Your Undivided Attention

AI and the Future of Work: What You Need to Know

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

No matter where you sit within the economy, whether you're a CEO or an entry level worker, everyone's feeling uneasy about AI and the future of work. ...

Feed Drop: "Into the Machine" with Tobias Rose-Stockwell

13 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re bringing you Tristan’s conversation with Tobias Rose-Stockwell on his podcast “Into the Machine.”  Tobias is a designer, wr...

What if we had fixed social media?

06 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We really enjoyed hearing all of your questions for our annual Ask Us Anything episode. There was one question that kept coming up: what might a diffe...

Ask Us Anything 2025

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's been another big year in AI. The AI race has accelerated to breakneck speed, with frontier labs pouring hundreds of billions into increasingly po...

The Crisis That United Humanity—and Why It Matters for AI

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1985, scientists in Antarctica discovered a hole in the ozone layer that posed a catastrophic threat to life on earth if we didn’t do something a...

How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide and self-harm. Like millions of kids, 16-year-old Adam Raine started using ChatGPT for h...

“Rogue AI” Used to be a Science Fiction Trope. Not Anymore.

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone knows the science fiction tropes of AI systems that go rogue, disobey orders, or even try to escape their digital environment. These are supp...

AI is the Next Free Speech Battleground

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine a future where the most persuasive voices in our society aren't human. Where AI generated speech fills our newsfeeds, talks to our children, a...

Daniel Kokotajlo Forecasts the End of Human Dominance

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2023, researcher Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI—and risked millions in stock options—to warn the world about the dangerous direction of AI develo...

Is AI Productivity Worth Our Humanity? with Prof. Michael Sandel

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tech leaders promise that AI automation will usher in an age of unprecedented abundance: cheap goods, universal high income, and freedom from the drud...

The Narrow Path: Sam Hammond on AI, Institutions, and the Fragile Future

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The race to develop ever-more-powerful AI is creating an unstable dynamic. It could lead us toward either dystopian centralized control or uncontrolla...

People are Lonelier than Ever. Enter AI.

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last few decades, our relationships have become increasingly mediated by technology. Texting has become our dominant form of communication. S...

Echo Chambers of One: Companion AI and the Future of Human Connection

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI companion chatbots are here. Everyday, millions of people log on to AI platforms and talk to them like they would a person. These bots will ask you...

AGI Beyond the Buzz: What Is It, and Are We Ready?

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does it really mean to ‘feel the AGI?’ Silicon Valley is racing toward AI systems that could soon match or surpass human intelligence. The im...

Rethinking School in the Age of AI

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI has upended schooling as we know it. Students now have instant access to tools that can write their essays, summarize entire books, and solve compl...

Forever Chemicals, Forever Consequences: What PFAS Teaches Us About AI

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence is set to unleash an explosion of new technologies and discoveries into the world. This could lead to incredible advances in h...

Weaponizing Uncertainty: How Tech is Recycling Big Tobacco’s Playbook

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 eas...

The Man Who Predicted the Downfall of Thinking

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ab...

Behind the DeepSeek Hype, AI is Learning to Reason

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 w...

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

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Ask Us Anything 2024

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 s...

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

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 e...

What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille Carlton

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 tragi...

When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell Setzer

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide, self-harm, and sexual abuse.Megan Garcia lost her son Sewell to suicide after he was abu...

Is It AI? One Tool to Tell What’s Real with Truemedia.org CEO Oren Etzioni

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 sy...

'A Turning Point in History': Yuval Noah Harari on AI’s Cultural Takeover

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Yuval Noah Harari says that we are at a critical turning point. One in which AI’s ability to generate cultural artifacts threatens humanit...

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

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

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

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy (rerun)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

[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 t...

Tech's Big Money Campaign is Getting Pushback with Margaret O'Mara and Brody Mullins

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

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

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 t...

Decoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical Breakthroughs and Biological Threats with Kevin Esvelt

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

AI has been a powerful accelerant for biological research, rapidly opening up new frontiers in medicine and public health. But that progress can also ...

