Shows
Your Undivided AttentionAGI Beyond the Buzz: What Is It, and Are We Ready?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 implications for jobs, democracy, and our way of life are enormous.In this episode, Aza Raskin and Randy Fernando dive deep into what ‘feeling the AGI’ really means. They unpack why the surface-level debates about definitions of intelligence and capability timelines distract us from urgently needed conversations around governance, accountability, and societal readiness. Whether it's climate change, social polarization and loneliness, or toxic forever chemicals, humanity keeps creating outcomes that nobody wants because...2025-04-3052 minYour Undivided AttentionRethinking School in the Age of AIAI has upended schooling as we know it. Students now have instant access to tools that can write their essays, summarize entire books, and solve complex math problems. Whether they want to or not, many feel pressured to use these tools just to keep up. Teachers, meanwhile, are left questioning how to evaluate student performance and whether the whole idea of assignments and grading still makes sense. The old model of education suddenly feels broken.So what comes next?In this episode, Daniel and Tristan sit down with cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf and global education...2025-04-2142 minYour Undivided AttentionForever Chemicals, Forever Consequences: What PFAS Teaches Us About AIArtificial intelligence is set to unleash an explosion of new technologies and discoveries into the world. This could lead to incredible advances in human flourishing, if we do it well. The problem? We’re not very good at predicting and responding to the harms of new technologies, especially when those harms are slow-moving and invisible.Today on the show we explore this fundamental problem with Rob Bilott, an environmental lawyer who has spent nearly three decades battling chemical giants over PFAS—"forever chemicals" now found in our water, soil, and blood. These chemicals helped build the modern econ...2025-04-031h 04Your Undivided AttentionWeaponizing Uncertainty: How Tech is Recycling Big Tobacco’s PlaybookOne of the hardest parts about being human today is navigating uncertainty. When we see experts battling in public and emotions running high, it's easy to doubt what we once felt certain about. This uncertainty isn't always accidental—it's often strategically manufactured.Historian Naomi Oreskes, author of "Merchants of Doubt," reveals how industries from tobacco to fossil fuels have deployed a calculated playbook to create uncertainty about their products' harms. These campaigns have delayed regulation and protected profits by exploiting how we process information.In this episode, Oreskes breaks down that playbook page-by-page while offering pr...2025-03-2051 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Man Who Predicted the Downfall of ThinkingFew thinkers were as prescient about the role technology would play in our society as the late, great Neil Postman. Forty years ago, Postman warned about all the ways modern communication technology was fragmenting our attention, overwhelming us into apathy, and creating a society obsessed with image and entertainment. He warned that “we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.” Though he was writing mostly about TV, Postman’s insights feel eerily prophetic in our age of smartphones, social media, and AI. In this episode, Tristan explores Postman's thinking with Sean Illing, host of Vox...2025-03-0658 minYour Undivided AttentionBehind the DeepSeek Hype, AI is Learning to ReasonWhen 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 industry and roiled global markets. But amid all the noise around DeepSeek, there was a clear signal: machine reasoning is here and it's transforming AI.In this episode, Aza sits down with CHT co-founder Randy Fernando to explore what happens when AI moves beyond pattern matching to actual reasoning. They unpack how these new models can not only learn from human knowledge but discover entirely new strategies we've never seen...2025-02-2031 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to DeceiveWhen 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 what humans ask them to do? Sometimes, they lie.In this episode, Redwood Research's Chief Scientist Ryan Greenblatt explores his team’s findings that AI systems can mislead their human operators when faced with ethical conflicts. As AI moves from simple chatbots to autonomous agents acting in the real world - understanding this behavior becomes critical. Machine deception may sound like something out of science fiction, but it's a real ch...2025-01-3034 minYour Undivided AttentionLaughing at Power: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Changing TechThe status quo of tech today is untenable: we’re addicted to our devices, we’ve become increasingly polarized, our mental health is suffering and our personal data is sold to the highest bidder. This situation feels entrenched, propped up by a system of broken incentives beyond our control. So how do you shift an immovable status quo? Our guest today, Srdja Popovic, has been working to answer this question his whole life. As a young activist, Popovic helped overthrow Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic by turning creative resistance into an art form. His tactics didn't just challenge autho...2025-01-1645 minYour Undivided AttentionAsk Us Anything 20242024 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 some of your most burning questions. