What's Your Problem?

This week, Nate and Maria discuss AI 2027, a new report from the AI Futures Project that lays out some pretty doom-y scenarios for our near-term AI future. They talk about how likely humans are to be misled by rogue AI, and whether current conflicts between the US and China will affect the way this all unfolds. Plus, Nate talks about the feedback he gave the AI 2027 writers after reading an early draft of their forecast, and reveal...

Blake Scholl is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic. Blake's problem is this: Can you build a commercial airplane that flies faster than the speed of sound – and that makes economic sense?

Get early, ad-free access to episodes of What's Your Problem? by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all...

Fiorenzo Omenetto is a professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University and the director of Silklab. Fiorenzo's problem is this: How do you turn a material people have been using for thousands of years into useful, cutting edge tools that  improve everything from vaccine delivery to food waste?

Get early, ad-free access to episodes of What's Your Problem? by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushk...

A few years ago, a ransomware gang called LockBit rose from obscurity to extort over $100 million from organizations around the world. A security strategist named Jon DiMaggio wanted to understand how the organization worked. So he used the techniques of World War II-era spycraft to make contact with the hackers.

On today’s show, Jon tells the story of LockBit – from the way it borrowed techniques from mainstream...

Christopher Kirchhoff helped launch a Defense Department office that aimed to bring Silicon Valley technology to the US military.  Christopher’s problem is this: How can the giant bureaucracy that is the US military keep up with technological change?

Get early, ad-free access to episodes of What's Your Problem? by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, f...

Jared Baeten is senior vice president in virology at Gilead Sciences. Jared's problem is this: In a world without a vaccine, how do you make a medicine that people will actually take to help prevent HIV?

There’s already a daily pill that reduces the risk of getting HIV, but a majority of people who are at high risk are unwilling or unable to take it.

So Jared and his colleagues are developing a new drug, lenacap...

We need better, cheaper ways to store solar and wind energy when it’s dark out and the wind isn’t blowing.

One option: Compressing air in underground caverns when energy is abundant, then blowing it back out to create energy when you need it. It’s an old idea, but it has some fundamental problems.

Curtis VanWalleghem, the co-founder and CEO of Hydrostor, thinks his company has solved those problems...

There are moments in history when people make huge technological advances all of a sudden. Think of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo missions, or, more recently, generative AI. But what do these moments have in common? Is there some set of conditions that lead to massive technological leaps?

Byrne Hobart is the author of a finance newsletter called The Diff, and the co-author of Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation. In the book...

AI works well in the virtual world. That’s partly because the internet provides so much data to train AI models. But there’s no analogous data set for the physical world – and as a result, AI doesn’t work as well there… yet.

 Edward Mehr is the co-founder and CEO of Machina Labs. Edward's problem is this: How can you use AI to turn robots from dumb, inflexible machines into skilled, versatile craftsme...

In the past few years,  NVIDIA has become one of the most valuable and important companies in the world by making GPUs, the chips powering the AI boom. But where did the company come from, and why are NVIDIA chips the ones that dominate AI?

Tae Kim is the author of a new book called The Nvidia Way. In his book, he tells the story of how NVIDIA’s founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, set NVIDIA on the path to becoming what it...

 Claude Shannon is a major figure in the history of technology. Known as the father of information theory, Shannon spent decades at Bell Labs and MIT. But what exactly did Claude Shannon figure out, and why is it so important?

To answer that question, Jacob talked with David Tse, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford who studied under one of Shannon’s students, and who teaches Shannon to his own students to...

We thought we knew everything there was to know about measles. But in recent years, new research has revealed that the virus attacks the immune system and creates effects far more dramatic than a rash and fever. For this episode we’re joined by Michael Mina, a former Harvard epidemiologist now at eMed, who helped discover how measles was causing “immune amnesia.” Our second guest is Stephen Russell, a former Mayo ...

Solar power and batteries are becoming cheap and ubiquitous. Great. But there are problems batteries can’t solve – like fueling ships and planes. One way to solve those problems: Use solar power to create hydrogen, and turn that hydrogen into fuel.

Today’s guest is Raffi Garabedian, the co-founder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen. Raffi’s problem is this: How do you turn solar and wind energy into clean hydrogen that’s cheap en...

It's the season of giving: colorful paper and shiny bows, sure, and charitable giving, too. In this special episode, Jacob Goldstein, the host of What's Your Problem, gets smart about donating.

Did you know that spending money on others makes you happier than spending money on yourself? Or that altruistic nerds have discovered four of the most impactful charities in the world (per dollar spent)? Have you ever wondered how poker pla...

This is the second of three episodes about the solar-power revolution. Last week, we talked about how solar power got so cheap. This week, we’re talking with someone who is building giant plants around the world to take advantage of all that cheap, intermittent energy.

John O'Donnell is the co-founder of Rondo Energy. John’s problem is this: How do you turn intermittent energy into the cheap, reliable, intense heat that comp...