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In an uncertain world where AI technology is disconnecting us more and more each day, we are dreaming of a world where technology connects us. The premise of this podcast of simple: let's talk to people and imagine the most hopeful and idealistic futures for technologies that connect and do good in the world.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (00:01.058)
We are on the line today with Tess Pot, sorry, Posner? Posner, I was gonna do it wrong, okay. We are on the line today with Tess Posner. Tess, how are you doing today?
Tess Posner (00:04.21)
Posner.
Tess Posner (00:12.7)
Great, thank you so much for having me. It's good to see you.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (00:14.582)
Absolutely, yeah, I'm very excited to have you on the show and to talk about young people, which I always feel weird. I never know what term to use as I get older. I'm like, am I just dating myself? Is there a term for folks that you work with at AI for All?
Tess Posner (00:30.692)
Yeah, I mean, we use the term young people as well. I think we work with college students, so we often call them students, but yeah, young people. I don't know the right term either, which also dates me.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (00:41.93)
Yeah, exactly. I'm watching the years go by and it's like, I thought I was a young people. I don't think I am anymore. As we get started, could you share with us something that's inspirational in your life right now or in the world?
Tess Posner (00:47.61)
Right.
Tess Posner (00:55.77)
Yeah, definitely. And thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
So I lead AI4ALL, which is an organization focused on ensuring the next generation of young leaders reflects humanity. last week we actually, so we're actually a virtual team right now, which means like everybody's pretty spread out. Most people are on the East coast, but I'm on the West coast. And we all got together in person last week in New York city. And it's funny because you just spend, you know, so much time just looking at people in little squares.
that
seeing them in person and we did like lot of brainstorming and team building and we had fun and I just am like so humbled and honored and like wowed by everyone on the team and how committed they are to this mission but also just like getting to know them better in 3D land I think is you know there's a lot of benefits to being remote which we've been since the pandemic but there's definitely that like in-person component that you just can't duplicate you know
So was super inspired, even though was like 90 degrees in humid in New York. I walked away feeling like, all right, this is great. These people are amazing.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (02:11.469)
We're recording this on Thursday, July 24th, and it's the week where 100 degree days are sweeping the country, all of the humidity across the country. So I'm sorry you got caught up in that a little bit in New York. sounds like... Could you say a little bit more about AI for All? One of the reasons why we wanted to do this episode was to think through the empowerment of young people in telling the stories around AI, because it's their world, right? It's our future and...
collectively, how do we center newer voices and younger voices in this? And can you just talk about the mission, vision, and what you all are up to at AI4L?
Tess Posner (02:48.56)
Yeah, I mean, we really see this vision for the technology where it can benefit humanity and where its benefits can be shared. And we believe that doing that, the key to doing that right now for us and where we're focusing is ensuring that more young people from all backgrounds who represent humanity get the chance to not just use AI and be literate about how to use it, but actually can build with it and create their vision.
in AI. And I think like when we do that, it's kind of self-evident what happens. Like we, in our programs, we run educational programs that have kind of a combination of technical skills, project-based learning, and then mentorship and career exploration.
But in the project-based learning side of things, we have students work on a project that they care about, applying AI to solve some real-world problem. So I was just looking at a list yesterday of all the projects, and some of them are like early detection of Alzheimer's, like detecting the size of brain tumors, accessible scrolling.
Detecting credit card fraud, like just all these things that students are passionate about solving in the world that might come from their own life experience or something that they've seen in the world that they think is, you they want to change, they want to address. And I think it's pretty inspiring because we see that if we involve more people and get more voices, we're gonna have a broader set of things created with AI. Because people coming from different lived experiences and backgrounds are just gonna see what needs
happen in the world in a different way and they're going to be inspired to create something different with AI. And I also think it's like, you we get into this idea of representation and who's in the room and who's making these decisions. And if those people that are in the room only reflect some of us, it's easy to miss out on all these perspectives, which I think gets into like AI safety and risks around bias and other things that we're seeing. So
Tess Posner (05:03.885)
We see evidence of this every day that
If we include more voices in AI, it will work better for everyone and it'll also live up to its potential to positively impact society and humanity. And that's really our vision. We've been doing it for about eight years or a little more when you include some of our early pilots. So we've been talking about this before, like everybody's been using AI and it's been really interesting to see that journey. But I think the mission is more urgent than ever.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (05:36.365)
What have you seen change over those eight years? Are there different challenges or solutions or other things you're thinking about now that you wouldn't have been eight years ago, which would be what, 2017-ish? Is that where we are now? Yeah.