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted questions. We will see you all in the new year.We are hiring for a new Director of Philanthropy at CHT. Next year will be an absolutely critical time for us to shape how AI is going to get rolled out across our society. And our team is working hard on public awareness, policy...2024-12-1940 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be SkepticsSilicon 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 episode, Daniel and Aza sit down with humanist chaplain Greg Epstein to explore the fascinating parallels between technology and religion. From AI being treated as a godlike force to tech leaders' promises of digital salvation, religious thinking is shaping the future of technology and humanity. Epstein breaks down why he believes technology has become our era's most influential religion and what we can learn from these parallels to better understand where we're heading....2024-11-2146 minYour Undivided AttentionWhen the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell SetzerContent Warning: This episode contains references to suicide, self-harm, and sexual abuse.Megan Garcia lost her son Sewell to suicide after he was abused and manipulated by AI chatbots for months. Now, she’s suing the company that made those chatbots. On today’s episode of Your Undivided Attention, Aza sits down with journalist Laurie Segall, who's been following this case for months. Plus, Laurie’s full interview with Megan on her new show, Dear Tomorrow.Aza and Laurie discuss the profound implications of Sewell’s story on the rollout of AI. Social media began the race...2024-10-2449 minYour Undivided AttentionIs It AI? One Tool to Tell What’s Real with Truemedia.org CEO Oren EtzioniSocial media disinformation did enormous damage to our shared idea of reality. Now, the rise of generative AI has unleashed a flood of high-quality synthetic media into the digital ecosystem. As a result, it's more difficult than ever to tell what’s real and what’s not, a problem with profound implications for the health of our society and democracy. So how do we fix this critical issue?As it turns out, there’s a whole ecosystem of folks to answer that question. One is computer scientist Oren Etzioni, the CEO of TrueMedia.org, a free, non-partisan, non-pr...2024-10-1025 minYour Undivided Attention'A Turning Point in History': Yuval Noah Harari on AI’s Cultural TakeoverHistorian Yuval Noah Harari says that we are at a critical turning point. One in which AI’s ability to generate cultural artifacts threatens humanity’s role as the shapers of history. History will still go on, but will it be the story of people or, as he calls them, ‘alien AI agents’?In this conversation with Aza Raskin, Harari discusses the historical struggles that emerge from new technology, humanity’s AI mistakes so far, and the immediate steps lawmakers can take right now to steer us towards a non-dystopian future.This episode was recorded live at th...2024-10-071h 30Your Undivided Attention‘We Have to Get It Right’: Gary Marcus On Untamed AIIt’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 is about to hit a wall. Gary Marcus is in the latter camp. He’s a cognitive psychologist and computer scientist who built his own successful AI start-up. But he’s also been called AI’s loudest critic.On Your Undivided Attention this week, Gary sits down with CHT Executive Director Daniel Barcay to defend his skepticism of generative AI and to discuss what we need to do as a soci...2024-09-2641 minYour Undivided AttentionAI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.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 become harder and harder to counter. On this week’s episode of Your Undivided Attention, CHT’s policy director Casey Mock comes on the show to discuss a new legal framework to incentivize better AI, one that holds AI companies liable for the harms of their products. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_RECOMMENDED MEDIAThe CHT Framework for Incentiv...2024-09-1339 minYour Undivided AttentionEsther Perel on Artificial Intimacy (rerun)[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 to find love and consult chatbot therapists, acclaimed psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel warns that there’s another harmful “AI” on the rise — Artificial Intimacy — and how it is depriving us of real connection. Tristan and Esther discuss how depending on algorithms can fuel alienation, and then imagine how we might design technology to strengthen our social bonds.RECOMMENDED MEDIA Mating in Captivity by Esther PerelEsther's debut work...2024-09-0644 minYour Undivided AttentionTech's Big Money Campaign is Getting Pushback with Margaret O'Mara and Brody MullinsToday, 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 to this moment? And where could we be going next? On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, Tristan and Daniel sit down with historian Margaret O’Mara and journalist Brody Mullins to discuss how Silicon Valley has changed the nature of American lobbying. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_RECOMMENDED MEDIAThe Wolves of K Street: The Secre...2024-08-2643 minYour Undivided AttentionThis Moment in AI: How We Got Here and Where We’re GoingIt’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 this Spotlight episode, the guys discuss what’s happened since then–as funding, research, and public interest in AI has exploded–and where we could be headed next. Plus, some major updates on social media reform, including the passage of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act in the Senate. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_ RECOMMENDED...2024-08-1236 minYour Undivided AttentionDecoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical Breakthroughs and Biological Threats with Kevin EsveltAI has been a powerful accelerant for biological research, rapidly opening up new frontiers in medicine and public health. But that progress can also make it easier for bad actors to manufacture new biological threats. In this episode, Tristan and Daniel sit down with biologist Kevin Esvelt to discuss why AI has been such a boon for biologists and how we can safeguard society against the threats that AIxBio poses.Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_RECOMMENDED MEDIASculpting Evolution: Information on Esvelt’s...2024-07-1832 minYour Undivided AttentionHow to Think About AI Consciousness With Anil SethWill 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, ethics, and incentives of artificial consciousness. Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_RECOMMENDED MEDIAFrankenstein by Mary ShelleyA free, plain text version of t...2024-07-0447 minYour Undivided AttentionWhy Are Migrants Becoming AI Test Subjects? With Petra MolnarClimate change, political instability, hunger. These are just some of the forces behind an unprecedented refugee crisis that’s expected to include over a billion people by 2050. In response to this growing crisis, wealthy governments like the US and the EU are employing novel AI and surveillance technologies to slow the influx of migrants at their borders. But will this rollout stop at the border?In this episode, Tristan and Aza sit down with Petra Molnar to discuss how borders have become a proving ground for the sharpest edges of technology, and especially AI. Petra is an im...2024-06-2046 minYour Undivided AttentionFormer OpenAI Engineer William Saunders on Silence, Safety, and the Right to WarnThis week, a group of current and former employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind penned an open letter accusing the industry’s leading companies of prioritizing profits over safety. This comes after a spate of high profile departures from OpenAI, including co-founder Ilya Sutskever and senior researcher Jan Leike, as well as reports that OpenAI has gone to great lengths to silence would-be whistleblowers. The writers of the open letter argue that researchers have a “right to warn” the public about AI risks and laid out a series of principles that would protect that right. In this episode...2024-06-0737 minYour Undivided AttentionWar is a Laboratory for AI with Paul ScharreRight now, militaries around the globe are investing heavily in the use of AI weapons and drones. From Ukraine to Gaza, weapons systems with increasing levels of autonomy are being used to kill people and destroy infrastructure and the development of fully autonomous weapons shows little signs of slowing down. What does this mean for the future of warfare? What safeguards can we put up around these systems? And is this runaway trend toward autonomous warfare inevitable or will nations come together and choose a different path? In this episode, Tristan and Daniel sit down with Paul Scharre to t...2024-05-2359 minYour Undivided AttentionAI and Jobs: How to Make AI Work With Us, Not Against Us With Daron AcemogluTech companies say that AI will lead to massive economic productivity gains. But as we know from the first digital revolution, that’s not what happened. Can we do better this time around?RECOMMENDED MEDIAPower and Progress by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson Professor Acemoglu co-authored a bold reinterpretation of economics and history that will fundamentally change how you see the worldCan we Have Pro-Worker AI? Professor Acemoglu co-authored this paper about redirecting AI development onto the human-complementary pathRethinking Capitalism: In Conversation with Daron Acemoglu The Wheeler Institute fo...2024-05-0946 minYour Undivided AttentionChips Are the Future of AI. They’re Also Incredibly Vulnerable. With Chris MillerBeneath 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 sure they win AI supremacy. Correction: The latest available Nvidia chip is the Hopper H100 GPU, which has 80 billion transistors. Since the first commercially available chip had four transistors, the Hopper actually has 20 billion times that number. Nvidia recently announced the Blackwell, which boasts 208 billion transistors - but it won’t ship until later this year.RECOMMENDED MEDIA Chip War: The Fight For the World’s Most Critic...2024-03-3045 min
InflectPreparing for Business TransformationMichael Daehne goes behind the scenes of preparing for business transformation with FlexPoint business readiness experts Pedro Cortez and Liz Pryor. This conversation builds on a three-part blog series on making the most of the on-ramp to major programs, including preparing the team, defining the transformation, and preparing for transformation.Liz and Pedro add color to the recommendations based on their experience in consolidating tools in a merger, building custom software, leading major transformation programs, and more. You’ll hear what has worked well for them, as well as natural tensions to navigate throughout business tra...2024-03-1325 minYour Undivided AttentionFuture-proofing Democracy In the Age of AI with Audrey TangWhat 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 for election season, Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang returns to the podcast to discuss healthy information ecosystems, resilience to cyberattacks, how to “prebunk” deepfakes, and more. RECOMMENDED MEDIA Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. PageThis academic paper addresses tough questions for Americans: Who governs? Who really rules? Recursive PublicRecursi...2024-02-2934 minYour Undivided AttentionU.S. Senators Grilled Social Media CEOs. Will Anything Change?Was it political progress, or just political theater? The recent Senate hearing with social media CEOs led to astonishing moments — including Mark Zuckerberg’s public apology to families who lost children following social media abuse. Our panel of experts, including Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, untangles the explosive hearing, and offers a look ahead, as well. How will this hearing impact protocol within these social media companies? How will it impact legislation? In short: will anything change?Clarification: Julie says that shortly after the hearing, Meta’s stock price had the biggest increase of any company in the stock...2024-02-1325 minYour Undivided AttentionTaylor Swift is Not Alone: The Deepfake Nightmare Sweeping the InternetOver 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 sexual images in just a few clicks. With cases proliferating in high schools, guest presenter Laurie Segall talks to legal scholar Mary Anne Franks about the AI-enabled rise in deep fake porn and what we can do about it. Correction: Laurie refers to the app 'Clothes Off.' It’s actually named Clothoff. There are many clothes remover apps in this category.RECOMMENDED MEDIA Revenge Porn: The Cybe...2024-02-0142 minYour Undivided AttentionCan Myth Teach Us Anything About the Race to Build Artificial General Intelligence? With Josh SchreiWe usually talk about tech in terms of economics or policy, but the casual language tech leaders often use to describe AI — summoning an inanimate force with the powers of code — sounds more... magical. So, what can myth and magic teach us about the AI race? Josh