kill switch
Episodes
From Uncanny Valley: ‘Stop Trying to Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto’ Says Actor Ben McKenzie
18 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s a recent favorite of ours from our friends at the Uncanny Valley podcast. Actor Ben McKenzie (The O.C.) is out with a new documentary,&nb...
it's not sci-fi. mind-reading tech is here
06 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Your brain is the last place companies don’t have access to… yet. But that’s changing fast. Nita Farahany, professor of law and phi...
discord’s new age verification is about to spy on every message
29 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Discord announced it would start scanning users' account data to guess their age and if it couldn't figure out how old you were, it would ask for your...
new from kaleidoscope: two percent with michael easter
27 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we’re sharing a clip from another podcast we’re excited about. Two Percent with Michael Easter is a deep dive into the science ...
this is the wellness wild west
22 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The wellness and health tech space is more crowded and confusing than ever – influencers are selling dubious health and beauty products and tech...
why are AI agents everywhere? and how useful are they, actually?
15 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
AI agents can do stuff for you: like organize meetings or, accidentally delete your hard drive. Is this the future Silicon Valley wants for us? To get...
why the IRS killed a free, easy way to file your taxes
08 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Direct File promised a free and easy way for Americans to file their taxes, but after two successful tax seasons, it was shut down. Dexter talks with ...
why Iran is winning the AI propaganda war
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Wartime propaganda isn’t new – but the use of AI slop in churning out propaganda videos is. And in this proxy war, Iran is winning. Dexter...
Introducing: Mostly Human with Laurie Segall
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mostly Human is a weekly podcast that explores technology through the most important lens: the human one. Hosted by award-winning tech journalist Laur...
he monetized the web. now he has a plan to fix it
25 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Ethan Zuckerman helped design the amateur web as we know it. In the 90s, he worked at Tripod, providing free web space for anyone to build their own s...
how the tech boom is killing India’s best coders
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
India’s tech industry was supposed to be a ticket to the middle class, a way out of poverty. Instead, for many workers, it’s become someth...
who is palantir, and why are they involved with ICE?
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Do you know what Palantir does? Don’t feel bad: neither do a lot of their employees. In fact, WIRED senior writer Makena Kelly recently uncovere...
why is the government fighting with claude?
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
kill switch went live on March 4th to cover one of the newsier topics of the week: the fight between the US government and Anthropic, the company behi...
silicon valley’s plan to make the “perfect baby”
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The 1997 science fiction film Gattaca depicts a dystopian future where genetic technology creates a two-tier society: people who were born with the &l...
are we all going to end up in AI relationships? [panic world special]
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we have a special collab episode with our friends at Panic World: From research to vibe coding to therapy to girlfriends and boyfriends, ho...
a tour of the year’s worst new tech
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tech companies are constantly putting out new products to chase the hype – but they’re not all winners. Each year, nonprofit consumer advo...
how the internet learned to extract
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For a while, the internet felt like it might actually work. Dexter talks with legal scholar and author Tim Wu about his new book The Age of Extraction...
how an editor uncovered an AI journalist
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When an editor at a local magazine in Toronto received a pitch from a promising new freelancer, he didn’t expect it to spiral into an obsessive ...
the hack that broke myspace
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 2005, Myspace pages were flooded with the saying “Samy is my hero” and then suddenly, the platform went dark. Dexter talks with Jack Rh...
everything’s a game… even baptisms
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From language learning to investments to Amazon leaderboards, it seems like everything has become a game. But are these gamified things actually fun, ...
how to: protect yourself from online harassment
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Journalists, public figures, and just about anyone with an online presence today can suddenly face harassment: ranging from nasty posts and replies to...
The App Where Strangers Lend Each Other Money | What’s Your Problem? Podcast
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’re sharing a preview of another podcast we think you’ll enjoy: What’s Your Problem? Hosted by former Planet Money host Jacob Gold...
from ‘click here’: an illusion of control
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we’re sharing an episode from the podcast Click Here, from our friends at Recorded Future News and PRX: Jake Gallen was a rising star...
now you can bet on real life. but should we?
