Vasant Dhar — Thinking with Machines

Vasant Dhar has been thinking seriously about machines and intelligence for longer than most of us have been using the internet. In this episode, he joins Adrian and Tim to explore what it actually means to 'think with machines' — and why that framing matters more than the usual AI conversation.

Vasant opens with a provocation: the question isn't whether AI will replace jobs, but how the nature of expertise itself is changing. When a machine can outperform a human on a specific task, what does that mean for the human who built their identity around that task? His answer is nuanced and, ultimately, optimistic — but not naively so.

The conversation moves through the practical implications for scientists and engineers: which cognitive tasks are genuinely being automated, which are being augmented, and which remain stubbornly human. Vasant draws on his research and his book to give concrete examples rather than abstractions.

The episode closes with a discussion of what STEM professionals should be doing now — not to 'AI-proof' their careers (a fool's errand, Vasant argues) but to position themselves at the productive intersection of human judgment and machine capability.

Vasant Dhar

NYU Professor, Author & Podcast Host

Vasant Dhar is a Professor at NYU's Stern School of Business and the Center for Data Science, where he has spent decades at the intersection of machine learning, prediction, and decision-making. He is the author of Thinking with Machines and the host of the Brave New World podcast. Vasant brings a rare combination of academic rigour and practical insight to questions about how AI is reshaping the nature of expertise and work.