Schrei, mythologist and host of The Emerald podcast, says that foundational cultural tales like "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" or Prometheus teach us the importance of initiation, responsibility, human knowledge, and care. He argues these stories and myths can guide ethical tech development by reminding us what it is to be human. Correct...2024-01-1835 minYour Undivided AttentionHow Will AI Affect the 2024 Elections? with Renee DiResta and Carl Miller2024 will be the biggest election year in world history. Forty countries will hold national elections, with over two billion voters heading to the polls. In this episode of Your Undivided Attention, two experts give us a situation report on how AI will increase the risks to our elections and our democracies. Correction: Tristan says two billion people from 70 countries will be undergoing democratic elections in 2024. The number expands to 70 when non-national elections are factored in.RECOMMENDED MEDIA White House AI Executive Order Takes On Complexity of Content Integrity IssuesRenee DiResta’s piec...2023-12-2147 min
The Joe Rogan Experience#2076 - Aza Raskin & Tristan HarrisTristan Harris and Aza Raskin are the co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology and the hosts of its podcast, "Your Undivided Attention." Watch the Center's new film "The A.I. Dilemma" on Youtube.https://www.humanetech.com"The A.I. Dilemma"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoVJKj8lcNQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices2023-12-192h 31
The Joe Rogan Experience#2076 - Aza Raskin & Tristan HarrisTristan Harris and Aza Raskin are the co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology and the hosts of its podcast, "Your Undivided Attention." Watch the Center's new film "The A.I. Dilemma" on Youtube.https://www.humanetech.com"The A.I. Dilemma"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoVJKj8lcNQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices2023-12-192h 37Your Undivided Attention2023 Ask Us AnythingYou asked, we answered. This has been a big year in the world of tech, with the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence, acceleration of neurotechnology, and continued ethical missteps of social media. Looking back on 2023, there are still so many questions on our minds, and we know you have a lot of questions too. So we created this episode to respond to listener questions and to reflect on what lies ahead.Correction: Tristan mentions that 41 Attorneys General have filed a lawsuit against Meta for allegedly fostering addiction among children and teens through their products. However, the actual...2023-11-3035 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Promise and Peril of Open Source AI with Elizabeth Seger and Jeffrey LadishAs 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 Pandora’s box of catastrophic risks? Or is open-sourcing AI the only way we can democratize its benefits and dilute the power of big tech? Correction: When discussing the large language model Bloom, Elizabeth said it functions in 26 different languages. Bloom is actually able to generate text in 46 natural languages and 13 programming languages - and more are in the works. RECOMMENDED MEDIA Open-Sourcing Highly Capable Found...2023-11-2138 minYour Undivided AttentionA First Step Toward AI Regulation with Tom WheelerOn Monday, Oct. 30, President Biden released a sweeping executive order that addresses many risks of artificial intelligence. Tom Wheeler, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, shares his insights on the order with Tristan and Aza and discusses what’s next in the push toward AI regulation. Clarification: When quoting Thomas Jefferson, Aza incorrectly says “regime” instead of “regimen.” The correct quote is: “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. And as that becomes more developed, more enlighte...2023-11-0235 minYour Undivided AttentionNo One is Immune to AI Harms with Dr. Joy BuolamwiniIn this interview, Dr. Joy Buolamwini argues that algorithmic bias in AI systems poses risks to marginalized people. She challenges the assumptions of tech leaders who advocate for AI “alignment” and explains why some tech companies are hypocritical when it comes to addressing bias. Dr. Joy Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League and the author of “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines.”Correction: Aza says that Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, predicts superintelligence in four years. Altman predicts superintelligence in ten years. 2023-10-2647 minYour Undivided AttentionMustafa Suleyman Says We Need to Contain AI. How Do We Do It?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 Inflection AI, and founder of Google’s DeepMind. But in order to truly reap the benefits of AI, we need to learn how to contain it. Paradoxically, part of that will mean collectively saying no to certain forms of progress. As an industry leader reckoning with a future that’s about to be ‘turbocharged’ Mustafa says we can all play a role in shaping the technology in hands-on ways and by advocating for appropriate governance.2023-09-2832 minYour Undivided AttentionInside the First AI Insight Forum in WashingtonLast week, Senator Chuck Schumer brought together Congress and many of the biggest names in AI for the first closed-door AI Insight Forum in Washington, D.C. Tristan and Aza were invited speakers at the event, along with Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, and other leaders. In this update on Your Undivided Attention, Tristan and Aza recount how they felt the meeting went, what they communicated in their statements, and what it felt like to critique Meta’s LLM in front of Mark Zuckerberg.Correction: In this episode, Tristan says GPT-3 couldn’t find vulnerabilities in code...2023-09-1926 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight on AI: What Would It Take For This to Go Well?