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Betting used to be something you did in a casino. Now it lives in your pocket and you can bet on just about anything: sports, Labubus, elections, and ...
social media reveals life behind bars. prisons want to block it
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Social media has gotten a bad rap over the past decade – we blame it for our growing loneliness, shorter attention spans, and polarized politics...
when the ref’s a robot
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the high-stakes world of sports, referees have always been under intense scrutiny… but what if tech could take some of the pressure off? Or ...
new from kaleidoscope: shell game (season 2)
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we’re sharing an episode from another podcast we’re excited about. In Season 2 of Shell Game, journalist Evan Ratliff tells a s...
who is profiting from scam texts – and can we stop them?
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If it feels like you’re getting more scammy texts in the past few years, you’re not imagining it. Scam texts have exploded since 2020, and...
‘my peptide guy’ is the new tech bro flex
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Forget building the next app – Silicon Valley’s tech bros are now trying to rebuild themselves. Peptides are the new frontier into biohack...
‘my internet bed is broken’ is just the start
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago on Monday, October 20, a major outage in Amazon Web Services took down a bunch of the Internet. How did an error in one data center in...
workslop: how AI is making you hate your coworkers
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Corporate America has bet on AI to make work faster and cheaper. Companies like Meta and Microsoft are laying off employees, hoping it will save them ...
maybe ICEBlock was 'activism theater,' but is banning it protecting us?
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
ICEBlock was an app created to help people report ICE sightings. Then, Apple pulled it from the App Store. But in between those events, there was a se...
your onlyfans girlfriend might be a guy (or a robot)
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re chatting to a popular OnlyFans model: no, you’re not. That job was outsourced long ago. Teams of “chatters”, often i...
will blind gamers ever play Zelda like I do? (part 2)
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a blind video gamer, the options for the kinds of games you can play are limited. Not only are accessibility features not a standard practice in ga...
playing video games while blind (part 1)
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ross Minor plays a lot of videogames. He is also completely blind. Despite losing his sight at 8 years old, he’s now working in the industry, ma...
television for the dopamine generation (but kids aren’t watching)
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s like “TV on TikTok,” but kids aren’t watching these. Instead, middle-aged women are on the cutting edge here: Vertical dr...
AI beats to study to
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lo-Fi beats once stood as the chill soundtrack of the internet, a cozy genre rooted in human touch and imperfections. But in recent years, AI-generate...
the glassholes are back
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wearable tech is having a moment – after the implosion of Google Glass back in 2013, which faced backlash and ridicule, we’re now readily ...
should you use a chatbot for therapy?
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every day there’s a new story about how people are using AI chatbots for therapy – even ChatGPT, which was never designed for that purpose...
a software update bricked my car
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Fisker Ocean was supposed to be the "world's most sustainable vehicle." With a range of 400 miles, a strong emphasis on software and a price tag o...
vtubers and why "it’s not silly to be an anime girl on the internet"
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
VTubers, or Virtual Youtubers, are growing at a rapid rate in the United States. Just last month, 1200+ fans paid up to $180 each to attend Fantastic ...
why are women still signing up for tea?
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tea called itself a women’s safety app. Then, 4chan found it. Selfies, IDs, even private messages were left exposed after two massive data breac...
tech review: tablets in prisons
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week we want to take a look at a little-known technology kept from public view: electronic tablets in prisons. Dexter talks to Gaby Caplan, a jou...
how to: not get hacked
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been resistant to using a password manager, or if you want to step up your overall digital security, this episode is for you. Dexter t...
the algorithm made me say it
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’re living in a world shaped by algorithms. They’re not just curating our feeds, they’re changing the way we speak. Dexter t...
how to poison AI music scrapers
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI music generators are not only the product of scraped (read: stolen) music, they’re also threatening the livelihood of musicians. But there ar...
how to: break up with netflix (and spotify, and…)
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a time streaming delivered a utopian fantasy – anything you wanted to watch or listen to, at your fingertips. Now, we’re saddled...
boomers, doomers, and the new empire
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Big Tech promised AI would solve our biggest problems. But behind the hype there is a more unsettling reality: labor exploitation, environmental harm,...
why are predator drones flying over LA?
