Who Gets to Control AI? Julie Koehrer on Risk, Work, and Public Trust | The Weekly Blitz
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Who’s talking
2 speakers1Transcript156 turns · 40 min
Good morning, Julie Keller. Welcome home. Good morning,
Jason. Oh, thank you.
Did you go on a little trip?
I did go on a little trip.
Can you tell any details or is that too private?
Oh, I mean, I just took a road trip down to New Orleans. It was hot. It was hot everywhere I went. Hot.
Was it fun? It
was super fun. Yeah, I stopped in Nashville to see a friend and then stopped in like near Memphis on my way back, you know. But yeah, just a lot of a reminder that road trips are, can be long. They're fun, but you know, the Midwest is pretty boring.
Pretty
slat.
Yeah, not untrue. Did you listen to Simon and Garfunkel live in Central Park? That's my like road trip. No. Road trip tape.
No, actually, I listened to, not surprisingly, a lot of radio. I was just seeing what was happening in the world and the landscape of radio from here down and back up.
Did you hear the Jacob Coxon story?
Of course.
Okay, so we can get into that.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was the only one thing that I am aware of that has happened since I have been away. So figured we'd have to bring that up.
Well, let's start with today is September 13th. It is officially Indiana Women in Tech Week. So we're celebrating women in technology in the state of Indiana. And the AGI podcast will be having an interview every night at 6 p.m. with a prominent woman who uses technology in this state. And this particular episode will feature Julie Kohler and be Monday night at 6 p.m. But tonight is going to kick off with a LinkedIn Live with Shanika Abram, who is a big community developer. She's on Analytics Indiana with me, and she's going to be my co-host for the LinkedIn Live October 27th data centers conversation. So she and I are going to test out LinkedIn Live to make sure that we've I mean, I had Kodak set it all up, so I have no idea if it's set up right or not, but we're going to find out.
I didn't even realize LinkedIn was doing live, so I'm not surprised.
Yeah, October 27th, I've got professors from Purdue, IU. I've got a rep from Google. I'm waiting on a rep from Meta, somebody from the city of Fort Wayne, and then hopefully someone from labor unions or construction too. for this LinkedIn live 90 minute, uh, broadcast called, uh, behind the Cape. It's kind of Halloween themed. Our data center is really scary. So we're going to, you know, you and I are always talking about how we need to get all the voices at the table and let's have a pragmatic conversation about what these things like AI and data centers mean to communities from, from every perspective. And so that's what we're aiming to bring is, is a full 90 minute conversation. I'll be there to kind of moderate and police and, uh, You know, when people try to get on their soapbox or talk too long, I'm no problem being their asshole and tell them that it's somebody else's turn. And then Shanika is going to be there to kind of as the community advocate and asking some of the questions and watching the stream of questions that we have coming in from the audience and proposing some of those to our to our panelists.
And that's exciting.
It is exciting.
Not as
exciting as the Jacob Coxon thing has gotten the whole world, but it's exciting.
Of course it has
2Episode notes
AI risk stories are getting louder, regulation proposals are getting more serious, and most people still have a workday to finish. In this Indiana Women IN Tech Week special, Julie Koehrer and Jason Padgett sort through what deserves attention, what deserves skepticism, and where the human judgment still matters.
Julie brings the perspective that makes The Weekly Blitz work: curious, grounded, willing to disagree, and always connected to how technology lands in real life. The conversation moves from catastrophic AI headlines to data center oversight, teacher workload, healthcare documentation, employee value, work-life balance, self-driving cars, and public surveillance.
WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY
Why controlling increasingly capable AI is harder than writing a simple rule
How AI productivity gains collide with work-life balance and workplace incentives
Where AI may reduce administrative burden for teachers and healthcare workers
Why public trust depends on accountability, not just technical capability
How respectful disagreement can produce a better conversation than certainty
ABOUT JULIE KOEHRER
Julie Koehrer is a branding and marketing consultant and afternoon host at Lafayette's Q106.7. She co-hosts The Weekly Blitz, the AGI Podcast's fast Monday conversation about what changed in AI and what might matter during the workweek.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Indiana Women IN Tech