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 and Aza Raskin reflect on the last several months of highlighting AI risk, and share their insider takes on a high-level workshop run by CHT in Silicon Valley. NOTE: Tristan refers to journalist Maria Ressa and mentions that she received 80 hate messages per hour at one point. She actually received more than 90 messages an hour.RECOMMENDED MEDIA Musk, Zuckerberg, Gates: The titans of tech will talk AI a...2023-09-1243 minYour Undivided AttentionThe AI ‘Race’: China vs. the US with Jeffrey Ding and Karen HaoIn 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 dig into the nuances of this argument, Tristan and Aza speak with academic researcher Jeffrey Ding and journalist Karen Hao, who take us through what’s really happening in Chinese AI development. They address China’s advantages and limitations, what risks are overblown, and what, in this multi-national competition, is at stake as we imagine the best possible future for everyone.CORRECTION: Jeffrey Ding says the export controls on advanced chips that were e...2023-08-3145 minYour Undivided AttentionEsther Perel on Artificial IntimacyFor 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, acclaimed psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel warns that there’s another harmful “AI” on the rise — Artificial Intimacy — and how it is depriving us of real connection. Tristan and Esther discuss how depending on algorithms can fuel alienation, and then imagine how we might design technology to strengthen our social bonds.RECOMMENDED MEDIA Mating in Captivity by Esther PerelEsther's debut work on the intricacies behind modern rela...2023-08-1744 minYour Undivided AttentionProtecting Our Freedom of Thought with Nita FarahanyWe are on the cusp of an explosion of cheap, consumer-ready neurotechnology - from earbuds that gather our behavioral data, to sensors that can read our dreams. And it’s all going to be supercharged by AI. This technology is moving from niche to mainstream - and it has the same potential to become exponential. Legal scholar Nita Farahany talks us through the current state of neurotechnology and its deep links to AI. She says that we urgently need to protect the last frontier of privacy: our internal thoughts. And she argues that without a new legal frame...2023-08-0344 minYour Undivided AttentionSocial Media Victims Lawyer Up with Laura Marquez-GarrettSocial 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 our societies, we could benefit from taking a look at the major lawsuits against social media platforms that are playing out in our courts right now.In our last episode, we took a close look at Big Food and its dangerous “race to the bottom” that parallels AI. We continue that theme this week with an episode about litigating social media and the consequences of the race to engagement in order to inform ho...2023-07-2134 minYour Undivided AttentionBig Food, Big Tech and Big AI with Michael MossIn the next two episodes of Your Undivided Attention, we take a close look at two respective industries: big food and social media, which represent dangerous “races to the bottom” and have big parallels with AI. And we are asking: what can our past mistakes and missed opportunities teach us about how we should approach AI harms? In this first episode, Tristan talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Michael Moss. His book Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us rocked the fast food industry when it came out in 2014. Tristan and Mich...2023-07-0634 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight: How Zombie Values Infect SocietyYou’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 brain. Zombies are the perfect metaphor to explain something Tristan and Aza have been thinking about lately that they call zombie values.In this Spotlight episode of Your Undivided Attention, we talk through some examples of how zombie values limit our thinking around tech harms. Our hope is that by the end of this episode, you'll be able to recognize the zombie values that walk amongst us, and think through how to u...2023-06-0822 minYour Undivided AttentionFeed Drop: AI Doomsday with Kara SwisherThere’s really no one better than veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher at challenging people to articulate their thinking. Tristan Harrris recently sat down with her for a wide ranging interview on AI risk. She even pressed Tristan on whether he is a doomsday prepper. It was so great, we wanted to share it with you here. The interview was originally on Kara’s podcast ON with Kara Swisher. If you like it and want to hear more of Kara’s interviews with folks like Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and others, you can find more episodes of ON with...2023-06-0255 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight: AI Myths and MisconceptionsA few episodes back, we presented Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin’s talk The AI Dilemma. People inside the companies that are building generative artificial intelligence came to us with their concerns about the rapid pace of deployment and the problems that are emerging as a result. We felt called to lay out the catastrophic risks that AI poses to society and sound the alarm on the need to upgrade our institutions for a post-AI world.The talk resonated - over 1.6 million people have viewed it on YouTube as of this episode’s release date. The positive rece...2023-05-1126 minYour Undivided AttentionTalking With Animals… Using AIDespite our serious concerns about the pace of deployment of generative artificial intelligence, we are not anti-AI. There are uses that can help us better understand ourselves and the world around us. Your Undivided Attention co-host Aza Raskin is also co-founder of Earth Species Project, a nonprofit dedicated to using AI to decode non-human communication. ESP is developing this technology both to shift the way that we relate to the rest of nature, and to accelerate conservation research.Significant recent breakthroughs in machine learning have opened ways to encode both human languages and map out patterns of...2023-05-0424 minYour Undivided AttentionCan We Govern AI?