We meet a founder questioning the wisdom of the Turing Test as he works to address the loneliness epidemic among the elderly, in the latest installment of our oral history project.

We Meet:

Intuition Robotics Founder Dor Skuler, maker of the ElliQ digital companion

Credits:

SHIFT is produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens. It’s mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

This episode first published in August 2024.

The application of artificial intelligence to help discover new medicines could become one of the more transformative ways we use this tech in the near term. A key player in this space is Recursion Pharmaceuticals. Its outgoing CEO Chris Gibson takes us on a tour of the world's largest phenomics lab in Salt Lake City, Utah.

We Meet:

Recursion Co-Founder Chris Gibson

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

What if voting in a primary could be as simple as reaching for your phone? This week, Bradley Tusk's TED Talk about this topic was named one of the ten essential TED Talks of 2025, and we're revisiting the episode we taped with him about mobile voting for our oral history project.

We Meet:

Bradley Tusk, Founder & CEO of Tusk Holdings

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.