Ep 7: AI Ethics, PosseLove & Culpability (with Dr. Lana Mahgoub)

Ep 7: AI Ethics, PosseLove & Culpability (with Dr. Lana Mahgoub)A family survives a self-driving car accident. Two people in another car don’t.From there, everything gets more complicated.Doug sits down with Dr. Lana Mahgoub—psychologist, author, and longtime member of his Grinnell Posse—to talk about Culpability by Bruce Holsinger, a novel that uses AI not just as a theme, but almost as a character. What begins as a question of who caused an accident quickly turns into something harder: how responsibility works in a world where humans and machines are intertwined.Along the way, the conversation moves well beyond the book. Lana reflects on her path from Posse scholar to psychologist, what it means to build support systems that actually last, and how those same ideas show up in therapy, parenting, and everyday life. There’s a throughline here about relationships—how they protect us, shape us, and sometimes fail us.The discussion of AI lands close to home. Lana sees versions of it already in her work, with kids turning to chatbots for connection and answers. The question isn’t whether AI will play a role—it already does. The harder question is what it’s doing to how people think, relate, and make decisions.There’s also a quieter tension running underneath everything: the instinct to protect—your kids, your patients, yourself—and the reality that you can’t control everything. Not outcomes. Not technology. Not even the people closest to you.It’s a conversation about responsibility, but also about limits—of systems, of knowledge, and of control.Chapters0:00 INTRO: Meet Dr. Lana and the Posse Connection01:41 What Is Posse—and Why It Still Matters04:28 From Grinnell to a Career in Psychology08:01 Starting a Private Practice and Working with Kids11:27 Parenting, Therapy, and Real Life vs Theory13:22 Writing a Children’s Book About Anxiety20:57 OK, now the book: Culpability by Bruce Holsinger26:20 From the Novel to Real Life: AI, Kids, and Therapy32:59 Ethics, Responsibility, and What AI Means for Us38:22 Next time: Jeremy Hornik and Cocktail Time by P. G. WodehouseNext: Jeremy Hornik, discussing Cocktail Time by P. G. Wodehouse.Music by Eiren Caffall. Please check out her music on Spotify.