Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000
Episodes
There's No Ghost in the Machine (with Carmen Maria Machado), 2026.04.13
28 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Why are some writers and publishers so excited to automate their work? Author Carmen Maria Machado joins Alex and Emily to unpack what writers are mis...
Uber for Military Surveillance (with Niamh McIntyre), 2026.03.30
16 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The people who make automated translation possible are often low-paid gig workers. Usually, they don't even know who they're really working ...
Data Centers Go Nuclear (with Maia Woluchem and Dr. Livia Garofalo), 2026.03.09
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We knew that the energy demands of data centers were preventing dirty energy sources from being sunsetted. Now hyperscalers are reaching even furthe...
Data Centers in Space!? (with Dr. Adam Becker), 2026.03.02
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Data centers are overburdening the planet, so tech billionaires have a new scheme — put 'em in space! Astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker joins Alex...
How the War Department Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI (with Naomi Klein), 2026.02.09
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
AI boosters and the US military are engaged in a lethal love affair. Award-winning journalist Naomi Klein joins Emily and Alex to discuss how glitchy ...
A Bad Case of Hype-itis, 2026.02.02
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Move over Dr. Google, Dr. ChatGPT is here, and it's even worse as a medical intervention! Alex and Emily scrub in to slice up some harmful new no...
Hell All the Way Down, 2022–2025
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This is a special episode, and it’s not like our usual livestream recordings. Instead, our producer Ozzy dug through the Fresh AI Hell archives to c...
Wrapping Up a Hellish 2025, 2025.12.15
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For our last recording of 2025, Emily and Alex take on a TIME article naming the "architects of AI" as their person of the year. We also loo...
Defining AGI: Oops! All Eugenics, 2025.12.08
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There's a new definition of artificial general intelligence in town, and unsurprisingly... it's bad! Alex and Emily rip up the tissue-paper-...
This is What Algo-cracy Looks Like, 2025.12.01
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tech leaders are pushing the idea that automation can strengthen democracy — but as usual, their bold suggestions are based on castles made of sand....
You Talked to Workers for This Labor Research... Right? (with Sophie Song), 2025.11.17
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, Senate Democrats warned that "Automation Could Destroy Nearly 100 Million U.S Jobs in a Decade." Ironically, they used ChatGPT t...
Drag It All To Hell, 2025.10.27
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been six months since our last all-Hell episode! In honor of Halloween season, we take a long journey into the very scary Fresh AI Hell mine...
Crunching the Numbers (with Decca Muldowney), 2025.10.20
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
So-called AI tools are increasingly infiltrating newsrooms, particularly when it comes to data analysis. DAIR writer-in-residence Decca Muldowney join...
Building Worlds Through Better Reading (with Reo Eveleth), 2025.09.29
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Powerful AI boosters claim to love science fiction novels, but why do they always seem to take the wrong lessons from them? Reporter and writer Reo Ev...
Three Years of Ridicule as Praxis, 2025.09.19
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000's third birthday! To celebrate, Emily and Alex respond to listener questions about the show, and reflect o...
The Robo-Therapist Will See You Now (with Maggie Harrison Dupré), 2025.08.18
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Talking to chatbots can have serious mental health consequences — fueling delusions and leading users away from consensus reality. Futurism writer M...
Winning the Race to Hell (with Sarah Myers West and Kate Brennan), 2025.08.04
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Trump’s “AI Action Plan” is his latest attempt to turn AI hype into official national policy. Kate Brennan and Sarah Myers West, of the AI Now I...
Vibe Coding: Four Security Nightmares in a Trenchcoat (with Susanna Cox), 2025.07.21
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After many months of making fun of the term "vibe coding," Emily and Alex tackle the LLMs-as-coders fad head-on, with help from security res...
Et Tu, American Federation of Teachers? (with Charles Logan), 2025.07.14
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The chatbot boosters are looking for educators to play brand ambassador for more intrusion of so-called "AI" into the classroom. From the Am...
Why "AI" Is a Con: Our Book Launch! (with Vauhini Vara), 2025.05.08
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's finally here! The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want hit the shelves in May. In this special bonus epis...