Tess Posner (05:48.825)
Yes. 2017 is when we officially launched the organization. Yeah, so much has changed. I feel like back then we were trying to convince people that AI was going to be a thing. The hardcore researchers we were working with at universities and among our corporate partners, for example, of course, they were already aware of this, but the general public was like,
What is AI? People used to call it A1 for all because they didn't know what it was. just watching December 2022, chat GBT rolled out the first model and it was like, kind of at first maybe slow, but the rapid adoption by the everyday person has just been incredible to watch.
like my parents who are retired in their 70s are using chat GBT to make recipes, to do gardening, like, for their health questions. And I think that hits home. Like the people that were, are the late adopters are now users of AI and really seeing like some of the societal implications that we were predicting are now playing out. I mean, there's.
It's exciting, right? Because there's all these things that you can do and people creating all these applications. And then there's also disturbing things like who would have thought people would have psychotic episodes from talking to ChatGPT? You know, it's like we wouldn't have predicted the exact ways that this is playing out.
And so I think it's been mainly that sense of like the impact of AI on society and watching that unfold and how surprising it is, but also how not surprising and some of the things that we were saying might happen. And I think the mission, unfortunately still, we don't have great representation in the field and a lot of these issues exist, although there is more awareness of like, hey, we need to be teaching AI like in high school and middle school.
Tess Posner (07:53.779)
because everyone needs these skills. And so I do think there's more public consciousness about it and there's more sense of we need to solve this problem. And hopefully, you know, there's a lot of organizations and solutions out there that are making progress, which definitely gives me a lot of hope.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (08:10.155)
One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you specifically is that when I go to AI ethics conferences or industry meetings and young people get brought up, first of all, normally young people aren't in the room when they get brought up, but then there's all these stories that we hear about the dangers of AI for young people and the different uses that there's for dating. it's a lot of it seems like it's derogatory in some way, but it's prescribing these stories to young people.
Tess Posner (08:23.025)
Yeah.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (08:39.649)
I was wondering how you in your head or in AI4ALL think through the stories that are currently out there and then how you're trying to engage with them.
Tess Posner (08:50.019)
Yeah, it's a great question. I I think about the word agency, and that's like one of our core values at AI4ALL is like, how do we, yes, there are real things that are risky out there. And I think that's true. And we're seeing like, yeah, the AI companions, there's a lot of things that should be talked about. But at the same time, you know, there's kind of this like,
I've been to lot of conferences and events and things talking to young people about this. And it's interesting because I feel like there's often a divide where it's like the older people such as myself and like our peer group, whatever, millennials, Gen X, baby boomers are sort of like...
AI, it's gonna be really bad for this generation. Look at all the things that we've learned in social media. All that's true, and there's a sort of maybe skepticism that comes from having seen prior rollouts of technology innovations like social media and thinking, for my generation, was like, this is gonna connect everyone. It's gonna be so great.
And then we saw what happened. was like, okay, disinformation and mental health issues and all the things that social media kind of didn't live up to and created harms instead. So I think we're maybe a little jaded and that comes across, know? Whereas young people, often have a much more optimistic or just nuanced perspective where it's like, yeah, this is...
There's issues, like, look at all this possibility. And I feel like we need to listen to them because yes, there's wisdom in age, but there's also this way that we can close off possibilities because we're like, this is how it's been and this is how it's, you know, has to be. And this is like literally the age old.