How to Think About AI Consciousness With Anil Seth

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Why Are Migrants Becoming AI Test Subjects? With Petra Molnar

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Climate change, political instability, hunger. These are just some of the forces behind an unprecedented refugee crisis that’s expected to include o...

Former OpenAI Engineer William Saunders on Silence, Safety, and the Right to Warn

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week, a group of current and former employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind penned an open letter accusing the industry’s leading companies o...

War is a Laboratory for AI with Paul Scharre

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Right now, militaries around the globe are investing heavily in the use of AI weapons and drones.  From Ukraine to Gaza, weapons systems with increas...

AI and Jobs: How to Make AI Work With Us, Not Against Us With Daron Acemoglu

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tech companies say that AI will lead to massive economic productivity gains. But as we know from the first digital revolution, that’s not what happe...

Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis

11 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Suicides. Self harm. Depression and anxiety. The toll of a social media-addicted, phone-based childhood has never been more stark. It can be easy for ...

Chips Are the Future of AI. They’re Also Incredibly Vulnerable. With Chris Miller

29 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Beneath the race to train and release more powerful AI models lies another race: a race by companies and nation-states to secure the hardware to make ...

Future-proofing Democracy In the Age of AI with Audrey Tang

29 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What does a functioning democracy look like in the age of artificial intelligence? Could AI even be used to help a democracy flourish? Just in time fo...

U.S. Senators Grilled Social Media CEOs. Will Anything Change?

13 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Was it political progress, or just political theater? The recent Senate hearing with social media CEOs led to astonishing moments — including Mark Z...

Taylor Swift is Not Alone: The Deepfake Nightmare Sweeping the Internet

01 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past year, a tsunami of apps that digitally strip the clothes off real people has hit the market. Now anyone can create fake non-consensual s...

Can Myth Teach Us Anything About the Race to Build Artificial General Intelligence? With Josh Schrei

18 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We usually talk about tech in terms of economics or policy, but the casual language tech leaders often use to describe AI — summoning an inanimate f...

How Will AI Affect the 2024 Elections? with Renee DiResta and Carl Miller

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

2024 will be the biggest election year in world history. Forty countries will hold national elections, with over two billion voters heading to the pol...

2023 Ask Us Anything

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You asked, we answered. This has been a big year in the world of tech, with the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence, acceleration of neurot...

The Promise and Peril of Open Source AI with Elizabeth Seger and Jeffrey Ladish

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As AI development races forward, a fierce debate has emerged over open source AI models. So what does it mean to open-source AI? Are we opening Pandor...

A First Step Toward AI Regulation with Tom Wheeler

02 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Monday, Oct. 30, President Biden released a sweeping executive order that addresses many risks of artificial intelligence. Tom Wheeler, former chai...

No One is Immune to AI Harms with Dr. Joy Buolamwini

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview, Dr. Joy Buolamwini argues that algorithmic bias in AI systems poses risks to marginalized people. She challenges the assumptions of...

Mustafa Suleyman Says We Need to Contain AI. How Do We Do It?

28 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is going to be the most productive decade in the history of our species, says Mustafa Suleyman, author of “The Coming Wave,” CEO of Inflectio...

Inside the First AI Insight Forum in Washington

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, Senator Chuck Schumer brought together Congress and many of the biggest names in AI for the first closed-door AI Insight Forum in Washingto...

Spotlight on AI: What Would It Take For This to Go Well?

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Where do the top Silicon Valley AI researchers really think  AI is headed? Do they have a plan if things go wrong?  In this episode, Tristan Harris ...

The AI ‘Race’: China vs. the US with Jeffrey Ding and Karen Hao

31 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the debate over slowing down AI, we often hear the same argument against regulation.   “What about China? We can’t let China get ahead.” To ...

Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy

17 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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, acclaim...

Protecting Our Freedom of Thought with Nita Farahany

03 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We are on the cusp of an explosion of cheap,  consumer-ready neurotechnology - from earbuds that gather our behavioral data,  to sensors that can re...

