Hacking Humans
Listen now
Description
Hey watch this YouTube video I just sent you. When it’s over, maybe watch another one. Oh, wow, that one looks interesting too—click on it. Oh never mind, it just plays. Maybe watch this one too? How long have we been here? Only an hour? Surely there’s time for one more … And so it goes. Every day, as we watch videos, consume social media, and decide what to buy, we’re being expertly manipulated. Or, to use the words of historian and author Yuval Noah Harari, we’ve been hacked. Harari is the author of the new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. On this week’s show, WIRED editor in chief Nick Thompson sits down with Harari and Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris to discuss this phenomenon. At the top of the show, we bring you the tech news of the week, and as always, we’ll close with our recommendations. Some notes: Watch the full video interview with Harari and Harris. Read Garrett Graff on the long, strange history of the Presidential alert. Also, what does it mean if you didn’t get it? Microsoft’s new Surface hardware. The Bloomberg report about tainted servers, and Lily Hay Newman’s analysis of the impact. Also! Come to WIRED 25 next week. Recommendations this week: Sans Forgetica and Quincy on Netflix. Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds. Arielle Pardes is @pardesoteric, Michael Calore is @snackfight, and Nick Thompson is @nxthompson. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Our theme song is by Solar Keys. How to Listen You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how: If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here. You can also download an app like Pocket Casts or Radio Public, and search for Gadget Lab. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed. We’re also on Soundcloud, and every episode gets posted to wired.com as soon as it’s released. If you still can’t figure it out, or there’s another platform you use that we’re not on, let us know.
More Episodes
Hollywood is busily trying to figure out the best way to present big-budget films in VR. The platform is great for games and short-form entertainment, but if you want to tell an epic story and really draw the viewer in emotionally, the limits of VR present barriers to that type experience. At the...
Published 11/09/18
By all accounts, sleep plays a critical role in a person’s overall health and well-being. But modern technology makes it way too easy to stay up later than you should, scrolling through Twitter, watching YouTube or Netflix, and responding to “urgent” messages. And for a lot of people, our...
Published 08/31/18
Silicon Valley is awash in hype about quantum computers. But these new machines—which perform calculations not only with bits (ones and zeros) but also with mysterious things called qubits—are still in their infancy. They are very large, very expensive, and must be kept very cold. Their...
Published 08/24/18