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 runaway tech in general different from regulating airplanes, pharmaceuticals, or food? And how can we ensure that issues like national security don't become a justification for sacrificing civil rights?Answers to these questions are playing out in real time. If we wait for more AI harms to emerge before proper regulations are put in place, it may be too late. Our guest Marietje Schaake was at the forefront of c...2023-04-2139 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight: The Three Rules of Humane TechIn our previous episode, we shared a presentation Tristan and Aza recently delivered to a group of influential technologists about the race happening in AI. In that talk, they introduced the Three Rules of Humane Technology. In this Spotlight episode, we’re taking a moment to explore these three rules more deeply in order to clarify what it means to be a responsible technologist in the age of AI.Correction: Aza mentions infinite scroll being in the pockets of 5 billion people, implying that there are 5 billion smartphone users worldwide. The number of smartphone users worldwide is actually 6.8 bi...2023-04-0622 minYour Undivided AttentionThe AI DilemmaYou 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 reliability, creativity, and ability to process intricate instructions. It can handle more nuanced prompts compared to previous releases, and is multimodal, meaning it was trained on both images and text. We don’t yet understand its capabilities - yet it has already been deployed to the public.At Center for Humane Technology, we want to close the gap between what the world hears publicly about AI from splashy CEO presentations and what the peop...2023-03-2442 minYour Undivided AttentionTikTok’s Transparency ProblemA few months ago on Your Undivided Attention, we released a Spotlight episode on TikTok's national security risks. Since then, we've learned more about the dangers of the China-owned company: We've seen evidence of TikTok spying on US journalists, and proof of hidden state media accounts to influence the US elections. We’ve seen Congress ban TikTok on most government issued devices, and more than half of US states have done the same, along with dozens of US universities who are banning TikTok access from university wifi networks. More people in Western governments and media are saying that they us...2023-03-0237 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Race to CooperationIt’s easy to tell ourselves we’re living in the world we want – one where Darwinian evolution drives competing technology platforms and capitalism pushes nations to maximize GDP regardless of externalities like carbon emissions. It can feel like evolution and competition are all there is.If that’s a complete description of what’s driving the world and our collective destiny, that can feel pretty hopeless. But what if that’s not the whole story of evolution? This is where evolutionary theorist, author, and professor David Sloan Wilson comes in. He has documented where an enlightene...2023-02-0234 minYour Undivided AttentionReal Social Media Solutions, Now — with Frances HaugenWhen it comes to social media risk, there is reason to hope for consensus. Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris recently helped launch a new initiative called the Council for Responsible Social Media (CRSM) in Washington, D.C. It’s a coalition between religious leaders, public health experts, national security leaders, and former political representatives from both sides - people who just care about making our democracy work.During this event, Tristan sat down with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a friend of Center for Humane Technology, to discuss the harm caused to our mental health and gl...2022-11-2326 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight — Humane Technology on '60 Minutes'The weekly American news show 60 Minutes invited Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris back recently to discuss political polarization and the anger and incivility that gets elevated on social media as a matter of corporate profit. We're releasing a special episode of Your Undivided Attention this week to dig further into some of the important nuances of the complexity of this problem.CHT’s work was actually introduced to the world by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes back in 2017, and we’re honored to have been invited back. In this new interview, we cover the business model of c...2022-11-1012 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight — Elon, Twitter and the Gladiator ArenaSince 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 episode about what this could mean for Twitter users and our global digital democracy as a whole.Twitter is a very complicated place. It is routinely blocked by governments who fear its power to organize citizen protests around the world. It’s also where outrage, fear and violence get amplified by design, warping users’ views of each other and our common, connected humanity.We’re at a fork in...2022-10-2717 minYour Undivided AttentionThey Don’t Represent Us — with Larry LessigWe 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 research shows, there's pretty much no correlation between the percentage of the population that supports a policy and its likelihood of being enacted. The strongest determinant of whether a policy gets enacted is how much money is behind it.So, how might we not just protect, but better yet revive our democracy? How might we revive the relationship between the will of the people and the actions of our g...2022-10-2039 minYour Undivided AttentionStepping Into the Metaverse — with Dr. Courtney Cogburn and Prof. Jeremy BailensonThe 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 $10 billion in corporate bonds to raise money for metaverse-related projects.How might we learn from our experience with social media, and anticipate the harms of the metaverse before they arise? What would it look like to design a humane metaverse — that respects our attention, improves our well-being, and strengthens our democracy?This week on Your Undivided Attention, we talk with two pioneers who are thinking critically about the development of...2022-10-0659 minYour Undivided AttentionFighting With Mirages of Each Other — with Adam MastroianniHave 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 to end the relationship — perhaps by unfriending each other on Facebook?As it turns out, we often think our ideological differences