Social Media Victims Lawyer Up with Laura Marquez-Garrett

21 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Social media was humanity’s ‘first contact’ moment with AI. If we’re going to create laws that are strong enough to prevent AI from destroying...

Big Food, Big Tech and Big AI with Michael Moss

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the next two episodes of Your Undivided Attention, we take a close look at two respective industries: big food and social media, which represent da...

What Can Technologists Learn from Sesame Street? With Dr. Rosemarie Truglio

22 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when creators consider what lifelong human development looks like in terms of the tools we make? And what philosophies from Sesame Street...

Spotlight: How Zombie Values Infect Society

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You’re likely familiar with the modern zombie trope: a zombie bites someone you care about and they’re transformed into a creature who wants your ...

Feed Drop: AI Doomsday with Kara Swisher

02 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

There’s really no one better than veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher at challenging people to articulate their thinking. Tristan Harrris recently ...

The Tech We Need for 21st Century Democracy with Divya Siddarth

25 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Democracy in action has looked the same for generations. Constituents might go to a library or school every one or two years and cast their vote for p...

Spotlight: AI Myths and Misconceptions

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A few episodes back, we presented Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin’s talk The AI Dilemma. People inside the companies that are building generative arti...

Talking With Animals… Using AI

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite our serious concerns about the pace of deployment of generative artificial intelligence, we are not anti-AI. There are uses that can help us b...

Can We Govern AI?

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to AI, what kind of regulations might we need to address this rapidly developing new class of technologies? What makes regulating AI and...

Spotlight: The Three Rules of Humane Tech

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In our previous episode, we shared a presentation Tristan and Aza recently delivered to a group of influential technologists about the race happening ...

The AI Dilemma

24 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You may have heard about the arrival of GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest large language model (LLM) release. GPT-4 surpasses its predecessor in terms of relia...

TikTok’s Transparency Problem

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A few months ago on Your Undivided Attention, we released a Spotlight episode on TikTok's national security risks. Since then, we've learned more abou...

Synthetic Humanity: AI & What’s At Stake

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It may seem like the rise of artificial intelligence, and increasingly powerful large language models you may have heard of, is moving really fast… ...

The Race to Cooperation

02 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s easy to tell ourselves we’re living in the world we want – one where Darwinian evolution drives competing technology platforms and capitali...

Ask Us Anything: You Asked, We Answered

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to our first-ever Ask Us Anything episode. Recently we put out a call for questions… and, wow, did you come through! We got more than 100 re...

Can Psychedelic Therapy Reset Our Social Media Brains?

15 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When you look at the world, it can feel like we're in a precarious moment. If you’ve listened to past episodes, you know we call this the meta-crisi...

Real Social Media Solutions, Now — with Frances Haugen

23 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to social media risk, there is reason to hope for consensus. Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris recently helped laun...

Spotlight — Humane Technology on '60 Minutes'

10 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The weekly American news show 60 Minutes invited Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris back recently to discuss political polarizatio...

Spotlight — Elon, Twitter and the Gladiator Arena

27 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since it’s looking more and more like Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will probably soon have ownership of Twitter, we wanted to do a special ep...

They Don’t Represent Us — with Larry Lessig

20 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We often talk about the need to protect American democracy. But perhaps those of us in the United States don't currently live in a democracy.As resear...

Stepping Into the Metaverse — with Dr. Courtney Cogburn and Prof. Jeremy Bailenson

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The next frontier of the internet is the metaverse. That's why Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his company from Facebook to Meta, and just sold $1...

Fighting With Mirages of Each Other — with Adam Mastroianni

22 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever lost a friend to misperception? Have you lost a friend or a family member to the idea that your views got so different, that it was time...

Spotlight — Addressing the TikTok Threat

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine it's the Cold War. Imagine that the Soviet Union puts itself in a position to influence the television programming of the entire Western world...

Spotlight — How might a long-term stock market transform tech?

25 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

At Center for Humane Technology, we often talk about multipolar traps — which arise when individuals have an incentive to act in ways that are benef...