Tess Posner (10:51.009)
disagreement right between the older generations and the younger it's like no we can change things and it's like no this has already been like this so with AI I think it's very similar dynamics and we really want to give young people the tools and emphasize their agency in creating the future and not just saying here's this risk and you need to be really careful but we want them to know like we teach ethics we teach safety we teach bias reduction we teach
societal implications in our programs, that's important, but at the end of the day, it's like, this is ours to shape and this is yours to shape. And I feel like if we had more of that perspective as a society, we might have more creative solutions out there.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (11:36.565)
Yeah, I'm wondering how, well really I'm wondering, well how do we do that? Like how do we restructure everything? But maybe it's talking more about successes that you've seen either in AI4ALL or beyond of helping, and maybe helping isn't even the right world, but of centering young people in the conversation.
Tess Posner (11:40.666)
Yeah
Tess Posner (11:55.491)
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think from a program structure component, it's really for us like about the project based learning, because we're not just like lecturing to them. I mean, we give them the tools and they're working on some pretty hardcore technical skills, but then immediately they're doing a project to apply it. And so we're kind of saying like, go forth and try it out, you know.
and what we're here for you, they're paired with mentors during that process. So they're not alone and they also have like a peer community. So I think that is really important to create the supportive structure, but then to say like, try this out, know, see what happens. And also to give them like a broad, like we don't...
tell them what ethical framework to use either and say like, this is exactly how you should think about AI safety or responsible AI or like this or that thing.
We're giving them this broad perspective and then letting them wrestle with it. And I think that's really the key. It's like, how are we prescriptive versus allowing them to unfold in themselves what matters to them and centering their own life experience and perspectives from their community?
And I think we've seen that have like really powerful impacts. mean, one of our students, I was just connecting with Maya, she did our programs a while back. So it's been cool to see her journey, but she worked on a project during the program that was about detecting spam.
Tess Posner (13:39.787)
in online, I forget exactly the details. And then after the program, she started an AI club at her high school to teach other students about AI, which is so cool. And then she's worked on like really interesting projects like user privacy on TikTok. And now in the fall, she's going to get her PhD at Brown in computer science. And she's, know, what she shared with us is just like,
getting exposure to what some of the challenges and opportunities in the space like gave her the agency to say I want to pursue this I want to go after this and She's done that and been like an amazing role model and inspiration to all of us in terms of bringing her own vision to the field so I think it's like Maybe a matter of respect. I don't know. It's like
We're not really, we often don't respect young people. We're just like, you don't know any better. And often that rubs the wrong way where it's like, hey, I might have some like life wisdom and experiences to share with you.
But at the end of the day, I respect your perspective and that that's going to be different and that there's going to be so much value to that. So I guess what I'm sharing is like, there's a structural element in how we give students this opportunity to do projects and what that support looks like. But then there's really this like mindset about respect and agency that I think, I mean, you never know for sure what has an impact or doesn't, but I think that's maybe part of it.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (15:20.267)
Yeah, I am thinking through expertise right now. And as someone with a PhD, people have treated me differently. And I'm like, what the hell are you doing? It's like the doctor doesn't change who I am or what I'm doing. when I've seen, and this goes back, so I was like, I was a minister, right, for a number of years. And so I was also a youth minister for a number of years. And it was always interesting.
Tess Posner (15:29.945)
Hmm
Tess Posner (15:41.113)
wow, I didn't know that.
Hmm.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (15:46.773)
hearing stories of even in a religious context where it was supposed to be their space, younger people saying, no one's paying attention to us. Like no one's centering our voice within this space. And what you're saying about respect, I learned so much from being, we'll say called in or called out for ways that even when I was like in my 20s that I wasn't listening. And I don't know if it's something that's social or structured or just in the fabric of how we run society, but I am wondering,
Tess Posner (15:56.657)
Hmm.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (16:16.823)
For, I guess, these institutions that are based on expertise, where you only have a voice when you're an AI expert, how do we start breaking down those structures to listen to more voices?
Tess Posner (16:29.869)
Yeah, it's a really good question and something that I think about a lot because we have AI being controlled by institutions, governments, like kind of a select few powers and yet at the same time the people being most affected by these decisions are most of the world, right?
And so it's like there's huge power dynamic where the few are deciding for the many and there's not really that like community voice represented. I mean, and it's hard to know exactly how to solve for that, but I think people building AI systems, whether it's like you're building a product for XYZ.
