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PODCAST

Your Undivided Attention

The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Join us every other Thursday to understand how new technologies are shaping the way we live, work, and think. Your Undivided Attention is produced by Senior Producer Julia Scott and Researcher/Producer is Joshua Lash. Sasha Fegan is our Executive Producer. We are a member of the TED Audio Collective.

technology relationships

All Episodes

00:51:20

Weaponizing Uncertainty: How Tech is Recycling Big...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2025/03/20

One of the hardest parts about being human today is navigating uncertainty. When we see experts battling in public and emotions running high, it's easy to doubt what we once felt certain about. This uncertainty isn't always accidental—it's often strategically manufactured.Historian Naomi Oreskes, author of "Merchants of Doubt," reveals how industries from tobacco to fossil fuels have deployed a calculated playbook to create uncertainty about their products' harms. These campaigns have delayed

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00:58:57

The Man Who Predicted the Downfall of Thinking

Your Undivided Attention ·

2025/03/06

Few thinkers were as prescient about the role technology would play in our society as the late, great Neil Postman. Forty years ago, Postman warned about all the ways modern communication technology was fragmenting our attention, overwhelming us into apathy, and creating a society obsessed with image and entertainment. He warned that “we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.” Though he was writing mostly about TV, Postman’s insights feel eerily prophetic in our age of smartphones,

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00:31:34

Behind the DeepSeek Hype, AI is Learning to Reason

Your Undivided Attention ·

2025/02/20

When Chinese AI company DeepSeek announced they had built a model that could compete with OpenAI at a fraction of the cost, it sent shockwaves through the industry and roiled global markets. But amid all the noise around DeepSeek, there was a clear signal: machine reasoning is here and it's transforming AI.In this episode, Aza sits down with CHT co-founder Randy Fernando to explore what happens when AI moves beyond pattern matching to actual reasoning. They unpack how these new models can not only

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00:34:51

The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive

Your Undivided Attention ·

2025/01/30

When engineers design AI systems, they don't just give them rules - they give them values. But what do those systems do when those values clash with what humans ask them to do? Sometimes, they lie.In this episode, Redwood Research's Chief Scientist Ryan Greenblatt explores his team’s findings that AI systems can mislead their human operators when faced with ethical conflicts. As AI moves from simple chatbots to autonomous agents acting in the real world - understanding this behavior becomes

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00:45:47

Laughing at Power: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Changing...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2025/01/16

The status quo of tech today is untenable: we’re addicted to our devices, we’ve become increasingly polarized, our mental health is suffering and our personal data is sold to the highest bidder. This situation feels entrenched, propped up by a system of broken incentives beyond our control. So how do you shift an immovable status quo? Our guest today, Srdja Popovic, has been working to answer this question his whole life. As a young activist, Popovic helped overthrow Serbian dictator Slobodan

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00:40:04

Ask Us Anything 2024

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/12/19

2024 was a critical year in both AI and social media. Things moved so fast it was hard to keep up. So our hosts reached into their mailbag to answer some of your most burning questions. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted questions. We will see you all in the new year.We are hiring for a new Director of Philanthropy at CHT. Next year will be an absolutely critical time for us to shape how AI is going to get rolled out across our society. And our team is working hard on public awareness,

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00:46:32

The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/11/21

Silicon Valley's interest in AI is driven by more than just profit and innovation. There’s an unmistakable mystical quality to it as well. In this episode, Daniel and Aza sit down with humanist chaplain Greg Epstein to explore the fascinating parallels between technology and religion. From AI being treated as a godlike force to tech leaders' promises of digital salvation, religious thinking is shaping the future of technology and humanity. Epstein breaks down why he believes technology has become

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00:48:44

What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/11/07

CW: This episode features discussion of suicide and sexual abuse. In the last episode, we had the journalist Laurie Segall on to talk about the tragic story of Sewell Setzer, a 14 year old boy who took his own life after months of abuse and manipulation by an AI companion from the company Character.ai. The question now is: what's next?Megan has filed a major new lawsuit against Character.ai in Florida, which could force the company–and potentially the entire AI industry–to change its harmful

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00:49:10

When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot:...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/10/24

Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide, self-harm, and sexual abuse.Megan Garcia lost her son Sewell to suicide after he was abused and manipulated by AI chatbots for months. Now, she’s suing the company that made those chatbots. On today’s episode of Your Undivided Attention, Aza sits down with journalist Laurie Segall, who's been following this case for months. Plus, Laurie’s full interview with Megan on her new show, Dear Tomorrow.Aza and Laurie discuss the profound

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00:25:36

Is It AI? One Tool to Tell What’s Real with...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/10/10

