“I’m a huge U.S. Men’s National Team soccer fan, and my friend Warren, who lives on the other side of the country, is a huge fan as well,” began Evan Ratliff in Hall on April 7. “Usually before the game we’d call each other up and have a little hype session, but one day I was too busy. So instead of me calling Warren, I had my AI clone—which is a clone of my voice attached to an AI chatbot—call instead.” Mr. Ratliff is an accomplished journalist, book author, and podcaster who decided to take a deep dive into AI in his 2024 podcast, Shell Game. Through it, Mr. Ratliff explored what can happen when you release your personal AI voice clone into the world—to interact with strangers and friends, telemarketers and scammers, family and colleagues. 

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As technologies like AI continue to evolve, digital literacy and careful verification are becoming essential skills. Taking the time to confirm identities, question unexpected communications, and rely on credible evidence can help reduce the risk of fraud and support more informed decision-making in both personal and professional settings.

In introducing Mr. Ratliff, Dr. Schaffer noted that “the rise of artificial intelligence is one of the defining technological realities of our time. It is with us, and increasingly everywhere around us.” Through his podcast, Mr. Ratliff hoped to explore and attempt to answer some ongoing questions surrounding AI, such as “Will it help us, or will it harm us? Will it make us hyper-productive, or will it take our jobs?”

Throughout the Hall, Mr. Ratliff played recordings taken directly from his podcast, relaying conversations between “AI Evan” and various unknowing parties, including telemarketers, strangers, family, and friends. Particularly amusing was a conversation between two different AI Evans, in which they discussed human Evan’s non-existent interest in geo-caching and rare book collecting. In one instance, someone called the phone number provided by human Evan under the guise that human Evan would be on the other line, asking questions about AI for an upcoming project. Shortly into one conversation, a caller (who was expressing his disdain for AI) noticed what was happening. “You are a robot,” he realized. “That’s crazy. It’s like a meta kind of a survey or something to use robots to ask people about their fear of robots.” 

Mr. Ratliff emphasized throughout the Hall the many questions—yet unanswered—related to AI ethics and impact. While AI is becoming increasingly prevalent, it is still, in many ways, completely uncharted territory from an academic and data standpoint. “The main thing that I want you to take away is that the way AI is being deployed in the world right now is a giant experiment, and you are all the subjects of that experiment. We are all the subjects of that experiment,” he explained. 

At the conclusion of his talk, Mr. Ratliff opened the floor to questions, which students could direct either to him or to AI Evan, which he opened in a window on his computer. While most of the questions were for human Evan, AI Evan answered one question in an eerily similar fashion to how human Evan answered. In one instance, AI Evan stated, “We need to be cautious and thoughtful about how we integrate these technologies into our lives. It’s not just about the tech itself, but how we choose to use it, and we should always be asking ourselves what it means to be human.” That’s right—an AI chatbot reminding us to ask ourselves what it means to be human.

In his distinguished career as a journalist, Mr. Ratliff has reported on transnational crime and cybercrime, science and technology, the environment, terrorism, corruption, and politics. His articles have been featured in Wired, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times, Outside, and National Geographic. Mr. Ratliff is also a well-respected podcaster, having written and hosted several that earned top spots on the Apple podcast charts, including Longform, a journalism-related podcast that was one of the longest-running podcasts of all time for over 10 years with 585 episodes; Persona: The French Deception, about one of the world’s most famous con artists; and most recently On Musk with Walter Isaacson, which reached number one on the Apple Podcast charts.

In the second Senior Speakers Hall of the year, on February 25, Omar Rahman and Alex Giordano shared their insights about wisdom derived from texts they explored through the RL English program. Omar drew upon Marigolds by Eugenia W. Collier, a short story taught in Sixie year, and Alex on Bartleby, the Scrivener, a short story by Herman Melville that boys read during their junior year. 

“Innocence is the first lie we tell ourselves,” Omar began. “I’m realizing that growing up isn’t just about growing older—it’s about losing the ease of seeing the world as simple.” Omar continued, noting that now, at age eighteen, despite being considered an adult, the acquisition of wisdom is an ongoing process, not something that happens overnight. He also shared how, similarly to the main character in Marigolds, who destroys her neighbor’s flowers without thinking of the repercussions or the importance those flowers might hold for her neighbor, wisdom is realizing that our personal actions and decisions have broader impact, and are not isolated to each individual. “Real wisdom only comes when we look past ourselves and embrace the complexities of others’ lives,” Omar reflected.

As Alex took to the lectern, he opened by reflecting on his eighteenth birthday and how he expected to feel a profound change when the clock struck midnight. Yet he found that even now, six months later, he feels the same. “I want you to imagine that my speech ended right there,” Alex stated. “Perhaps it would affect you in no way, shape, or form—but I’m willing to bet at least one of you would pause and think, even momentarily, ‘Is he okay?’” He spoke about empathy and how we are taught to be empathic from an early age, yet sometimes simply feeling empathetic is not enough. Alex talked about Melville’s short story, in which an employer notices atypical behavior in his employee, like staring longingly out of the office window for hours or sleeping in the office at night. While the employer ultimately didn’t yell at or deride the employee, he didn’t make any effort to go out of his way to help him, either. Alex ended his speech by tying together his opening paragraph and Melville’s tale, making a call to action: “Hopefully when a boy comes to the podium and delivers a paragraph like my first one today, it prompts not only empathy, but also an urge to break free from complacency, take action, and talk to that boy.”