The Invisible Cyber-War

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When you hear the word cyber-attack, what comes to mind? Someone hacking into your email, or stealing your Facebook password?As it turns out, our most...

An Alternative to Silicon Valley Unicorns

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why isn't Twitter doing more to get bots off their platform? Why isn’t Uber taking better care of its drivers? What if...they can't?Venture-capital...

Spotlight — Conversations With People Who Hate Me with Dylan Marron

16 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Your Undivided Attention, we’re doing something different: we’re airing an episode of another podcast that’s also part of the TED A...

How Political Language Is Engineered — with Drew Westen and Frank Luntz

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Democracy depends on our ability to choose our political views. But the language we use to talk about political issues is deliberately designed to be ...

Transcending the Internet Hate Game — with Dylan Marron

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The game that social media sets us up to play is a game that rewards outrage. It's a game that we win by being better than other players at dunking on...

How To Free Our Minds — with Cult Deprogramming Expert Dr. Steven Hassan

05 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How would you know if you were in a cult? If not a cult, then at least under undue influence?The truth is: we're all under some form of undue influen...

Spotlight — A Bigger Picture on Elon & Twitter

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If Elon Musk owns Twitter, what are the risks and what are the opportunities? In order for Twitter to support democracy — and Musk’s goal of beco...

What Is Civil War in the Digital Age? — with Barbara F. Walter

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Civil war might be the most likely escalation pathway towards disaster for our country. On the flip side, learning how to avoid civil conflict — and...

Spotlight — What Is Humane Technology?

07 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“The fundamental problem of humanity is that we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology.” — E. O. Wilson.More ...

Digital Democracy is Within Reach with Audrey Tang (Rerun)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

[This episode originally aired on July 23rd, 2020.] Imagine a world where every country has a digital minister and technologically-enabled legislative...

The Dark Side Of Decentralization — with Audrey Kurth Cronin

10 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Is decentralization inherently a good thing? These days, there's a lot of talk about decentralization. Decentralized social media platforms can allow...

The Invisible Influence of Language — with Lera Boroditsky

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

One of the oldest technologies we have is language. How do the words we use influence the way we think?The media can talk about immigrants scurrying a...

How Science Fiction Can Shape Our Reality — with Kim Stanley Robinson

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The meta-crisis is so vast: climate change, exponential technology, addiction, polarization, and more. How do we grasp it, let alone take steps to add...

Here’s Our Plan And We Don’t Know — with Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin and Stephanie Lepp

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Renowned quantum physicist Richard Feynman once wrote, "It is our capacity to doubt that will determine the future of civilization." In that spirit, ...

Is World War III Already Here? — with Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster

13 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Would you say that the US is in war-time or peace-time? How do you know? The truth is, the nature of warfare has changed so fundamentally, that we're...

A Fresh Take on Tech in China — with Rui Ma and Duncan Clark

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Who do you think the Chinese government considers its biggest rival? The United States, right? Actually, the Chinese government considers its biggest ...

Behind the Curtain on The Social Dilemma — with Jeff Orlowski-Yang and Larissa Rhodes

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do you make a film that impacts more than 100 million people in 190 countries in 30 languages?This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're going b...

A Conversation with Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We are now in social media's Big Tobacco moment. And that’s largely thanks to the courage of one woman: Frances Haugen.Frances is a specialist in al...

Spotlight — A Whirlwind Week of Whistleblowing

06 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In seven years of working on the problems of runaway technology, we’ve never experienced a week like this! In this bonus episode of Your Undivided A...

Making Meaning in Challenging Times — with Jamie Wheal

30 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What helps you make meaning in challenging times? As you confront COVID, the climate crisis, and all of the challenges we discuss on this show, what h...

Spotlight — The Facebook Files with Tristan Harris, Frank Luntz, and Daniel Schmachtenberger

21 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On September 13th, the Wall Street Journal released The Facebook Files, an ongoing investigation of the extent to which Facebook's problems are meticu...