AI is becoming ubiquitous in our lives. It shapes how we work, play, interact, create, and even manage our health—and this is only the beginning. To understand where we are and where we might go, we first need to understand how we got here. By tracing the evolving nature of machine intelligence, we can appreciate how today’s AI differs from its past and how it is likely to evolve. With that in mind, we can begin to ask the big questions: When should we trust AI over human judgment? How should we govern its development? How will it change what it means to be human? And what roles will humans play in the future of work?

To help us through this journey, I’m delighted to welcome back to TRIUM Connects Professor Vasant Dhar, the Robert A. Miller Professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and Professor of Data Science at NYU. Vasant is one of the world’s leading thinkers on the impact of AI on society. He was present at the birth of AI and has been involved in every step of its evolution—both as an entrepreneur and as a scholar. He also hosts the acclaimed podcast Brave New World, which explores how machines are transforming humanity in the post-COVID era.

In this episode, we discuss his newest book, Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI. It’s a remarkable hybrid: part autobiography, tracing how his professional life has intertwined with the development of AI; part user’s guide, offering a lucid framework for deciding when to trust machines over human control; and part deep dive into the philosophical and policy implications of creating an alien intelligence.

It was a real pleasure to welcome Vasant back onto the show. I learned a lot during our conversation, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Citations

Dawid A, LeCun Y. Introduction to Latent Variable Energy-Based Models: A Path Towards Autonomous Machine Intelligence. arXiv. June 5, 2023.

Dennett DC. Intentional systems. J Philos. 1971;68(4):87-106.

Dhar V. Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI. Galloway S, foreword. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley; 2025.

Frank, R. H., & Cook, P. J. The winner-take-all society: Why the few at the top get so much more than the rest of us. Penguin Books; 1995.

Ganguli D, Askell A, Henighan T, et al. Alignment faking in large language models. arXiv. December 20, 2024.

Harari YN. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. New York, NY: Random House; 2024.

Kauffmann J, Dippel J, Ruff L, et al. Explainable AI reveals Clever Hans effects in unsupervised learning models. Nat Mach Intell. 2025;7:1–10.

Pearl J, Mackenzie D. The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. New York, NY: Basic Books; 2018.

Pfungst O. Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. Von Osten): A Contribution to Experimental Animal and Human Psychology. Rahn H, trans. New York: Henry Holt; 1911.

Popper KR. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, UK: Hutchinson; 1959

Suleyman M, Bhaskar M. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma. New York, NY: Crown; 2023.

Yudkowsky E, Soares N. If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company; 2025.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the heart of every organization lies a web of relationships: individual performance is shaped by not only a person’s inherent characteristics, but also by their interactions with others within teams, and their teams’ interactions with other teams across the system.

Within such a complex structure, how can we know how much of ‘deviant behavior’ can be explained by poor leadership? What kinds of inter-team conflict—between whom—improve performance, and which kinds undermine it? How do the relational dynamics of team performance create unavoidable challenges during rapid organisational scaling? How can we know if or when the potential benefits of teams will outweigh the ‘team tax’? My guest for this episode is Professor Brad Harris. Brad has dedicated his career to examining these types of questions by examining how social architecture of work shapes behaviour and outcomes.

Brad is the Associate Dean of MBA Programs, a Vice Dean for the TRIUM EMBA, and a Professor of Management and Human Resources at HEC Paris. Brad has received multiple teaching awards and was named a top “40 under 40 Business School Professor” by Poets and Quants. He has co-authored two books, Scaling for Success: People Priorities for High-Growth Organizations, and 3D Team Leadership: A New Approach for Complex Teams, and published research papers in leading journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Management. Brad’s work has been cited in leading popular press outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Harvard Business Review, NBC’s The Today Show, Inc.com, and Fast Company.

Brad has an amazing ability to translate academic findings into useful information for the leading teams and organisations. Brad brings humour, clarity, and passion to the topic of leadership and team performance—qualities that shine throughout our discussion. Enjoy the conversation!

Citations

Grann, D. (2023). The Wager: A tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder. Doubleday.

Greiner, L. E. (1998). Evolution and revolution as organizations grow (Revisited). Harvard Business Review.

Harris, T. B., & Bartlow, A. C. (2021). Scaling for success: People priorities for high-growth organizations. Columbia Business School Publishing.

Kirkman, B. L., & Harris, T. B. (2017). 3D team leadership: A new approach for complex teams. Stanford University Press.

Schmidt, E., Rosenberg, J., & Eagle, A. (2019). Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell. Harper Business.

Waller, M. J., Okhuysen, G. A., & Saghafian, M. (2016). Conceptualizing emergent states: A strategy to advance the study of group dynamics. Academy of Management Annals.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we understand the decline of establishment political parties and the rise of new, successful challengers in Europe? Why are these new challengers predominantly right wing nationalist parties? How does their rise compare to the MAGA movement in the US? How is this new political landscape creating even greater challenges to attempts to solve cross-border problems with supranational cooperation?

To help answer these questions and others, my guest for this episode is Professor Sara Hobolt, the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and professor in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics. Previously, she has held posts at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. She is also the Chair of the European Election Studies (EES), an EU-wide project studying voters, parties, candidates and the media in European Parliamentary elections. Sara has written extensively on the emergence of challenger parties within Europe and approaches the issue by applying a framework from the business world: entrepreneurial startups challenging incumbent firms in an imperfect market.

In addition to being a world renowned scholar in this field, Sara is one of TRIUM’s most popular teachers. She has the rare combination of deep subject level expertise, sophisticated research methodology, and an ability to explain complex topics clearly and coherently. I hope you enjoy the conversation!

Citations

DeVries, C. & Hobolt S. (2020) Political Entrepreneurs: The Rise of Challenger Parties in Europe. Princeton University Press.

Borgen (2010-2022). [TV Series]. Netflix. Written and created by Adam Price. SAM Productions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.