Machines Like Us
Episodes
Animals are Talking to Each Other. Can AI Help Us Understand Them?
05 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The people running technology companies love to make wild predictions about the future. They’ve told us that artificial intelligence will cure cance...
Does 21st Century Politics Still Need Politicians?
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When Prime Minister Mark Carney took the floor at the recent Liberal convention, he described a future where AI benefits all Canadians – not just a ...
Michael Pollan Says AI Isn’t Conscious – But Plants Might Be
07 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Four years ago, a Google engineer named Blake Lemoine went public with a strange claim: he thought the large language model he’d been working on had...
Why Did We Stop Talking About The AI Apocalypse?
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Just a few years ago, it seemed like all anyone in AI wanted to talk about was existential risk – this idea that an artificial super intelligence co...
In the Wake of Tumbler Ridge, Can We Trade Privacy for Safety?
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On Feb. 10, 2026, an 18-year-old opened fire at a high school in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., killing eight people. In the weeks that followed, OpenAI admitte...
When Did Common Sense AI Policy Become Radical?
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A couple of months ago, I joined the Canadian government’s AI strategy task force. Out of thirty members, I was one of only four focused on safety. ...
Bonus: Inside the New Social Media Platform for AI Agents
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Scrolling through Moltbook, the new social-media platform for AI agents, is a bit like walking into a fever dream. There are threads where bots debate...
The Future According to Gen Z
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
No one has adopted artificial intelligence more enthusiastically than Gen Z. And not just to help with their homework. Half of American teens are in r...
Is China Winning the Technological Arms Race?
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If we don’t build it, China will.That’s the rallying cry of the tech companies and governments racing to develop artificial intelligence as fast a...
Four Predictions on How AI Will Transform Your World This Year
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Nine months ago, Elon Musk said 2025 would be the year chatbots became smarter than humans. Sam Altman thought it would be the year fully autonomous A...
The Man Behind the World’s Most Coveted Microchip
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jensen Huang is something of an enigma. The NVIDIA CEO doesn’t have social media and, until recently, rarely gave interviews. Yet he may be the most...
Wikipedia Won Our Trust. Can We Use That Model Everywhere?
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It was an idea that defied logic: an online encyclopedia that anyone could edit.You didn’t need to have a PhD or even use your real name – you jus...
Could an Alternative AI Save Us From a Bubble?
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last couple of years, massive AI investment has largely kept the stock market afloat. Case in point: the so-called Magnificent 7 – tech com...
Can AI Lead Us to the Good Life?
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Rutger Bregman’s first book, Utopia for Realists, the historian describes a rosy vision of the future – one with 15-hour work weeks, universal ...
How to Survive the “Broligarchy”
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, the returning president made a striking break from tradition. The seats closest to the president –...
AI Music is Everywhere. Is it Legal?
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI art is everywhere now. According to the music streaming platform Deezer, 18 per cent of the songs being uploaded to the site are AI-generated. Some...
Geoffrey Hinton vs. The End of the World
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The story of how Geoffrey Hinton became “the godfather of AI” has reached mythic status in the tech world.While he was at the University of Toront...
AI is Upending Higher Education. Is That a Bad Thing?
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just two months after ChatGPT was launched in 2022, a survey found that 90 per cent of college students were already using it. I’d be shocked if tha...
Jim Balsillie: ‘Canada’s Problem Isn’t Trump. Canada’s Problem Is Canada’
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the chaotic early months of his second term, Donald Trump has attacked the Canadian economy and mused about turning Canada into the “51st state.”...
The Changing Face of Election Interference
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’re a few weeks into a federal election that is currently too close to call. And while most Canadians are wondering who our next Prime Minister wi...
How Do You Report the News in a Post-Truth World?
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re having a conversation about the state of journalism, it’s bound to get a little depressing. Since 2008, more than 250 local news outlet...
A Chinese Company Upended OpenAI. We May Be Looking at the Story All Wrong.
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When the American company OpenAI released ChatGPT, it was the first time that a lot of people had ever interacted with Generative AI. ChatGPT has beco...
Big Tech Hijacked Our Attention. Chris Hayes Wants To Win It Back.
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Do I have your attention right now? I’m guessing probably not. Or, at least, not all of it. In all likelihood, you’re listening to this on your mo...