Like how are you looking at what the potential implications and harms might be? And how are you thinking about that? Because it's easy to kind of get stuck, especially if you have expertise, because you've kind of narrowed into this one field. And...
you might have a lot of bias from that. think it's hard to admit, you know, people's egos get in the way where it's like, well, I know a lot about this thing, but actually there's like a lot of...
other pieces that I may be missing. And so that's why, you I always say that it's like better from a product development standpoint, if you have those diverse perspectives and user perspectives involved, because you're going to get information that you wouldn't otherwise about, what if this happens? Or like, this is this use case. And this community might have a completely different sense of that. So it's, it's like a business value.
Tess Posner (18:24.667)
that I think people don't appreciate in terms of getting that user perspective in some part of the design life cycle. So I think that's part of it, right? It's like, do we include communities that are impacted by AI in the development life cycle? That's one piece of it.
But then I think it's like, well, who is in the power structure at all? Like who is allowed to have the expertise? Because there's such a narrow gateway into that. you, know, getting your PhD, as you well know, is like a very hard thing to do. And if you don't have the...
Dylan Thomas Doyle (18:59.725)
It's really hazing for no reason. That's my hot take about getting a PhD, but that's a few months outside of it. take it with a grain of salt.
Tess Posner (19:05.137)
Well, congratulations though. I mean, it's also an accomplishment for sure. And I would love to hear more about your PhD and what do
what you were working on thinking about. But yeah, there's like this narrow bridge to that, especially in something like AI, right? Because you have to have like all this math before you even get into college. And if you don't have that, you're already, it's already really hard to catch up. And so a lot of this like starts early where there's unequal access to
you know, getting all the requirements needed to go on this path and end up succeeding in the field and being a voice and having power in the field. So those are some of the things that we have to think about like way back, well before someone is even eligible to get a PhD.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (20:00.001)
Let's talk more about that pathway. I'm trying really hard in this conversation to not say, hey Tess, talk for all young people, like speak on behalf of the young people. But you do have a unique insight into what some of the challenges young people are going through right now in this rapidly changing AI landscape, even in terms of getting a job. Or I imagine Maya getting into Brown, like there's very specific steps that she's had to take and be aware of that I wouldn't know where to begin if I was starting right now.
Tess Posner (20:06.937)
You
Dylan Thomas Doyle (20:29.975)
Could you talk about some of those challenges and how young people are moving through maybe even the job market right now?
Tess Posner (20:37.199)
Yeah, totally, thank you for the question. Yeah, think starting in high school, like we already see the challenges might be access and exposure. Code.org has some great data on this that like 60 % of schools teach computer science. That means 40 % don't. And we probably imagine this is concentrated in certain geographies, so some...
areas of the country in the US are completely shut out from even getting exposure to this and getting those basic skills that as we know, it's like, if you're gonna major in computer science, you have to have some of that already coming in so that you're at a level playing field with others. So that starts then if you really wanna do that, you might not have access to Like your high school and then also there's really the sense of like,
If you can see it, you can be it. You've probably heard that quote. And I think the way that the media showcases who is leading in AI and what kinds of careers out there. I we were talking about it earlier that there's this kind of doom cycle on AI in the media right now. So maybe that inspires some people to say, I wanna go work on that.
but I think there's not like diverse role models that are being showcased. And so you might not be like, this is really a career or a field that I can see myself in. So that's why when we do our programs, we have role models and mentors that the students work with and can say, okay, I can see myself in this field because I'm connected to these people that I look up to and I can relate to. So that's part of it.
And then I think to your point, your second point, so that's like the high school space. Right now in the college space, you know, have so much going on. Like there's all of this pushback about students using AI in the classrooms and calling it cheating. And so at the same time, the teachers are using it. And then you have, you know, these students are looking ahead. I remember when I was in college and it was like, I'm constantly thinking what kind of job.