"Like Magic Intelligence in the Cloud", 2025.05.26
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Because Sam Altman hates opening his laptop, OpenAI is merging with iPhone guy Jony Ive's design firm in the name of some mysterious new ChatGPT-...
The "AI"-Enabled Immigration Panopticon (with Petra Molnar), 2025.05.05
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Alex and Emily talk with anthropologist and immigration lawyer Petra Molnar about the dehumanizing hype of border-enforcement tech. From ho...
AGI: "Imminent", "Inevitable", and Inane, 2025.04.21
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex pore through an elaborate science fiction scenario about the "inevitability" of Artificial General Intelligence or AGI by the...
AI Hell in a Handbasket, 2025.04.14
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been 4 months since we've cleared the backlog of Fresh AI Hell and the bullshit is coming in almost too fast to keep up with. But betwe...
"AI" Agents, A Single Point of Failure (with Margaret Mitchell), 2025.03.31
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After "AI" stopped meaning anything, the hype salesmen moved on to "AI" "agents", those allegedly indefatigable assistan...
Linguists Versus 'AI' Speech Analysis (with Nicole Holliday), 2025.03.17
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Measuring your talk time? Counting your filler words? What about "analyzing" your "emotions"? Companies that push LLM technology t...
The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency', 2025.03.03
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex read a terrible book so you don't have to! Come for a quick overview of LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman&ap...
The War on Knowledge (with Raina Bloom), 2025.02.24
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the weeks since January 20, the US information ecosystem has been unraveling fast. (We're looking at you Denali, Gulf of Mexico, and every hol...
Petro-Masculinity Versus the Planet (with Tamara Kneese), 2025.01.27
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Altman thinks fusion - particularly a company he's personally invested in - can provide the energy we "need" to develop AGI. Meanwh...
The UK's Misplaced Enthusiasm (with Gina Neff), 2025.01.20
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In January, the United Kingdom's new Labour Party prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a new initiative to go all in on AI in the hopes of big...
Sam Altman's Fever Dream, 2025.01.13
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Not only is OpenAI's new o3 model allegedly breaking records for how close an LLM can get to the mythical "human-like thinking" of AGI,...
Episode 47: Hell is Other People's AI Hype, December 9 2024
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been a long year in the AI hype mines. And no matter how many claims Emily and Alex debunk, there's always a backlog of Fresh AI Hell. Thi...
Episode 46: AGI Funny Business (Model), with Brian Merchant, December 2 2024
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a time, artificial general intelligence was the only business plan OpenAI seemed to have. Tech journalist Brian Merchant joins Emily and Ale...
Episode 45: Billionaires, Influencers, and Ed Tech (feat. Adrienne Williams), November 18 2024
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires with no education expertise keep using their big names and big dollars to hype LLMs for classrooms. P...
Episode 44: OpenAI's Ridiculous 'Reasoning', October 28 2024
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The company behind ChatGPT is back with bombastic claim that their new o1 model is capable of so-called "complex reasoning." Ever-faithful, ...
Episode 43: AI Companies Gamble with Everyone's Planet (feat. Paris Marx), October 21 2024
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Technology journalist Paris Marx joins Alex and Emily for a conversation about the environmental harms of the giant data centers and other water- and ...
Episode 42: Stop Trying to Make 'AI Scientist' Happen, September 30 2024
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can “AI” do your science for you? Should it be your co-author? Or, as one company asks, boldly and breathlessly, “Can we automate the entire pro...
Episode 41: Sweating into AI Fall, September 9 2024
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Did your summer feel like an unending barrage of terrible ideas for how to use “AI”? You’re not alone. It's time for Emily and Alex to clea...
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 40: Elders Need Care, Not 'AI' Surveillance (feat. Clara Berridge), August 19 2024
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Clara Berridge joins Alex and Emily to talk about the many 'uses' for generative AI in elder care -- from "companionship," to ...
Episode 39: Newsrooms Pivot to Bullshit (feat. Sam Cole), Aug 5 2024
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Washington Post is going all in on AI -- surely this won't be a repeat of any past, disastrous newsroom pivots! 404 Media journalist Samantha...
