Jacob Ward
Symposium Keynote: Jacob Ward
The former editor-in-chief of Popular Science magazine, Jacob Ward is now a science and technology television correspondent for CNN and Al Jazeera. He’s the host of a landmark four-hour series on the science of human decisions and bias, “Hacking Your Mind,” airing in 2019 on American public television, and Ward writes for The New Yorker, Wired, and Men’s Health.
His ten-episode Audible podcast, Complicated, racked up more than 20,000 subscribers per episode in 2017 with its discussion of humanity’s most difficult problems. Ward is writing a book about how artificial intelligence is poised to amplify humanity’s best and worst instincts, and regularly speaks to audiences around the world about the future, including the latest innovations in science, medicine, energy, and transportation.
Biography
I’m a writer and television correspondent covering the ethical and social implications of modern technology, ancient habits, and the deep, dangerous waters of the future.
Great news came through in February. Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, along with its partner the Berggruen Institute, has accepted me as a CASBS Fellow for the 2018-2019 academic year. I’ll be on the Stanford campus to study the effects of artificial intelligence on human decision making. It’s going to be a very intense and heady time.
I’ve just finished shooting a landmark four-hour television series on the science and implications of bias. HACKING YOUR MIND is a globe-trotting account of the cutting edge of decision science, an examination of the ways our brains are ill-suited to twenty-first century problems, and a hopeful exploration of what we can do about it. It airs in 2019.
I’m also very happy to announce that my 10-part podcast series, COMPLICATED, is now available on Audible. It explores the most sprawling and daunting human challenges, from the automation of life-and-death decisions to the global challenge of feeding twice as many humans on half the land.
Around the edges of all this I’m a television correspondent for Al Jazeera, covering science and technology in the US and around the world. Since 2013, I’ve been working with them on a new way of telling stories: high-energy, upbeat delivery of dark and difficult topics. I’ve covered everything from the heroin epidemic to environmental threats to the effects of gun violence in America.
In my previous life I was a magazine editor. Most recently I was editor-in-chief of Popular Science, the world’s largest science and technology publication. This site contains any television or public-speaking appearance of which I’m even remotely proud, along with my written work for The New Yorker, Wired, and other publications.