On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

Meet Kyle Mahowald, a linguist studying language and cognition, and Melanie Mitchell, an AI and cognitive science author. They probe whether AI's language tricks mean it thinks. Short tests with jokes, differences between prediction and embodied understanding, and when it makes sense to call AI 'thinking' are discussed in lively, accessible conversation.

Christof Koch, neuroscientist and consciousness researcher, and Martin Pistorius, author who recovered awareness after years of unresponsiveness, explore the mystery of felt experience. They recount hidden consciousness, how awareness can return, which brain regions matter, and whether AI can truly feel. Short, thought-provoking conversations probe why matter gives rise to love and hate.

Nancy Kanwisher, MIT cognitive neuroscience professor known for work on face recognition and language regions. She traces brain anatomy and the hunt for organizing principles. Stories about localized deficits like prosopagnosia meet the fMRI revolution and the discovery of the fusiform face area. AI models and future human recording tools are discussed.

Bob Oakes, longtime WBUR Morning Edition storyteller who survived polio, offers a personal account of its lifelong effects. Dr. Peter Hotez, vaccine developer and pediatrics professor, explains vaccine science and public communication. They examine CDC advisory credibility, debunk sanitation myths, discuss herd immunity needs, historical vaccine controversies, and how transparency fights antiscience.

Jack Beatty, on-point news analyst who links history, literature, and politics, walks through harrowing civilian testimonies about ICE tactics. He covers home raids, shootings, masked agents, legal immunity debates, and the political tug-of-war over enforcement. The conversation also turns to housing affordability, commuting tradeoffs, and community debates about density and quality.

Dan Wang, research fellow and author of Breakneck, draws on years in China to compare its engineering-led development with U.S. lawyer-driven systems. He describes China's massive infrastructure feats, contrasts them with U.S. project struggles, explores origins of engineering leadership, underscores tradeoffs like displacement and legal protections, and argues for mutual learning between the two nations.

Oriana Mastro, a scholar of Chinese strategy; Luis Rubio, a Latin America analyst; Michael Lee, a European politics expert; and Colonel Mark Kansian, a retired Marine and defense advisor. They discuss a shift toward Western Hemisphere priorities, Europe’s push for strategic autonomy and higher defense spending, implications for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, and risks of transactional U.S. policy for alliances and regional stability.

Beryl Lipton, a digital-rights researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Jason Kebler, an investigative reporter who exposed open AI-powered camera feeds, discuss AI-enabled surveillance. They describe insecure live camera streams, how networks and AI can track and reidentify people, marketing claims like tattoo and license-plate recognition, and calls for transparency, policy, and oversight.

Carolyn Long, an associate professor who studies civility, shame, and political behavior, explores how shame used to check leaders and why politics now rewards shamelessness. She discusses televised turning points, how campaigns incentivize outrage, differences between shame and guilt, why shaming backfires, and ideas for changing incentives to restore accountability.

Jack Beatty, a historian and commentator who links history, literature, and politics, explores how restrictive zoning shaped housing scarcity. He traces racist roots of zoning, explains how homeowners block new construction, and discusses the economic and inequality effects of limited housing supply. Short takes on reform prospects and why NIMBY feelings endure.