Episode 38: Deflating Zoom's 'Digital Twin,' July 29 2024
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Could this meeting have been an e-mail that you didn't even have to read? Emily and Alex are tearing into the lofty ambitions of Zoom CEO Eric Yu...
Episode 37: Chatbots Aren't Nurses (feat. Michelle Mahon), July 22 2024
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We regret to report that companies are still trying to make generative AI that can 'transform' healthcare -- but without investing in the we...
Episode 36: About That 'Dangerous Capabilities' Fanfiction (feat. Ali Alkhatib), June 24 2024
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When is a research paper not a research paper? When a big tech company uses a preprint server as a means to dodge peer review -- in this case, of thei...
Episode 35: AI Overviews and Google's AdTech Empire (feat. Safiya Noble), June 10 2024
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You've already heard about the rock-prescribing, glue pizza-suggesting hazards of Google's AI overviews. But the problems with the internet&...
Episode 34: Senate Dot Roadmap Dot Final Dot No Really Dot Docx, June 3 2024
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The politicians are at it again: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's series of industry-centric forums last year have birthed a "roadmap&...
Episode 33: Much Ado About 'AI' 'Deception', May 20 2024
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Will the LLMs somehow become so advanced that they learn to lie to us in order to achieve their own ends? It's the stuff of science fiction, and ...
Episode 32: A Flood of AI Hell, April 29 2024
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AI Hell froze over this winter and now a flood of meltwater threatens to drown Alex and Emily. Armed with raincoats and a hastily-written sea shanty*,...
Episode 31: Science Is a Human Endeavor (feat. Molly Crockett and Lisa Messeri), April 15 2024
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Will AI someday do all our scientific research for us? Not likely. Drs. Molly Crockett and Lisa Messeri join for a takedown of the hype of "self-...
Episode 30: Marc's Miserable Manifesto, April 1 2024
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Timnit Gebru guest-hosts with Alex in a deep dive into Marc Andreessen's 2023 manifesto, which argues, loftily, in favor of maximizing the us...
Episode 29: How LLMs Are Breaking the News (feat. Karen Hao), March 25 2024
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Award-winning AI journalist Karen Hao joins Alex and Emily to talk about why LLMs can't possibly replace the work of reporters -- and why the hyp...
Episode 28: LLMs Are Not Human Subjects, March 4 2024
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alex and Emily put on their social scientist hats and take on the churn of research papers suggesting that LLMs could be used to replace human labor i...
Episode 27: Asimov's Laws vs. 'AI' Death-Making (w/ Annalee Newitz & Charlie Jane Anders), February 19 2024
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Science fiction authors and all-around tech thinkers Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders join this week to talk about Isaac Asimov's oft-cited...
Episode 26: Universities Anxiously Buy in to the Hype (feat. Chris Gilliard), February 5 2024
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Just Tech Fellow Dr. Chris Gilliard aka "Hypervisible" joins Emily and Alex to talk about the wave of universities adopting AI-driven educat...
Episode 25: An LLM Says LLMs Can Do Your Job, January 22 2024
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is ChatGPT really going to take your job? Emily and Alex unpack two hype-tastic papers that make implausible claims about the number of workforce task...
Episode 24: AI Won't Solve Structural Inequality (feat. Kerry McInerney & Eleanor Drage), January 8 2024
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
New year, same Bullshit Mountain. Alex and Emily are joined by feminist technosolutionism critics Eleanor Drage and Kerry McInerney to tear down the w...
Episode 23: AI Hell Freezes Over, December 22 2023
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AI Hell has frozen over for a single hour. Alex and Emily visit all seven circles in a tour of the worst in bite-sized BS.References:Pentagon moving t...
Episode 22: Congressional 'AI' Hearings Say More about Lawmakers (feat. Justin Hendrix), December 18 2023
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Congress spent 2023 busy with hearings to investigate the capabilities, risks and potential uses of large language models and other 'artificial i...
Episode 21: The True Meaning of 'Open Source' (feat. Sarah West and Andreas Liesenfeld), November 20 2023
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Researchers Sarah West and Andreas Liesenfeld join Alex and Emily to examine what software companies really mean when they say their work is 'ope...