Tess Posner (22:54.043)
Can I get, will I get, what's my career gonna be? And students unfortunately are looking at one of the worst job markets in many years. And I think the unemployment rate among early college grads has risen by 30 % over the past couple of years. And whether that's because of AI,
because of broader economic factors, I think everyone has their crystal ball trying to be like, yeah, AI is gonna do this or that. It's hard to say, but we know that young people are in this market. Like that's what the data is showing. So there's a lot that I think they're having to wrestle with. Like how do I, I can't really map out a career from A to Z and be like, this is gonna give me security and a career progression like it did in the past.
So what do you do in that case? As the very education that they're going through is being disrupted by AI. So it's like all of these disruptions are happening, all this uncertainty about the future, and they're having to contend with that while the support structures and the systems that used to work no longer make sense and may even be breaking down.
So I think, you I was just talking to some of our alumni and they were talking about like, okay, 50 % of my peers are really worried about the job market and 50 % are using AI to build more entrepreneurial opportunities. So I think it's like, how do we, and I'm sure, you know, young people listening to this might have a completely different perspective. I'm just.
kind of sharing from what I've heard from our communities. And I think that there's an opportunity to like rethink how we support people and even talk about or think about careers and how to make sure that everyone can thrive in the midst of all this chaos. And I do think that there are ways we can do that. It's not just.
Tess Posner (24:57.697)
hopeless situation at all. It just involves new ways of thinking that are a little bit outside of the status quo.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (25:04.223)
It is tough to have new ways of thinking when you're told these are the skills that you need in order to get a job, but also AI is going to replace that job that you need the skills for right now, but also robotics is coming down the pipe. Like maybe you should go into robotics. I talked to a lot of students that I taught in my PhD program and there is a lot of overwhelm. And if they don't have the financial support structure, say from parents or community members, it's
Tess Posner (25:13.382)
Ha
Dylan Thomas Doyle (25:32.929)
They're real decisions of like, what class do I take? Will it actually get me to a job? Am I going to have the buffer money in order to be more entrepreneurial? Do I need to start when I'm 13 and starting my new company? There's just a lot of questions and overwhelm that I'm seeing. I'm not sure if you're seeing that or more the hopeful side in some of say the alums that you're talking to or if there are other stories they're telling.
Tess Posner (25:56.931)
No, yeah, think it's, to your point, it's mixed and it's been a conversation that's been happening for a while where we're like, the college degree no longer guarantees a, it's like a broken promise. Well, if you invest $200,000 in your education, you're definitely going to get a great job and be able to buy a house and be able to pay off this debt. And I think that's,
hasn't been the case for a while and it's something that you know I've been talking about and hearing about for years and I think that's just increasing now. So yeah it's like your point what class do you take because students are actually having to make these decisions it's not just like all fun and games let's just learn what we want to learn this is a real situation for people and as you're saying some don't have the safety nets that
hey, I'll go back and live with my parents. Maybe they need to support their parents. There's all kinds of situations financially and otherwise that we see even among our students that make it really challenging. So I think part of it is just, I use this term, future-proof. And I think we're seeing the need for a more future-proof set of skills. So for example,
Problem solving. No matter what AI does to the economy, to the workforce, we're still gonna need people that can think through how to solve problems and create value. I think whether that's like in a business, like you could start a business based on that principle, but even within a business context, like if your employer, like that's what...
the workforce rewards is problem solving, taking initiative, thinking through things. So if we're teaching that instead of just teaching concepts, that will be more of a durable skill. And I don't, sadly, I don't think education often does that, right? It's focused on.
Tess Posner (28:10.703)
domain knowledge or like specific expertise instead of problem solving, critical thinking, you know, all of these skills, like how to adapt to rapid change. Like what about that as a skill? Just, I don't know, I think.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (28:26.187)
I want to take that class. I want to go back to college and take that class because that would serve me in so many aspects of my life.
Tess Posner (28:32.953)
It's something we talk about as a team too, because we're like, okay, how do we even keep up with what's happening in AI? And we are all trying to adapt. And I don't know, for me, that looks like meditation and journaling and staying grounded and how do you not get overwhelmed and stay true to yourself? it's kind of a more...
I don't know, emotional processing skill maybe, but I think one that is basically critical in any future that we're looking at because the change is not going away. It might increase in terms of the pace.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (29:12.919)
Switching gears a little bit, I just think you have a really interesting story and you've also been in this education space, I'll call it, through a bunch of different lenses. In working with young people or just in general, how did you get to where you are now and maybe what are some of the more rewarding parts along your journey?
