About

What Are We Even Doing is a podcast about AI from the educators who have to deal with it on a Tuesday morning.

We’re Danny Caballero and Devin Silvia, researchers and educators at Michigan State University. We teach computing to scientists and engineers. We’ve been doing it for over a decade. And like a lot of educators, we spend most of our time these days trying to figure out what AI is actually doing to our classrooms, our research, and our students’ lives.

Every two weeks, we try to put out an episode with different parts:

• A Deep Dive. One of us has read a story and dug into it, and the other gives their reaction straight from the dome.
• Hype Train Rides. We look at specific AI claims, and try to figure out how hype it is.
• A cool thing someone did. We are critical pragamatists, so we don’t want to be the show that’s just mad about everything.
• (Sometimes) An interview. A conversation with someone (usually a colleague, sometimes a stranger) who knows something we don’t.

We’re not selling AI. We’re not shorting AI. We use it (sometimes), we teach next with it (sometimes), and most days we’re confused about it. If that sounds like your life too, you’re in the right place.

The opinions expressed represent our thinking at the time of recording and do not represent the views of our employer, our professional organizations, or any state or federal agency that support of work.

Recorded live in Mac’s Bar in beautiful Lansing, MI. We don’t control the music, don’t sue please.

Danny also writes at dannycaballero.info and danny.hellmo.space; Devin’s site is devinsilvia.com.