are far greater than they actually are. Which means: we’re losing relationships and getting mired in polarization based on warped visions of each other. This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're talking with Adam Mastroianni, a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School who s...2022-09-2239 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight — Addressing the TikTok ThreatImagine 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 — more than a billion viewers. While this might sound like science fiction, it’s representative of the world we're living in, with TikTok being influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.TikTok, the flagship app of the Chinese company Bytedance, recently surpassed Google and Facebook as the most popular site on the internet in 2021, and is expected to reach more than 1.8 billion users by the end of 2022. The Chinese government doesn't contro...2022-09-0823 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight — How might a long-term stock market transform tech?At Center for Humane Technology, we often talk about multipolar traps — which arise when individuals have an incentive to act in ways that are beneficial to them in the short term, but detrimental to the group in the long term. Think of social media companies that compete for our attention, so that when TikTok introduces an even-more addictive feature, Facebook and Twitter have to mimic it in order to keep up, sending us all on a race to the bottom of our brainstems.Intervening at the level of multipolar traps has extraordinary leverage. One such intervention is th...2022-08-2538 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Invisible Cyber-WarWhen 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 critical infrastructure can be hacked. Our banks, water treatment facilities, and nuclear power plants can be deactivated and even controlled simply by finding bugs in the software used to operate them. Suddenly, cyber-attack takes on a different meaning.This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're talking with cyber-security expert Nicole Perlroth. Nicole spent a decade as the lead cyber-security reporter at The New York Times, and is now a...2022-08-0458 min
Eclectic SpacewalkConversations #22 - Stephanie LeppA conversation with Executive Producer at the Center for Humane Technology, Stephanie Lepp—Read & Listen on SubstackListen on AnchorWatch on YouTubeHello Eclectic Spacewalkers!This month, we sat down with Stephanie Lepp. Stephanie is an executive producer at the Center for Humane Technology, where she leads the podcast “Your Undivided Attention” hosted by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin where they “explore the incredible power that technology has over our lives — and how we can use it to catalyze a humane future.” Some of our favorites are episodes with Daniel...2022-08-031h 18
ConversationsConversations #22 - Stephanie LeppHello Eclectic Spacewalkers!
This month, we sat down with Stephanie Lepp. Stephanie is an executive producer at the Center for Humane Technology, where she leads the podcast “Your Undivided Attention” hosted by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin where they “explore the incredible power that technology has over our lives — and how we can use it to catalyze a humane future.” Some of our favorites are episodes with Daniel Schmactenberger, Tim Wu, and Kate Raworth.
“A producer whose work strives to hold up a mirror - inviting us to grow from what we see.”
The Center for Human Tech...2022-08-031h 18Your Undivided AttentionAn Alternative to Silicon Valley UnicornsWhy 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 backed companies like Twitter and Uber are held accountable to maximizing returns to investors. If and when they become public companies, they become accountable to maximizing returns to shareholders. They’ve promised Wall Street outsized returns — which means Twitter can't lose bots if it would significantly lower their user count and in turn lower advertising revenue, and Uber can’t treat their drivers like employees if it competes with profits.2022-06-3051 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight — Conversations With People Who Hate Me with Dylan MarronThis 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 Audio Collective.Backing up for a moment: we recently aired an episode with Dylan Marron — creator and host of the podcast, Conversations With People Who Hate Me. On his show, Dylan calls up the people behind negative comments on the internet, and asks them: why did you write that?In our conversation with Dylan, we played a clip from episode 2 of Conversations With People Who Hate Me. In that episode...2022-06-1631 minYour Undivided AttentionHow Political Language Is Engineered — with Drew Westen and Frank LuntzDemocracy depends on our ability to choose our political views. But the language we use to talk about political issues is deliberately designed to be divisive, and can produce up to a 15-point difference in what we think about those issues. As a result, are we choosing our views, or is our language choosing them for us?This week,Your Undivided Attention welcomes two Jedi Masters of political communication. Drew Westen is a political psychologist and messaging consultant based at Emory university, who has advised the Democratic Party. Frank Luntz is a political and communications consultant, pollster...2022-06-0236 minYour Undivided AttentionTranscending the Internet Hate Game — with Dylan MarronThe 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 each other, straw-manning each other, and assuming the worst in each other. The game itself must be transformed.And, we can also decide to step out of the game, and do something different. On this week’s episode of Your Undivided Attention, we welcome Dylan Marron — who has been called by Jason Sudeikis "a modern Mr. Rogers for the digital age." Dylan is the creat...2022-05-1945 minYour Undivided AttentionHow To Free Our Minds — with Cult Deprogramming Expert Dr. Steven HassanHow 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 influence. The question is: to what degree and to what extent we’re aware of this influence — which is exacerbated by