Why CEOs Are Getting AI Wrong — with Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick, professor at the Wharton School and author of One Useful Thing, joins Scott Galloway to examine the biggest mistake companies are making about AI.
They discuss why fears of mass job loss may be premature, how quiet productivity gains are already reshaping work, and why most organizations lack the imagination to redesign themselves around new technology. Ethan also explores AI in higher education and medicine, the rise of open-weight models, and what all of this means for young people entering the workforce.
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964: In Case You Missed It in January 2026
In this first of the year ICYMI episode, Jon Krohn selects his favorite moments from January’s SuperDataScience interviews. Listen to why incentivizing workers is the best way to get them to disclose their use of AI tools and pave the way for an AI-forward future, how AI continues to mimic human development in its own evolution, the importance of evaluation in building AI systems, and how to keep your best employees (and also: how to know your value) with guests Sadie St. Lawrence, Ashwin Rajeeva, Sinan Ozdemir, Vijoy Pandey, and Ethan Mollick.
Additional materials: www.superdatascience.com/964
Interested in sponsoring a SuperDataScience Podcast episode? Email natalie@superdatascience.com for sponsorship information.
962: Wharton Prof Ethan Mollick on Why Your AI Strategy Is Already Obsolete
Bestselling author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI Ethan Mollick speaks to Jon Krohn about just how much US firms have to gain from a willingness to adopt and experiment with AI, as well as the reality behind AI use among employees and the frontier models set to support them even further.
Additional materials: www.superdatascience.com/962
Interested in sponsoring a SuperDataScience Podcast episode? Email natalie@superdatascience.com for sponsorship information.
20VC: Is More Compute the Answer to Model Performance | Why OpenAI Abandons Products, The Biggest Opportunities They Have Not Taken & Analysing Their Race for AGI | What Companies, AI Labs and Startups Get Wrong About AI with Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick is the Co-Director of the Generative AI Lab at Wharton, which builds prototypes and conducts research to discover how AI can help humans thrive while mitigating risks. Ethan is also an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship, and also examines the effects of artificial intelligence on work and education. His papers have been published in top journals and his book on AI, Co-Intelligence, is a New York Times bestseller.
In Today's Episode with Ethan Mollick We Discuss:
1. Models: Is More Compute the Answer:
How has Ethan changed his mind on whether we have a lot of room to run in adding more compute to increase model performance?
What will happen with models in the next 12 months that no one expects?
Why will open models immediately be used by bad actors, what should happen as a result?
Data, algorithms, compute, what is the biggest bottleneck and how will this change with time?
2. OpenAI: The Missed Opportunity, Product Roadmap and AGI:
Why does Ethan believe that OpenAI is completely out of touch with creating products that consumers want to use?
Which product did OpenAI shelve that will prove to be a massive mistake?
How does Ethan analyse OpenAI's pursuit of AGI?
Why did Ethan think Brad, COO @ OpenAI's heuristic of "startups should be threatened if they are not excited by a 100x improvement in model" is total BS?
3. VCs, Startups and AI Labs: What the World Does Not Understand:
What do Big AI labs not understand about big companies?
What are the biggest mistakes companies are making when implementing AI?
Why are startups not being ambitious enough with AI today?
What are the single biggest ways consumers can and should be using AI today?
S.B.F Goes to Jail + Back to School with A.I. + Self-Driving Car Update
When Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in December, he was confined to his parents’ house — but he was left free to roam the internet. Today, the New York Times reporter David Yaffe-Bellany talks about how access to the cyberworld allowed Mr. Bankman-Fried to violate his bail terms and land himself in jail.
Then, how universities can manage a generative A.I. world.
Plus: another look at autonomous vehicles.
On Today’s Episode:
David Yaffe-Bellany, a cryptocurrency and financial technology reporter for The New York Times.
Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who is experimenting with generative A.I. in the classroom.
Additional Information:
Sam Bankman-Fried was sent to jail after violating his bail terms. The court dispute over his bail focused on a New York Times article that described writings by Caroline Ellison, an FTX executive who had also dated Mr. Bankman-Fried.
A driverless car got stuck in wet concrete in San Francisco this week.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
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The Professor Who Required His Students Use ChatGPT In Class — With Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school and writes One Useful Thing on Substack. He is one of the world’s foremost researchers on practical applications of generative AI and is an immensely engaging speaker. Professor Mollick joins Big Technology Podcast for a vibrant discussion of how AI changes schoolwork and office work, covering his decision to make his students use ChatGPT in class. Tune in for a insight-packed interview that will illuminate where the field is heading.
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