Advertise on podcast: Solutions with Henry Blodget

The media industry is under assault. This week, we turn to one of the world’s most experienced and trusted media observers for a solution: Ken Auletta, who has covered the industry for almost 50 years for the New Yorker. Auletta has studied the rise of cable TV, the Internet, and today’s tech giants, and profiled figures such as Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, and Barry Diller. We discuss how trust in the media broke and what might fix it.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump surprised many people a few weeks ago when he signed an executive order accelerating research into psychedelics. Compounds like psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, ketamine, and others have developed large and enthusiastic followings in the past decade, and some seem quite promising in the treatment of depression, PTSD, addiction and other conditions. Unusually, they are also one of the very few issues that have support across the political spectrum. This week, we discuss why this is a turning point for psychedelics and what might come next with Anne Philippi, a former journalist at Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ who now runs The New Health Club, a media organization dedicated to psychedelics.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anil Seth is concerned about the “mythology of conscious AI” – the growing argument that LLMs and other AI systems might one day achieve consciousness. Seth is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and a leading expert on consciousness. He’s skeptical that AI will ever achieve true consciousness, and argues there’s danger in perceiving these technical systems as feeling beings.  Today, we discuss that danger, and what science even defines as "consciousness." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the summer of 2024, a baby named KJ was born with a rare disease with a 50% mortality rate. Six months later, he became the first patient to receive personalized gene editing therapy. He is now healthy and thriving. Dr. Jeff Coller, who directs the RNA Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins University, says KJ’s treatment could be the most important medical story of the decade. Today, Dr. Coller explains the ground-breaking science behind KJ’s treatment, and what it will take to bring it mainstream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Kira Hoffman once fought fires as a firefighter. Now she works on starting them - for the sake of wildfire prevention. Dr. Hoffman is a fire ecologist at the University of British Columbia and an expert in why wildfires are getting worse and the solutions that can mitigate their damage. We discuss why she forecasts a “dire” wildfire season this year, how fire policy has transformed over the past century, and what Americans can do across the country to protect their homes now.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recent high-profile tragedies, FAA understaffing and underinvestment, and ballooning TSA lines during the government shutdown have many questioning whether U.S. air travel is as safe as we've been told — but what's the reality? And how do we make it safer, cheaper, and more comfortable? Darryl Campbell is the aviation-safety correspondent for The Verge. We discuss potentially privatizing the TSA, why we're facing a shortage of air traffic controllers and what we can do about it, and how air travel got needlessly politicized. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the biggest issues in the last few elections has been… immigration. And yet: most Americans support legal immigration and a path to citizenship, and aren't worried about immigrants taking their jobs. So why can't the U.S. enact clear policy? Alexander Kustov, professor of migration at the University of Notre Dame, recently wrote a book entirely dedicated to this question and practical solutions, titled In Our Interest: How Democracies Can Make Immigration Popular. Today, we discuss his research, his argument that immigration needs to be more selective, and what the U.S. could learn from other countries' immigration policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor and author of the Substack One Useful Thing, describes today’s AI systems as a “jagged frontier," where AI outperforms humans in some tasks but falls short in others. This unevenness means the technology won’t replace all jobs, but it will reshape how we work and which skills matter most. In this episode, we discuss why management and delegation are becoming more valuable, how AI could disrupt the traditional career ladder, and how Mollick is using AI in his classroom to accelerate and deepen learning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What’s it like to talk to a “digital twin” of a relative who died before you were born? How will the increasingly lifelike digital representations of people change how we grieve? Amy Kurzweil deeply considers these questions in her graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story. It's about her experience helping to create a chatbot based on her grandfather. Amy’s father, Ray Kurzweil — a technology inventor and futurist — built the bot back in 2018. In this episode, we discuss how AI could change how we grieve, and complicate the very meaning of consciousness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than three years into the AI era, the predictions of an AI job apocalypse are still coming fast and furious. Here are reasons to be more optimistic. Harvard economist and researcher David Deming studies technology and the future of work. He’s dug into technological shifts of the past for clues about what might happen to the U.S. labor market now, and he’s even quantified the rapid rate of adoption of generative AI. Deming doubts AI will cause a jobs apocalypse, but he does believe things will change. He tells us his ideas for how we can AI-proof our jobs. Note: this conversation was originally recorded in the summer of 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elon Musk says humanoid robots represent the biggest business opportunity in the history of the world. But what problems do these robots actually solve? And why do they have to look like humans? We pose those questions and more to Dr. Jonathan Hurst this week, one of the pioneers of modern robotics. He’s the co-founder and Chief Robot Officer at Agility, which makes a humanoid called “Digit," which is actually working in warehouses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Robert Wachter has been a physician for decades, and he thinks that in the future, you might prefer an AI doctor over him (at least sometimes).  Dr. Wachter is the Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a best-selling author. To report his most recent book, A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future, he spoke to over 100 experts across medicine and technology. The result is a compelling argument for how AI can unburden both doctors and patients, and broaden access to quality healthcare worldwide.  We discuss the future of "digital twin" doctors, how physicians are already using AI, the risks of de-skilling due to an over-reliance on AI, and how Dr. Wachter is using ChatGPT when it comes to his own health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. is falling behind in its economic competition with China. One potential solution? An expansion of executive power. That’s according to investor and contributing New York Times columnist Steven Rattner. Rattner served as counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration; he was known as President Obama’s “car czar,” for leading the team that saved the auto industry in the wake of the financial crisis. Today, we discuss why Rattner’s recent trip to China convinced him the U.S. is not winning, and his practical ideas for how we can turn things around — and fast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Elon Musk started Neuralink in 2016, he tapped leading neurosurgeon Ben Rapoport to join as a co-founder. But two years later, citing safety and scalability concerns, Rapoport left to co-found a rival company: Precision Neuroscience. Today, we speak with his co-founder, Michael Mager, about what sets Precision apart, the future of brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), and what Precision has already been able to achieve with over 70 implanted patients.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeff Selingo is not impressed with how colleges are responding to AI. Selingo has spent decades covering higher education and work, and recently spoke with dozens of professors, administrators, and students about what he calls “the campus AI crisis.” While some faculty are still trying to ban the new technology entirely, others struggle to build smart programs to teach students how to use AI. So what is the right way for colleges to embrace AI? How do we prepare students to enter the job market today? We ask Selingo how he’d redesign higher education for the moment.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices