Adam Russell, AI/nthropologist and Director of the AI Division at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI), is on a journey to help build a better world with AI. After launching AI/nsiders in 2023 where he interviewed the ISI humans behind our AI research, he expands his quest to the other disciplines researched at ISI. Networking, cybersecurity, computing, microelectronics, quantum, space, ISI scientists have a lot to say about the state of their fields, their research topics, and how AI fits into them.

John Heidemann, Principal Scientist at ISI, shares why he believes more people should understand the different levels of the internet. He describes the history of the first census of the internet and explains why continuing to scan networks for outages is so important. He explains how artificial intelligence has helped with decision-making in his field of work and how he fears it might negatively affect certain areas of life online. He explores the advantages of open-source software for innovation online and why it also poses risks in terms of stability and security. Listen to his episode of ISI/nsiders below. 

See the outage data map mentioned in the episode here.

Read the episode transcript here.

Listen to more episodes here.

Published on December 18th, 2024

Last updated on February 4th, 2025