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In this episode, we sit down with entrepreneur, investor, educator, and author Jeff Burnigham to explore what it truly means to be human in the age of artificial intelligence. The author of bestselling book: The Last Book Written by a Human, Jeff reframes AI not as a technological challenge but as a human one. We discuss why simulated understanding is not the same as lived experience, how love, loss, and wisdom ground us in an age of acceleration, the risks of synthetic relationships and attention capture, and why becoming an anomaly willing to step outside normalized patterns may be essential to shaping a more humane future.

Links:

• Jeff Burningham LinkedIn
• The Last Book Written by a Human
• Podcasting @ The Extraordinary Us

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In this episode of Age of AI, Medlir sits down with Melissa McKay, Founder of the Digital Childhood Institute. They examine how Big Tech platforms and app store gatekeepers have failed to protect kids online. From Google emailing children in order to remove parental controls, to deceptive app age ratings, we discuss how safety breakdowns are not accidents but predictable outcomes of misaligned incentives. Online harm to children is not inevitable. It appears to be designed, normalized, and protected by powerful systems that profit from inaction.

Links:

• Digital Childhood Institute
• Google’s Broken Promise of Safety
• Child Advocates File Landmark FTC Complaint Against Apple Over Pervasive Harms to Kids
• OpenAI, childrens’ advocates join forces on initiative to protect kids from chatbots
• Grok, CSAM, and the Gatekeepers Who Looked Away
• H.B. 273 Classroom Technology Amendments

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In this episode of Age of AI, Medlir speaks with Seth Lewis, professor at the University of Oregon and a leading scholar of journalism, AI, and communication. The conversation explores what Lewis calls the “AI turn” in journalism: a moment when generative AI begins to challenge core ideas about authorship, creativity, trust, and professional identity. We examine how AI is moving from a backstage technology to an active participant in communication, how it shapes trust in society, and how we can retain our ability to ‘think’ in an age of AI.

Episode Links:

• https://www.sethlewis.org/
• Artificial intelligence and communication: A human–machine communication research agenda
• Technological Hype and AI in Journalism: Five Functions and Why They Matter
• Generative AI and its disruptive challenge to journalism: An institutional analysis
• The AI turn in journalism: Disruption, adaptation, and democratic futures