Watch the Hall here.

“February is a really busy month for me. Despite being an African American historian, who specializes in African American history, I am not the biggest fan of Black History Month,” began Dr. Brenna Wynn Greer in Hall on February 14. A historian of race, gender, and culture in the twentieth century United States, and a professor of history at Wellesley College, she continued, “I should be very clear that what I mean is I am not the biggest fan of how society observes it.” 

“When it comes to celebrating Black history, it seems we have little imagination or curiosity, because we keep drawing on the same black figures, and more often than not, in their most heroic and very simplistic forms,” she explained. This notion, of viewing important historical figures—especially those of color—as two-dimensional is a sentiment that Pulitzer-winning biographer Jonathan Eig spoke about during this year’s MLK Commemoration Hall on January 14. Dr. Greer continued, stating “I’ve spent my entire career thinking about and battling what I call symbolic Blackness, meaning simplistic ideas or examples of Blackness that have become so dominant within popular culture, that they stand in for complex histories of complex people.”

Dr. Greer displayed on the screen the widely circulated and famous photo of Rosa Parks sitting at the front of a bus during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the ongoing fight for desegregated bussing in Montgomery, Alabama. “What most people don’t know is that this photograph is completely staged,” Dr. Greer explained. “It’s a collaboration between Rosa Parks and the members of the press that tracked her down the morning the boycott ended.”

In Hall, Dr. Greer spoke about the depiction and representation of Black culture in history, imagery, and the media. Dr. Greer’s research and teaching focus on the relationships between social movements—especially the civil rights movement—the market, and visual culture. At Wellesley she teaches courses on World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, consumerism, fashion, visual culture, and Black print culture. Her first book, Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined African American Citizenship, examines the work of Black entrepreneurs in the World War II era. She is currently at work on a second book titled Issues of Color: Black Magazine and the Business of Black Life, which examines the mid-twentieth century commercial Black magazine publishing industry, and the role that popular Black periodicals played in Black life.

As her talk concluded, Dr. Greer fielded thoughtful questions from the audience, ranging from the use of black and white photos versus colored photos in many Black History Month graphics to Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. Following the Hall, she joined Mr. Thompson’s U.S. History class to discuss and analyze WWII propaganda posters with the students.

“Most of what you hear about climate change is pretty grim, but today, I want to convey why there is reason for optimism and how that has driven the work that we do.” So began Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang on February 4 as he delivered RL’s annual Wyner Lecture. Dr. Chiang is the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and father of Casey Chiang (III). The lecture series, established by Jerry Wyner, Class of 1943, and his sister Elizabeth Wyner Mark, is a living memorial to their father, Rudolph Wyner, Class of 1912. The school was honored to have Jerry ’43 and members of his family in attendance for Dr. Chiang’s presentation.

In addition to his teaching and research, Dr. Chiang has co-founded seven companies, on three of which he still sits as the Chief Scientist. The main focus of his work is innovating and implementing ways to rework existing products or invent new processes to reduce the carbon emissions produced on a daily basis. In Hall, he spoke about his two most recent companies, Form Energy and Sublime Systems, which focus on creating long-term, sustainable energy storage solutions and radically reducing the carbon output in cement creation, respectively. 

“We’re at a point where we have a crisis, and in every crisis, there is opportunity,” Dr. Chiang explained. “We’ve now been asked—the scientists and engineers—to try to do something about climate change. For the first time, for most of us, we’ve been asked to reinvent a whole bunch of things that have taken our society to where it is today.”

Dr. Chiang then explained the processes and subsequent carbon output in creating or obtaining core building materials, such as cement, steel, and concrete. He then explained the innovative ways in which he and his team are working to reinvent the processes, leading to more sustainable materials that also require less energy to create. “We’re starting with natural things to create artificial things,” he explained.

Another of Dr. Chiang’s companies is focused on addressing challenges in sustainable energy, having noted that renewable sources like wind and solar are inconsistent, because the weather is ever-changing. While these methods effectively generate energy, they often need to be supplemented. His team is utilizing a readily available resource, iron, to create batteries. The batteries can then generate and store energy created through natural processes like rusting and oxidation. 

Dr. Chiang and his department at MIT produce the largest number of patents per capita, more than any other school at MIT. He is using his creativity and knowledge as an engineer and scientist to evaluate and then reevaluate the ways in which materials are used in construction and energy production. 

As far as climate change is concerned, he is hoping his teams’ innovations can make an impact on something that seems daunting and unnerving. “Fear as a motivator is short-lived; optimism, however, carries you for the long haul,” he reminded his audience.

After explaining his career path and current projects to the students, faculty, and staff, he fielded several questions from eager students, including inquiries about electric vehicles, AI, and ways to address aviation’s carbon output.