticity in advertising? Transparency and labeling — industry self-regulation through C2PA watermarking, proposed New York State legislation, and European mandates around disclosing AI-generated content. Where humans must stay in the loop — Tony's two non-negotiables: political advertising and advertising to children. Focus groups in the age of AI — a counterintuitive take: human sentiment becomes more valuable, not less, as automation increases. The hype cycle question — a candid assessment of where AI actually is versus where the narrative says it is, and why the rebalancing is coming.

  5. May 5

    Episode 4: What AI Is Really Doing to Work — and to Us | Brandon Morphew

    What happens to us when the work we’ve built our lives around begins to change—quietly, but completely? In this episode of AI & Human Insight, I sit down with Brandon Morphew — a brand strategist and advisor who has spent decades helping companies grow — and is now watching, in real time, as AI reshapes not just how we work, but how we understand our value. This isn’t a conversation about tools or tactics. It’s a conversation about something harder to name:What it feels like to live through a transition where the ground is moving beneath all of us. Brandon is unusually clear-eyed about what’s coming: “My job will go away.” But what follows isn’t panic—it’s a kind of reorientation. Toward agency. Toward new forms of work. And toward a deeper question: what remains distinctly human when machines can do more and more of what we once called “thinking”? For more on host go to Littlemediaco.com

  6. Apr 28

    Episode 3: Would You Give Up Your Feelings for $100 Billion?

    What if the thing that makes you most human — your ability to feel joy, suffering, love, and connection — could be switched off? Would any amount of money make that trade worth it? That's just one of the provocative questions Martha Little discusses with Dr. Filip Vercruysse, a computational neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory whose work sits at the fascinating crossroads of how the human brain processes the world and how AI systems are learning to do the same. With a PhD in neuroscience from one of Europe's most prestigious institutions, Filip has spent his career trying to understand how the brain makes sense of what it sees, hears, and feels — and what that tells us about intelligence itself. His surprising conclusion? The engineered systems we're building may have more in common with our own biology than we ever expected. In this conversation, Filip and Martha explore the mystery of consciousness, the science behind human empathy, and why he believes that modeling other people — truly understanding what someone else is thinking and feeling — may be the foundation of human intelligence itself. They also venture into thrilling and unsettling territory: what happens when machines can do all of this too? And if they eventually can, is that something we should want? A conversation that is equal parts neuroscience, philosophy, and a reminder of why being human is still pretty extraordinary. The future of AI may challenge—but also deepen—our understanding of what it means to be human.

  7. Apr 21

    Episode 2: Can AI Help Humans Work Better Together?

    What if AI could actually make us more creative — not less? That's the big idea behind Squadify, and co-founders Pia Lee and Dan Hammond join Martha to make the case. Based in Australia and the UK, Pia and Dan have spent seven years helping teams across the globe work better together — and AI has become central to how they do it. Their platform combines anonymized team feedback, validated by the London School of Economics, with AI-powered interpretation to surface the hidden dynamics that make or break teams. Think psychological safety, collective creativity, and the quiet voices that never get heard in meetings. But this isn't a story about robots replacing managers. It's about democratizing something that used to be reserved for the lucky few — great coaching. Before AI, only the top 10 to 20 percent of an organization ever got that kind of support. Squadify wants to change that, giving every team — not just the C-suite — the tools to understand themselves better and take real action. They also get honest about the hard stuff: data privacy fears, the risk of AI surveillance in the workplace, and why some people would rather just have a conversation than let a bot analyze their team dynamics. Fair point — except those conversations weren't actually happening. Dan, a musician as well as a business founder, makes a passionate case that human effort and authentic creativity remain irreplaceable in the age of AI. Pia offers the practical vision: AI that gives introverts a voice, speeds up the painful process of wordsmithing, and helps teams move from endless discussion to real action. If you've ever sat in a dysfunctional meeting and thought "there has to be a better way" — this one's for you.

  8. Apr 14

    Episode 1: Can AI Teach Us Empathy—or Replace It?

    What happens when AI starts faking empathy — and does it matter? In this first episode of AI & Human Insight, Martha Little sits down with David Berkowitz, founder of High Caliber AI and author of the Non-Obvious Guide to Using AI, for a wide-ranging conversation about synthetic audiences, AI companions, and whether machines can ever truly replace human connection. David shares his experience visiting what may have been the world's first cafe for humans to date AI bots, why he thinks AI journaling apps can sometimes out-therapize your therapist, and what the Costco hot dog has to do with human-centered leadership. Thought-provoking, a little weird, and genuinely fun — exactly the kind of conversation we'll be having every week. Go to littlemediaco.com more more info on host.

  • 8 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

About

Hey, I'm Martha Little, and I've been making podcasts for a long time. But this one feels different. AI & Human Insight grew out of a question I just can't shake: now that we're living alongside powerful AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT, what's actually happening to our creativity, our curiosity, our empathy — the things that make us uniquely human? I'm not here to panic about it. And I'm not here to hype it either. I'm genuinely curious. So I'm doing what I do best — talking to people. AI founders building tools for creatives, marketers, filmmakers, advertisers — and the artists and everyday

Information

  • Creator
    Martha Little
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    8
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Martha Little
  • Show Website
    AI & Human Insight