Summer reading and listening: AI edition

5 W. P. Carey faculty and staff share the books, podcasts, and industry experts they're using to grow their artificial intelligence knowledge this summer.

Summer break doesn't have to mean a break from learning. With technology evolving so quickly, staying informed is more important than ever. Whether you're looking for a beginner-friendly introduction, want to keep up with AI news, or are interested in deep technical conversations, these recommendations from W. P. Carey faculty and staff offer fresh perspectives on how AI is reshaping the future of life, work, and learning.

"Deep Questions" hosted by Cal Newport
Recommended by Sharon Liu, web content strategist

Newport is an MIT-trained computer science professor at Georgetown University known for books on getting offline, rethinking your relationship with social media, and focusing deeply in a distracted world. I find that he brings an interesting, balanced perspective to AI news and its use in his "AI reality check" episodes. He offers an even-keeled viewpoint as both an academic technologist and a skeptic and is excellent at explaining concepts to a non-technical audience.

"The Dwarkesh Podcast" hosted by Dwarkesh Patel
Recommended by David Welsh, professor of management and entrepreneurship

If you want to understand where AI is headed and go beyond what a typical podcast does, this is the show to check out. Patel has interviewed many of the biggest names in the field, including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, and researchers like Andrej Karpathy and Terry Tao. The conversations often run several hours, allowing guests to move well beyond the usual talking points. Patel doesn't dumb things down, but he offers just enough context to keep the discussions widely accessible. For anyone trying to think clearly about how AI will reshape work, organizations, and decision-making, the depth here is hard to find anywhere else.

Podcasts and interviews featuring Andrej Karpathy
Recommended by Meghana Sridhar, assistant clinical professional

Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI and former director of AI at Tesla, has a unique ability to make highly technical concepts accessible to non-engineers. One idea that shaped my thinking is his explanation of large language models as probabilistic systems that predict likely word sequences rather than truly "understanding" information the way humans do. While technical on the surface, this distinction has important implications for how organizations use AI. It reinforces why these systems can be remarkably capable while human oversight remains essential. Rather than viewing AI as an infallible expert, Karpathy reminds listeners to think of it as a powerful collaborator whose outputs still require context, judgment, and validation.

What I appreciate most is that Karpathy goes beyond discussing the latest AI tools and instead focuses on how AI may change the nature of work itself. His perspectives have helped me think about AI less as a replacement for human expertise and more as a force that changes where humans create value. As AI becomes more capable of generating content, code, and analysis, people increasingly take on the responsibility of setting direction, evaluating outputs, and exercising judgment. In other words, many roles may evolve toward becoming quality assurance and decision-making functions. As AI capabilities continue to advance, organizations may gain a competitive advantage by asking better questions, exercising sound judgment, and identifying opportunities others overlook. Those are deeply human skills that are becoming even more important in an AI-enabled world. Even though I don't come from a computer science background, Karpathy's insights consistently challenge me to think more critically about how AI could reshape the way we learn, work, and solve problems in the years ahead.

"Hard Fork" produced by The New York Times and "The Dwarkesh Podcast" hosted by Dwarkesh Patel
Recommended by Mikaella Polyviou, associate professor of supply chain management

Two of my go-to podcasts are "Hard Fork" and "The Dwarkesh Podcast," and I like them for different reasons. "Hard Fork" is fast-paced and approachable. It covers the week's biggest tech and AI stories in a way that's accessible and easy to follow, yet still insightful about what technology and AI mean for our lives now and in the future. On the other hand, "The Dwarkesh Podcast" slows things down. It goes into much longer, deeper conversations with scientists, philosophers, technologists, and people shaping the future of technology and AI. It's quite technical and often challenges how you think about where AI is headed. Between the two podcasts, you get both the big picture and the deeper dive into AI, making them a good combination for someone trying to understand AI better.

"The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions" by Geoff Woods; "The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma" by Mustafa Suleyman; "Moonshots Podcast" hosted by Mark Pearson-Freeland and Mike Parsons; and "All-In Podcast" hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg
Recommended by Michael Weiland, director of Teaching and Learning Technologies

It's not that "The AI-Driven Leader" helped me learn AI — that came from a lot of practice, failure, and some successes — but this book did help me remember that it is about asking the right questions when using AI. It de-stigmatizes using AI as a crutch and promotes simplicity by treating it as a thought partner and, more, as a personal assistant that can help generate ideas and formulate plans. The book "The Coming Wave" provides context for technological change, and AI is the change we are managing today. Its author is a co-founder of DeepMind — the AI system that beat AlphaGo, the Go champion — and was purchased by Google.

"Moonshot Podcast" features an amazing group of entrepreneurs and tech leaders who dissect the tech industry in various ways. Recently, the podcast has been focusing on AI, but it has been great to listen to. The episode "The New Era of Jobs: Organizational Singularity" is probably my favorite, and something everyone should listen to. The "All-In Podcast" also provides a good overview of the tech industry and has recently focused on AI. This podcast has great guest hosts, and the regular hosts genuinely like each other and are good friends, which is evident in their banter.