New Spyware Has Made Your Phone Less Secure Than You Might Think
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s become pretty easy to spot phishing scams: UPS orders you never made, banking alerts from companies you don’t bank with, phone calls from unf...
A Computer Scientist Answers Your Questions About AI
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve spent a lot of time on this show talking about AI: how it’s changing war, how your doctor might be using it, and whether or not chatbots are...
Questions About AI? We Want to Hear Them
20 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We spend a lot of time talking about AI on this show: how we should govern it, the ideologies of the people making it, and the ways it's reshaping our...
This Mother Says a Chatbot Led to Her Son’s Death
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In February, 2024, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son Sewell took his own life.As she tried to make sense of what happened, Megan discovered that Sewell...
Bonus ‘The Decibel’: How an algorithm missed a deadly listeria outbreak
31 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In July, there was a recall on two brands of plant-based milks, Silk and Great Value, after a listeria outbreak that led to at least 20 illnesses and ...
AI Has Mastered Chess, Poker and Go. So Why Do We Keep Playing?
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The board game Go has more possible board configurations than there are atoms in the universe.Because of that seemingly infinite complexity, developin...
How Silicon Valley Monopolized Our Imagination
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The past few months have seen a series of bold proclamations from the most powerful people in tech.In September, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta h...
Margrethe Vestager Fought Big Tech and Won. Her Next Target is AI
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Margrethe Vestager has spent the past decade standing up to Silicon Valley. As the EU’s Competition Commissioner, she’s waged landmark legal battl...
Bonus ‘Lately’: The Great Decline of Everything Online
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We’re off this week, so we’re bringing you an episode from our Globe and Mail sister show Lately. That creeping feeling that everything online is...
Musk, Money and Misinformation: Tech & The U.S. Election
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The tech lobby has quietly turned Silicon Valley into the most powerful political operation in America. Pro crypto donors are now responsible for alm...
Emily St. John Mandel Imagines The Future
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of future are we building for ourselves? In some ways, that’s the central question of this show.It’s also a central question of speculat...
Yoshua Bengio Doesn’t Think We’re Ready for Superhuman AI. We’re Building it Anyway.
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A couple of weeks ago, I was at this splashy AI conference in Montreal called All In. It was – how should I say this – a bit over the top. There w...
There’s a Way to Cool the Planet. Scientists are Terrified of It.
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2015, 195 countries gathered in Paris to discuss how to address the climate crisis. Although there was plenty they couldn’t agree on, there was o...
Gaza is a Window into the Future of War
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For nearly a year now, the world has been transfixed – and horrified – by what’s happening in the Gaza Strip. Yet for all the media coverage, th...
Why Journalism Made a Devil’s Bargain with Big Tech
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Things do not look good for journalism right now. This year, Bell Media, VICE, and the CBC all announced significant layoffs. In the US, there were cu...
How to Hack Democracy
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, the venture capitalist Marc Andreesen published a document he called “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” In it, he argued that “everythi...
How AI Turbocharged the Economy (For Now)
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you listened to our last couple of episodes, you’ll have heard some pretty skeptical takes on AI. But if you look at the stock market right now, ...
Douglas Rushkoff Doesn’t Want to Talk About AI
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Douglas Rushkoff has spent the last thirty years studying how digital technologies have shaped our world. The renowned media theorist is the author of...
The Real World Cost of AI
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It seems like the loudest voices in AI often fall into one of two groups. There are the boomers – the techno-optimists – who think that AI is goin...
Can AI Bring Humanity Back to Health Care?
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Think about the last time you felt let down by the health care system. You probably don’t have to go back far. In wealthy countries around the world...
The Battle for Your Brain
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year, Elon Musk’s company Neuralink successfully installed one of their brain implants in a 29 year old quadriplegic man named Noland A...
Can AI Companions Cure Loneliness?
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Eugenia Kuyda saw Her for the first time – the 2013 film about a man who falls in love with his virtual assistant – it didn’t read as scien...
Maria Ressa saw the dangers of social media. AI might be worse.
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the last few years, artificial intelligence has gone from a novelty to perhaps the most influential technology we’ve ever seen. The people buildi...
Introducing Machines Like Us
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We are living in an age of breakthroughs propelled by advances in artificial intelligence. Technologies that were once the realm of science fiction wi...