pplpod

The math equation deciding whether you get a mortgage, a job interview, or adequate medical care might be actively prejudiced against you — and nobody programmed it to be. This episode explores one of...

3 Apr 22min

There are more possible chess games than atoms in the observable universe. If a computer tried to calculate every single move by brute force, the universe would go cold and dark before it made its fir...

3 Apr 21min

The man who taught Hollywood how romance should look on screen grew up believing his mother was dead. He only discovered, more than two decades later, that she had been locked in an asylum by his own ...

3 Apr 21min

The story of American Student Assistance deconstructs the transition from community-driven access to higher education to a multi-billion-dollar system that reshaped how Americans pay for opportunity. ...

3 Apr 20min

The story of American Student Assistance deconstructs the transition from community-driven access to higher education to a multi-billion-dollar system that reshaped how Americans pay for opportunity. ...

3 Apr 21min

Right now, one AI is designing cancer-fighting drug molecules no human chemist has ever imagined. Another is generating a photorealistic image of a cat riding a skateboard. These outputs seem worlds a...

3 Apr 22min

When an AI model writes your email, diagnoses a disease, or drives a car, the magic isn't magic at all. Inside every neural network is a precise mathematical engine running a very old optimization pro...

3 Apr 23min

The reason your laptop doesn't die after thirty minutes of use traces back to a completely forgotten piece of software from 1989. BatteryMAX was a microscopic but consequential innovation in power man...

3 Apr 21min