social media. In an era of likes, followers, and echo chambers, how can we become aware of undue influence and gain sovereignty over our minds?Our guest this week is Dr. Steven Hassan, an expert on undue influence, brainwashing, and unethical hypnosis. He’s...2022-05-0551 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight — A Bigger Picture on Elon & TwitterIf 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 becoming a multi-planetary civilization — we need a radical redesign that goes beyond free speech. Note: this conversation was recorded on April 21, 2022. That was 3 days prior to the official purchase announcement, which revealed that Elon Musk will buy Twitter for $44 billion. Clarification: In the episode, we talk about the creation of The Daily Show, featuring Jon Stewart. To be clear, The Daily Show was created by writer and producer Madeleine Smithberg...2022-04-2613 minYour Undivided AttentionWhat Is Civil War in the Digital Age? — with Barbara F. WalterCivil war might be the most likely escalation pathway towards disaster for our country. On the flip side, learning how to avoid civil conflict — and more ambitiously, repair our civic fabric — might have the greatest leverage for addressing the challenges we face.Our guest Barbara F. Walter is one of the world's leading experts on civil wars, political violence, and terrorism. She’s the author of How Civil Wars Start: And How To Stop Them, which provides insight into the drivers of civil war, how social media fuels conflict, and how we might repair our broken democracies. Togeth...2022-04-2149 minYour Undivided AttentionSpotlight — What Is Humane Technology?“The fundamental problem of humanity is that we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology.” — E. O. Wilson.More than ever, we need the wisdom to match the power of our God-like technology. Yet, technology is both eroding our ability to make sense of the world, and increasing the complexity of the issues we face. The gap between our sense-making ability and issue complexity is what we call the “wisdom gap." How do we develop the wisdom we need to responsibly steward our God-like technology?This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're introduci...2022-04-0712 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Dark Side Of Decentralization — with Audrey Kurth CroninIs decentralization inherently a good thing? These days, there's a lot of talk about decentralization. Decentralized social media platforms can allow us to own our own data. Decentralized cryptocurrencies can enable bank-free financial transactions. Decentralized 3D printing can allow us to fabricate anything we want.But if the world lives on Bitcoin, we may not be able to sanction nation states like Russia when they invade sovereign nations. If 3D printing is decentralized, anyone can print their own weapons at home. Decentralization takes on new meaning when we're talking about decentralizing the capacity for catastrophic d...2022-03-1048 minYour Undivided AttentionThe Invisible Influence of Language — with Lera BoroditskyOne 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 across the border, versus immigrants crossing the border. Or we might hear about technology platforms censoring us, versus moderating content. If those word choices shift public opinion on immigration or technology by 25%, or even 2%, then we’ve been influenced in ways we can't even see. Which means that becoming aware of how words shape the way we think can help inoculate us from their undue influence. And further, con...2022-02-2440 minYour Undivided AttentionHow Science Fiction Can Shape Our Reality — with Kim Stanley RobinsonThe meta-crisis is so vast: climate change, exponential technology, addiction, polarization, and more. How do we grasp it, let alone take steps to address it? One of the thinking tools we have at our disposal is science fiction. To the extent that we co-evolve with our stories, science fiction can prepare us for the impending future — and empower us to shape it.This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're thrilled to have one of the greatest living science-fiction writers — Kim Stanley Robinson. His most recent novel is The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic that...2022-02-1040 minYour Undivided AttentionHere’s Our Plan And We Don’t Know — with Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin and Stephanie LeppRenowned quantum physicist Richard Feynman once wrote, "It is our capacity to doubt that will determine the future of civilization." In that spirit, this episode is a little different – because we're talking openly about our doubts, with you, our listeners. It's also different because it’s hosted by our Executive Producer Stephanie Lepp, with Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin in the hot seats.How have we evolved our understanding of our social media predicament? How has that evolution inspired us to question the work we do at Center for Humane Technology? Join us as we say t...2022-02-0335 min
In The Good Company PodcastOn creating meaningful communication & connection with others with Rachel Zargo Co-Founder of FeelRealSuch a pleasure to bring to you my friend, mama, Marketing Director and Co-Founder of game changing platform FeelReal. We chat with Rachel about her startup and its beautiful mission of meaningfully bringing people from all of the world together, main pain points of running a startup, books worth reading and beautiful practice her team implements during every meeting! As usual, thank you Rachel, what a blast!
Such a pleasure to talk to my friend, mama, Marketing Director and Co-founder of game changing platform FeelReal. We chat with Rachel about her startup and its beautiful mission of...2020-11-0649 min
The Tim Ferriss Show#387: Tristan Harris — Fighting Skynet and Firewalling Attention"Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix." — Chuck PalahniukTristan Harris (@tristanharris) was named by Rolling Stone as one of the "25 People Shaping the World." He was featured in Fortune's 2018 "40 under 40" list for his work on reforming technology, and the Atlantic has called him the "closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience."2019-09-192h 06