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PODCAST

The Most Interesting Thing in AI

Atlantic Re:think

A podcast series examining how AI is reshaping our world. Hosted by Nicholas Thompson,each episode features a conversation with a leading thinker who offers a fresh perspective on the far-reaching ethical, economic, and social implications of this technology. This podcast is from The Atlantic’s CEO and is produced independently of The Atlantic’s editorial staff. Some episodes have a supporting sponsor. Those episodes are clearly labeled and the sponsor is named.

technology

All Episodes

73:37

Building Models That See the World - Eric Xing with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/10/07

If you want AI to drive your car or simulate a cell or control a robot, it had better be able to understand the world it’s operating within. Eric Xing is one of the leading researchers working on this kind of AI, known as ‘world models.’ Unlike LLMs, which are trained largely on text data and predict the next token, world models aim to understand and simulate physical environments using multimodal data. Xing found his way to the field after a long trek through prestigious institutions, studying

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57:12

The Risks of Artificial Relationships - Sherry...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/09/30

AI wants to be your friend. And your therapist. And your lover. It’s not an entirely new offer, author and MIT professor Sherry Turkle reminds us, but it’s one that’s grown more dire as AI has improved. In a conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, Turkle describes the dangers of anthropomorphizing generative AI, gleaned from hundreds of conversations she conducted (with real humans) for her new book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk To Machines. What do we lose when

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65:15

The Case Against the AI Bubble - Azeem Azhar with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/09/23

Among the many eye-popping numbers of the AI industry—from trillions in investments to billions in spending—one stands out: $0 in profit among leading AI companies. According to Bloomberg, “never before has so much money been spent so rapidly on a technology that, for all its potential, remains largely unproven as an avenue for profit-making.” That imbalance, and the industry’s reliance on circular financing, has led to fears of a bubble. But those concerns are overblown, according to Azeem Azhar,

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69:17

The Future of Economic Power - Circle’s Jeremy...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/09/16

Technological waves often arrive with a promise. The internet was going to democratize information. Blockchain was going to decentralize power. Now, AI's boosters say it will bring unprecedented prosperity.Few people are better positioned to speak to that possibility than Jeremy Allaire. As the CEO of the fintech company Circle—issuer of the USDC stablecoin—and a longtime internet entrepreneur, Allaire has been at the center of the first two technological waves. With AI, he says we’re going

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68:45

The Race to Superintelligence - Richard Socher with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/09/09

As AI’s capabilities improve, reports of “rogue” agents and misaligned systems are becoming more frequent. In response, some activists, academics, and politicians have called for a pause in development, warning of the dangers that superintelligent AI could pose. But Richard Socher, the CEO of AI startup Recursive as well as the AI search engine You.com, sees another path. In his new book, The Eureka Machine, Socher lays out his vision for how self-improving AI could lead to breakthroughs in science,

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50:43

How to Get Hired in the AI Era - Clara Shih with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/09/02

For years, tech CEOs have promised that AI will take on the menial, repetitive tasks that have long been a part of office life. Typically, those tasks are assigned to younger, less experienced workers—and poll after poll shows Gen Z is increasingly concerned about what AI will mean for their job prospects. Clara Shih says those fears are, at least partly, justified. As the former head of Meta's Business AI Group, and the CEO of Salesforce AI before that, Shih knows firsthand how companies are

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49:16

Kara Swisher on What Silicon Valley Is Getting...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/08/26

Kara Swisher has done a bit of everything. She’s covered the rise of Silicon Valley’s tech giants, founded and sold her own startup publication, and dabbled in Hollywood, with appearances in films such as The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Tron: Ares. She’s now the host of multiple podcasts about tech and politics, as well as Kara Swisher Wants To Live Forever, a CNN series about the longevity industry.After decades of chronicling the Valley’s foibles, Swisher has many thoughts on AI—where the technology

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64:26

How AI Could Upend Global Politics - Ian Bremmer...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/08/19

AI may have leveled the playing field in coding and app development, but it’s also put potentially dangerous tools in reach of nefarious actors. Now, empowered by AI, state-backed intelligence agencies and non-state actors alike can access tools that enable everything from mass surveillance to cyberattacks to bioweapon development. This dynamic could lead to a catastrophe, warns Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer. In conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, Bremmer describes the risks of

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62:28

Writing in the Age of AI - Gemini Notebook’s Steven...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/08/12

Steven Johnson spent decades figuring out the best ways to turn his research into words on the page. Now, he’s adapting those methods for Gemini Notebook, Google’s AI-powered interactive bibliography. (Until recently, it was called NotebookLM.) But in building a tool designed to synthesize ideas, is there a risk of taking humans too far out of the writing process? In conversation with The Atlantic’s Nicholas Thompson, Johnson discusses the best practices, ethics, and limitations of using AI as a

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50:13

Meta's Plan to Win in AI - Andrew Bosworth with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/07/08

However you feel about Meta, Andrew Bosworth has likely played a part in it. The long-serving right hand to Mark Zuckerberg and current Chief Technology Officer, “Boz” has helped shape almost every stage of the company’s growth. He’s credited with introducing the Facebook News Feed in 2006, and, more recently, with overseeing the company’s efforts in the metaverse.Now, Boz is a key figure behind Meta's artificial intelligence strategy. In late June, he joined Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The