Tess Posner (29:34.339)
Yeah, thank you so much. That's very kind. It's been a wild journey. Let's see, where did it start? Well, I went to an interesting college called St. John's College, and it actually kind of taught me some of these things that I believe, which is that it's all...
discussion-based classes, oral exams, and even when we were learning math you had to like go up at the chalkboard and like demonstrate mathematical proofs.
and we read philosophy, literature, science, and math, like starting from the ancient Greeks working our way up to present day to really like dig into the history of Western thought and learn how it's changed and how it's shifted and like really getting in there with all these concepts. So I think for me, like that program taught me how to think and how transformational education can be because I certainly didn't get a job based on
that degree particularly. I think it was like a major in philosophy and math, you know, but it taught me how to think and it taught me how to relate to hard things that I didn't think I could do. It taught me how to demonstrate learning. It taught me how to reason. All these things that have served me like in every part of my career since then.
So I ended up going to grad school for social work and thinking about like, how can we use education or other interventions to help economic mobility among communities that weren't seeing it? Because even then I was seeing some of these same things we're seeing now. And then I ended up working in tech education coming out to the Bay Area and seeing how much
Tess Posner (31:27.151)
both opportunity there was in technology and where that was going, but also how uneven that opportunity was being distributed. So I became really passionate about that piece of it. And then I ended up working on this initiative coming out of the White House under Obama, where we were working with communities to understand like, where there are people that might become coders that you would never think, but where they would get this access to this growing economy.
and growing economic opportunity. For example, like former coal miners in Kentucky. There was a coding program there that was like teaching them how to code and they could do it remotely. So it was really incredible to see. We're working like 70 different cities, states and rural areas. And we started to see this whole AI trend kind of showing up and how this was gonna be the skill in this investment in the future. That's when I started getting connected with
with AI for All and joined the team there. So I think it's just been this really, I've always believed that we can shape the future in a different way if we have the right imagination and the right set of ecosystem connections in this community. And I think that I use this term like provoke hope.
because hope feels like a very radical thing right now and just in general. And I think that my whole journey has really been about that and trying to figure out what are the ways that we can like tangibly create these opportunities for hope and work within communities and looking at new opportunities like technology. Can that be a force for creating a better future for everyone and how?
how or how can it not and how do we more create that for more people? So maybe that's the thread, I guess, throughout all of it, even though it's been focused on tech and education.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (33:29.995)
Yeah, I love that term, provoke hope. I'm also thinking, maybe I'm going too much to my older jaded side, but I'm thinking how awesome it is that the Obama administration would fund something like that or support something like that. And then I'm looking at some of the defunding that is going on both in AI education, but then also just education, at least major shifts that are going on right now. So for you, how...
Tess Posner (33:37.915)
Hahaha
Dylan Thomas Doyle (34:00.109)
How might we provoke hope? We don't have to get too political, just like in general in when you're talking about these topics that can be very hopeless, how do you think about provoking hope?
Tess Posner (34:12.677)
Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think a lot of people, from what I gather, are feeling a sense of hopelessness right now. Like whether it's because of what you were mentioning and just kind of the political shifts and funding and things that people have worked on for decades, getting just wiped out overnight. Very devastating for a lot of people. And at the same time, like climate change, I think a lot of people are feeling
that sort of as a blanket of gloom over how we think about the future. So I think the Provoke Hope piece, it is somewhat radical because it's not based in evidence. It's like if we had to list the things that there are to be upset about, there's always going to be more things. But hope is a verb. That's another
phrase that I like, it's like, we have to work against that because the despair will crush our ability to solve any of this. And I get it, I've had my moments where I'm just like, I mean, I've been doing this work for...
15, eight, I don't even know how long, how many years since I started in this field, but it's like, you have a lot of things that don't work and where you're just like, okay, this is a tiny drop in the bucket of this problem and it feels really hard, really demoralizing. So you can either say, well, screw it, this is pointless, or you can figure out how to fill yourself up with that possibility and that hope.