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When ICE raids sparked massive protests across Los Angeles, something unusual appeared in the sky: Predator drones. Dexter talks to Joseph Cox over at...
sideways thinking: why is Nintendo so weird?
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Nintendo Switch 2 is out – but why did Nintendo credit someone who died in 1997 in a press release for the console? Dexter talked to Patrick...
is using AI worse than driving a car?
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dexter doesn't have a car. But he uses AI… a lot. So, is his environmental impact worse than someone who drives a truck to work every day? ...
how did Twitter’s AI get so obsessed with white genocide?
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For about 24 hours, Grok, Twitter’s AI chatbot, went berserk. You could ask it about puppies, sports, or movies, and it would reply with a bizar...
can AI create ‘ethical’ true crime?
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Almost two million people watched a horrific story of a murder in Colorado: the “grisly” death of a real estate agent who had a secret aff...
why is the US gov using a ‘cartoonishly hackable’ messaging app?
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
About 48 hours after the US National Security Advisor was spotted using a weird cloned version of Signal, someone said they’d hacked it. It took...
how to make money from fake AI videos
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Have you seen Shrimp Jesus? What about the Hollywood sign burning? It probably feels random, but it’s not. There are real people behind AI Slop,...
the biggest hack that never happened: the xz utils story
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While you were going about your life, we all narrowly avoided a complete disaster. This is the story of how one lone Microsoft engineer saved all of u...
could you be arrested by a computer?
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to our first episode of kill switch, where we’re diving right into the deep end – investigating how police departments are impleme...
Introducing: kill switch
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sleepwalkers is now Kill Switch, where we explain the right now of living in the future. Everything from making money on saving fake baby animals to h...
Sleepwalkers Is Back
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Were we sleeping when everything changed? Not if you listened to the first season of this podcast, because a whole lot of what we explored is now real...
Modern Alchemy
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We explore the hidden role of cobalt in the A.I. revolution. The element is a key ingredient of lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from ce...
Sleepwalkers at CES
24 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this special bonus episode, Oz and Karah share their trip to the Consumer Electronics Show. They present excerpts from a conversation with Matt Mon...
AI & Us
14 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Oz and Karah examine our evolving relationship with the technology we create. Karah meets Jason Cohen, CEO of Analytical Flav...
Deus Ex Machina
04 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The rules are changing. At a time when technology promises to allow the lame to walk and the blind to see, we're forced to ask: what makes us uniquely...
Algorithm, M.D.
27 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A.I. is already better than human doctors at diagnosing skin and breast cancer. And as machine learning advances, it's becoming able to decode more co...
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
20 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
War has been a driver of breakthrough technology for a long time. The first waves of artificial intelligence and even the internet came out of DARPA, ...
Dull, Dirty, Dangerous
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Robots are coming for our jobs, and not just in factories. Artificial intelligence doesn't distinguish between blue collar and white collar work, whic...
The New Deal
06 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We travel to Silicon Valley where Astro Teller welcomes us inside X, Google's secretive innovation laboratory, to explain how one of the most powerful...
Truth to Power
30 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It's getting harder to tell reality from fiction. Fake news and misinformation are all around us, and they're increasingly used as weapons of war. But...
Poker Face
23 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where computers know exactly what we're feeling? It may sound far-off but advances in sensor te...
The Watchmen
16 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If data doesn't make you think of a new world order, it should. AI is enabling wholesale surveillance, and changing the landscape in countries like Ch...
Chocolate Chicken Chicken Cake
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If there's one thing that sets people apart from machines, it's creativity, right? Automation may take over certain jobs, but what happens when algori...
Sleepwalking
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the A.I. revolution that is already transforming our lives, for good and evil. But what exactly are we sleepwalking into? We start by inves...
Welcome to Sleepwalkers
25 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is Sleepwalkers. With secret labs and expert guests, Oz Woloshyn and Karah Preiss explore the thrill of the AI revolution hands-on, to see how we...