Peering Into A.I.’s Black Box + Who’s The Real Techno-Optimist? + Reading Ancient Scrolls With A.I.

A.I. models are black boxes. You input a prompt and the model outputs nearly anything: a sonnet, an image or a legal brief riddled with lies. Today, a look at three ways that researchers are unlocking that black box in hopes of bringing transparency to A.I.

Then, Marc Andreessen’s techno-optimist manifesto has left us asking, Is he OK?!

Plus: decoding a 2,000-year-old ancient scroll with the help of A.I.

Today’s Guest:

• Brent Seales is a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky.

Additional Information:

• Kevin Roose on learning more about how A.I. works • . • Marc Andreessen’s 5,000-word manifesto • Using A.I. to decode a scroll that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius • in A.D. 79.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.