Episode 20: Let's Do the Time Warp! (to the "Founding" of "Artificial Intelligence"), November 6 2023
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex time travel back to a conference of men who gathered at Dartmouth College in the summer of 1956 to examine problems relating to computa...
Episode 19: The Murky Climate and Environmental Impact of Large Language Models, November 6 2023
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Drs. Emma Strubell and Sasha Luccioni join Emily and Alex for an environment-focused hour of AI hype. How much carbon does a single use of ChatGPT emi...
Episode 18: Rumors of Artificial General Intelligence Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, October 23 2023
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex read through Google vice president Blaise Aguera y Arcas' recent proclamation that "artificial general intelligence is alread...
Episode 17: Back to School with AI Hype in Education (feat. Haley Lepp), September 22 2023
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex are joined by Stanford PhD student Haley Lepp to examine the increasing hype around LLMs in education spaces - whether they're pit...
Episode 16: Med-PaLM or Facepalm? A Second Opinion On LLMs In Healthcare (feat. Roxana Daneshjou), August 28, 2023
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex and Emily are taking another stab at Google and other companies' aspirations to be part of the healthcare system - this time with the expert...
Episode 15: The White House And Big Tech Dance The Self-Regulation Tango, August 11 2023
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex tackle the White House hype about the 'voluntary commitments' of companies to limit the harms of their large language models:...
Episode 14: Henry Kissinger, Machines of War, and the Age of Military AI Hype (feat. Lucy Suchman), July 21 2023
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex are joined by technology scholar Dr. Lucy Suchman to scrutinize a new book from Henry Kissinger and coauthors Eric Schmidt and Daniel H...
Episode 13: Beware The Robo-Therapist (feat. Hannah Zeavin), June 8 2023
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex talk to UC Berkeley scholar Hannah Zeavin about the case of the National Eating Disorders Association helpline, which tried to replace ...
Episode 12: It's All Hell, May 5 2023
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Take a deep breath and join Alex and Emily in AI Hell itself, as they take down a month's worth of hype in a mere 60 minutes.This episode aired o...
Episode 11: A GPT-4 Fanfiction Novella, April 7 2023
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After a hype-y few weeks of AI happenings, Alex and Emily shovel the BS on GPT-4’s “system card,” its alleged “sparks of Artificial General In...
Episode 10: Don't Be A Lawyer, ChatGPT. March 3, 2023
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex and Emily are taking AI to court! Amid big claims about LLMs, a look at the facts about ChatGPT, legal expertise, and what the bar exam actually ...
Episode 9: Call the AI Quack Doctor, February 17, 2023
08 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Should the mathy-maths be telling doctors what might be wrong with you? And can they actually help train medical professionals to treat human patients...
Episode 8: The ChatGPT Awakens, January 20, 2023
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
New year, new hype? As the world gets swept up in the fervor over ChatGPT of late 2022, Emily and Alex give a deep sigh and begin to unpack the wave o...
Episode 7: There Are Now 15 Competing Evaluation Metrics (ft. Dr. Jeremy Kahn). December 12, 2022
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex are joined by Dr. Jeremy G. Kahn to discuss the distressingly large number of evaluation metrics for artificial intelligence, and some ...
Episode 6: Stochastic Parrot Galactica, November 23, 2022
17 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex discuss MetaAI's bullshit science paper generator, Galactica, along with its defenders. Plus, where could AI actually help scienti...
Episode 5: Sam Bankman-Fried's Future Fund, November 9 2022
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Alex discuss Sam Bankman-Fried's Future Fund, its essay contest, and the problems with using AI for prediction and resource allocation-...
Episode 4: Is AI Art Actually 'Art'? October 26, 2022
02 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
AI is increasingly being used to make visual art. But when is an algorithmically-generated image art...and when is it just an aesthetically pleasing a...
Episode 3: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 3, September 23, 2022
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn ho...
Episode 2: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 2, September 6, 2022
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn ho...
Episode 1: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 1, August 31, 2022
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn ho...