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51:17

AI’s Threat to Privacy — Signal’s Meredith Whittaker...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/07/01

AI agents can scour the internet for us, reply to our messages, and add events to our calendars. But in order to do so, they need sweeping access to our data. Handing that over presents an unprecedented threat to privacy, says Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker, who directs the Signal messaging app. In conversation with The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson, Whittaker discusses the risks of agentic AI, Signal’s approach to AI coding, and why it’s uncompromising in its commitment to

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44:57

Will AI Agents Kill Social Media–Or Save It? Eli...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/06/24

Take a scroll through Facebook or TikTok today, and you’ll likely find some AI-generated content: an influencer with impossibly-radiant skin, a stunt that bends the laws of physics, Shrimp Jesus. And while there might not be much social benefit to AI slop, that doesn’t mean that we should shun AI from our feeds entirely, says Eli Pariser. As the author of “The Filter Bubble,” Pariser has been a longtime critic of social media. But he’s also the cofounder of Upworthy, the bubbly bright news site that

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31:10

How AI Agents Are Changing Business - PwC’s Dan...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/06/17

You've probably heard it already: AI is going to radically change the way we work. But the details change depending on who's making the prediction: AI will wipe out the C-suite, or entry-level jobs, or make us all into prompt engineers. Those scenarios are far-fetched, says Dan Priest. In his role as the Chief AI Officer at PwC, Priest sees firsthand how companies across the industrial landscape are utilizing AI– often in ways that clash with those fatalistic prognostications. In a vital

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49:14

How AI Is Changing Code - Paul Ford with Nicholas...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/06/10

In the last year, AI has arguably made more progress in coding than in any other domain. Its technical capabilities – harnessed through apps like Codex and Claude Code – have changed the way engineers work. Boris Cherny, Anthropic’s head of Claude Code, claims that 100% of his output is now generated by AI. But what does the rapid advance in coding tools mean for engineers and businesses?To answer that, Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, sits down with engineer, author, and entrepreneur Paul

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50:40

How Science Can Fix Dishonest AI - Yoshua Bengio with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/06/03

In the years following the launch of ChatGPT, as concerns spread over the social and political impacts of LLMs, one person’s warnings seemed particularly dire: Yoshua Bengio’s, a scientist and one of the “godfathers” of AI. The potential negative impacts of his life’s work weighed so heavily on Bengio that he signed his name to an open letter advocating for a pause in AI research. (The pause didn’t happen.) But recently, Bengio has found renewed optimism as he pursues a project dubbed “Scientist

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62:27

The AI Jobs Disruption - Erik Brynjolfsson with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/05/27

Of all the potential risks and promises of AI, perhaps none are as immediately dire as this: How will it impact jobs? Will employers still need workers? What will it mean if the answer is “no?” Depending on who you’re talking to, the prospect of a future with fewer jobs is either liberating or terrifying. But for a more measured reaction, it helps to look at the data. Stanford economist Erik Bynjolfsson has done just that, drilling down into AI’s effects on employment, upskilling, output, and more

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48:09

The Limits of Predictive AI - Carissa Véliz with...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/05/20

Can AI predict a person’s future? It’s a promise often made by sales teams, but the technology’s record is far from spotless. Even if it did achieve perfect foresight, a practically-clairvoyant AI might be incompatible with democracy, says Oxford philosopher Carissa Véliz. In a spirited conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, Véliz traces the history of predictions from ancient oracles to the modern algorithms shaping everything from criminal sentencing to insurance premiums. What

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48:16

AI Utopia or Catastrophe? Nick Bostrom with Nicholas...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/05/13

Will AI destroy the world, or transform it into one of abundance? Across two books and several papers, philosopher Nick Bostrom has envisioned a range of AI futures. He joins Nicholas Thompson to discuss the ethics of how we treat AI, whether AI has sentience, and why he believes we should keep building, even at the risk of annihilation. Produced in collaboration with PwC. (00:00) Introduction to Nick Bostrom and Superintelligence (01:56) How AI development matched Bostrom's

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54:00

The Case for Open-Source AI - with Nicholas Thompson...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/05/06

Why does AI answer the way it does? Even as models cite their sources, the question of “why” remains one of the most confounding in the industry, with huge implications for users and builders alike. Mozilla CTO Raffi Krikorian says much of the answer lies in open-source AI— letting users look under the hood to see what’s happening. It’s a compelling idea, one that could also impact safety and alignment. But can it thrive? And what are the risks of ceding control? In a deep conversation with Atlantic

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53:15

Sam Altman on Where AI Models Go Next, with Nicholas...

The Most Interesting Thing in AI ·

2026/04/29

OpenAI’s Sam Altman sits for an interview with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, to discuss AI’s trustworthiness, its dangers, and its impact on young people. Altman also discusses his company’s pledge to “stop competing and start assisting” rival projects that approach AGI, and why he thinks we’re not there yet. In a thorough and wide-ranging conversation, Altman opens up about where he thinks AI will go next and the mysteries that he still can’t solve.Recorded at OpenAI’s offices in San

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43 results

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