AI is Changing Fast. How Are You Using It Now?

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Newer AI tools have begun to act less like “a souped up search engine and more of a junior staffer” observes one industry watcher. Software developers are deploying Claude Code. Small business people are using AI to work out logistics. At home, people are deploying AI to organize to-do lists, plan vacations, and create meal plans. But what are the risks? We talk about how AI is evolving, and how to think about the ethics of using these tools. Guests: Nitasha Tiku, tech culture reporter Maxwell Zeff, senior writer covering artificial intelligence, WIRED Heather Kelly, technology reporter focusing on the intersection of technology and everyday life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Morgan Sugg from KQED's Internet Culture Podcast, Close All Tabs, and we're bringing the web to the stage. On Thursday, March 5th, I'm hosting Chronically Online, a PowerPoint party at KQED. It'll be a fun night of internet deep dives, niche rabbit holes, and chaotic slide decks, featuring internet culture researcher Aidan Walker, journalist Candace Lim, and a few brave audience members. If you can't be with us in person, we will be live streaming, but we would love to see you IRL.
0:25.6	So join us on March 5th. Get tickets at KQED.org slash live.
0:29.6	That's KQED.org slash live.
0:31.6	On 1440 Explorers, we talked to the world's experts to unpack the fascinating knowledge behind everyday topics that shape our world.
0:40.0	It's really easy to influence dream content. We can turn you into a drunk.
0:45.1	The credit card has massive negative social consequences and also it's magic.
0:49.4	The ancient Greek's idea of what a ghost was is very different to the modern Western idea of what a ghost is.
0:55.5	Listen to 1440 Explorers wherever you get your podcasts.
1:00.1	From KQED.
1:03.1	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. I know many of our listeners are deeply skeptical of AI.
1:10.6	I do get it. They worry about the motives of
1:14.0	the companies deploying these tools. They decry environmental impacts now and in the future.
1:20.9	They believe that no one really wants to use these tools, but they're being foisted upon people
1:25.1	by the biggest tech companies, and I'm sympathetic to
1:27.9	so many of these concerns. Cover technology for too long to imagine that AI will be harmless
1:33.6	or a utopian or even necessarily a net good. But I also think many people who are not immersed
1:40.9	in this world have an old model for how the AI tools work and what they
1:45.9	are good and also bad at. So to begin this discussion, I want to just give you my simple heuristic.
1:52.4	I think these tools are bad to very bad at human things, like making art or writing interesting
1:59.2	prose or surprising us with insight, despite what the AI
2:02.7	boosters might hope. However, they're now astounding at what I would just call computer things,
2:10.0	taking a huge data set, pulling out a summary or outliers, coding a little connector between
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