And I feel that that's almost like my moral obligation because otherwise you can be, it's like with the doom scroll, you know? We can just sit there and if you look at it enough, it's going to affect your nervous system. Like you will start to be anxious and you will start to just get tense and maybe even have a panic attack, who knows?
Tess Posner (36:23.181)
So put that phone down, go outside, breathe some air, get grounded and realize that that is not all of reality. We also are creating reality as we go. And we have more agency in that than we think. And I think all of us are doing, we don't know how these tiny little things can add up. If everybody, it can be so small in what you're doing to provoke hope. It can be smile.
at someone in the grocery store because they just were doom-scrolling and feeling super anxious. And maybe that lights up something in them where they remember like, okay, I am really supposed to do this, you know, and I can't turn away from my mission. So we don't know, I think these like tiny little sparkles happening throughout. And I think it has to do with how you like disconnect from the narrative that's out there and really take care of yourself and come back to what is rep...
replenishing you. Maybe it's not nature walks. Maybe it's hanging out with people like you and having interesting conversations. Maybe it's going to dinner and having great food, but replenishing ourselves, regenerating so that we can come back with that fresh possibility and hope. And that even in tiny little bursts can potentially spark something bigger in the future is what I'm going for. Yes.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (37:48.045)
So go touch grass is what you're saying. That's the TLT-R. Am I back young yet? I don't know. So one thing that I also am hearing you saying is that you're not alone in this hopelessness. And this is my very slick segue into hey, plug your stuff. So AI4ALL is doing some amazing work. I know you have this Ignite program that is continuing or.
Tess Posner (37:53.297)
Yeah.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (38:14.089)
starting, could you say a little bit more about how listeners, especially younger folks, can plug into the work that you're doing and how it might be helpful to them?
Tess Posner (38:22.127)
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for asking that. Yeah, our Gnite program is a free virtual AI accelerator for college students. And we right now are running it twice a year, but we're always growing and having new opportunities. We have another class coming up in the fall. And so you can apply for that if you're interested in learning about AI. You get to have this technical expertise that you build. You get to work on an AI project. You get connected to an amazing community of peers.
other people in AI that can be your group going forward if you want to go into the space. And then we help you basically prepare for internship opportunities and building your resume, preparing for coding interviews. So all these pieces to help you get set up for that first step in the field and really just to explore what's out there.
What are AI careers and how do you get one and how do you learn these skills? So we would love to have you. We also have like a student newsletter. So if you're not sure and you just want to like check it out, go to our website and find the opportunities for students. And you can sign up to like learn more about when new programming comes out. And we've got a lot of exciting things happening in the future. So we'd love to have as many young people as we can in our community and building this out together.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (39:44.651)
I know we have a lot of professors that also listen in on this show and perhaps high school teachers as well. So if you know anyone who would be interested, also please do check out these resources and get involved if you can. Tess, as we are moving towards wrapping up, what is one piece of media or could be a movie, could be a book, could be music. I know you're a musician. What would you recommend to listeners and why?
Tess Posner (40:12.631)
Yeah, actually, great question. one of my mentors, mentorship is such an important part of the AI for All mission and program. And so one of my mentors who sits on our board, her name is Dr. Telly Whitney, and she actually co-founded the Grace Hopper celebration, which also is something that anyone listening who might be interested in that, definitely check it out. It's like the largest conference for women and supporting women in tech. went and there was like, it was such a great vibe.
such a great energy. She just came out with a new book called Rebooting Tech Culture and it's really amazing because it's really about how
Cultures within technology companies can include everyone and how that benefits not just the business, but kind of the products that they're building. And yeah, it just came out in May and I got to go to one of her first book events where she read from it. And it's just really great. So Rebooting Tech Culture by Dr. Telly Whitney, go check it out.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (41:17.791)
Awesome, and we will make sure to put that and all the different links for things that we've talked about in this episode in the show notes. But for now, Tess, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciated it.
Tess Posner (41:27.067)
Thank you, it great talking to you. I appreciate you having me on. Hope you have a great day and to everyone listening, thanks so much for tuning in.