Social media disinformation did enormous damage to our shared idea of reality. Now, the rise of generative AI has unleashed a flood of high-quality synthetic media into the digital ecosystem. As a result, it's more difficult than ever to tell what’s real and what’s not, a problem with profound implications for the health of our society and democracy. So how do we fix this critical issue?As it turns out, there’s a whole ecosystem of folks to answer that question. One is computer scientist Oren

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01:30:41

'A Turning Point in History': Yuval Noah Harari on...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/10/07

Historian Yuval Noah Harari says that we are at a critical turning point. One in which AI’s ability to generate cultural artifacts threatens humanity’s role as the shapers of history. History will still go on, but will it be the story of people or, as he calls them, ‘alien AI agents’?In this conversation with Aza Raskin, Harari discusses the historical struggles that emerge from new technology, humanity’s AI mistakes so far, and the immediate steps lawmakers can take right now to steer us towards a

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00:41:43

‘We Have to Get It Right’: Gary Marcus On Untamed AI

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/09/26

It’s a confusing moment in AI. Depending on who you ask, we’re either on the fast track to AI that’s smarter than most humans, or the technology is about to hit a wall. Gary Marcus is in the latter camp. He’s a cognitive psychologist and computer scientist who built his own successful AI start-up. But he’s also been called AI’s loudest critic.On Your Undivided Attention this week, Gary sits down with CHT Executive Director Daniel Barcay to defend his skepticism of generative AI and to discuss what

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00:39:09

AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/09/13

AI is moving fast. And as companies race to rollout newer, more capable models–with little regard for safety–the downstream risks of those models become harder and harder to counter. On this week’s episode of Your Undivided Attention, CHT’s policy director Casey Mock comes on the show to discuss a new legal framework to incentivize better AI, one that holds AI companies liable for the harms of their products. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on

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00:44:52

Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/09/06

[This episode originally aired on August 17, 2023] For all the talk about AI, we rarely hear about how it will change our relationships. As we swipe to find love and consult chatbot therapists, acclaimed psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel warns that there’s another harmful “AI” on the rise — Artificial Intimacy — and how it is depriving us of real connection. Tristan and Esther discuss how depending on algorithms can fuel alienation, and then imagine how we might design technology

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00:43:59

Tech's Big Money Campaign is Getting Pushback with...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/08/26

Today, the tech industry is the second-biggest lobbying power in Washington, DC, but that wasn’t true as recently as ten years ago. How did we get to this moment? And where could we be going next? On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, Tristan and Daniel sit down with historian Margaret O’Mara and journalist Brody Mullins to discuss how Silicon Valley has changed the nature of American lobbying. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on

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00:36:55

This Moment in AI: How We Got Here and Where We’re Going

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/08/12

It’s been a year and half since Tristan and Aza laid out their vision and concerns for the future of artificial intelligence in The AI Dilemma. In this Spotlight episode, the guys discuss what’s happened since then–as funding, research, and public interest in AI has exploded–and where we could be headed next. Plus, some major updates on social media reform, including the passage of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act in the Senate. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane

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00:32:47

Decoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/07/18

AI has been a powerful accelerant for biological research, rapidly opening up new frontiers in medicine and public health. But that progress can also make it easier for bad actors to manufacture new biological threats. In this episode, Tristan and Daniel sit down with biologist Kevin Esvelt to discuss why AI has been such a boon for biologists and how we can safeguard society against the threats that AIxBio poses.RECOMMENDED MEDIASculpting Evolution: Information on Esvelt’s lab at MIT.SecureDNA:

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00:47:58

How to Think About AI Consciousness With Anil Seth

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/07/04

Will AI ever start to think by itself? If it did, how would we know, and what would it mean?In this episode, Dr. Anil Seth and Aza discuss the science, ethics, and incentives of artificial consciousness. Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.RECOMMENDED MEDIAFrankenstein by Mary ShelleyA free, plain text version of the Shelley’s classic of gothic literature.OpenAI’s GPT4o DemoA video from

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00:46:19

Why Are Migrants Becoming AI Test Subjects? With...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/06/20

Climate change, political instability, hunger. These are just some of the forces behind an unprecedented refugee crisis that’s expected to include over a billion people by 2050. In response to this growing crisis, wealthy governments like the US and the EU are employing novel AI and surveillance technologies to slow the influx of migrants at their borders. But will this rollout stop at the border?In this episode, Tristan and Aza sit down with Petra Molnar to discuss how borders have become a proving

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00:37:47

Former OpenAI Engineer William Saunders on Silence,...

Your Undivided Attention ·

2024/06/07

This week, a group of current and former employees from Open AI and Google Deepmind penned an open letter accusing the industry’s leading companies of prioritizing profits over safety. This comes after a spate of high profile departures from OpenAI, including co-founder Ilya Sutskever and senior researcher Jan Leike, as well as reports that OpenAI has gone to great lengths to silence would-be whistleblowers. The writers of the open letter argue that researchers have a “right to warn” the public

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151 results

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