Episodes
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 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?
Published 11/21/23
Tristan and Aza discuss President Biden’s executive order on AI with Tom Wheeler, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Published 11/02/23
Dr. Joy Buolamwini, the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, argues that the most urgent risks from AI are algorithmic bias, discrimination, and the concentration of power in tech companies.
Published 10/26/23
To reap the benefits of AI, we’re going to need to get good at saying no certain forms of progress for the first time.s. Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI, calls for containment as we approach an historic technological threshold, urging regulation before it’s too late.
Published 09/28/23
Tristan and Aza were invited to speak at Senator Chuck Schumer’s historic AI Insight Forum last week. What are their big takeaways, and what effect do they predict this closed-door meeting will have?
Published 09/19/23
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.
Published 09/12/23
It’s a common counterpoint: “But what about China? We can’t let China get ahead.” In this episode, experts Jeffrey Ding and Karen Hao explain the realities of Chinese AI development and assess the stakes for the multi-national race.
Published 08/31/23
AI is harming our relationships, warns acclaimed psychotherapist Esther Perel. What would it look like for technology to strengthen our social bonds, rather than depriving us of the nuance that allows us to connect?
Published 08/17/23
We’re on the cusp of an explosion of cheap, consumer-ready neurotechnology - and it’s all going to be supercharged by AI. Legal scholar Nita Farahany talks us through the current state of neurotech, and explains why we need a new legal framework around “cognitive liberty” to protect the last frontier of privacy: our thoughts.
Published 08/03/23
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 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. Attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett is literally on the front lines of the battle to hold social media firms accountable for the harms they have created in young people’s lives. Listener warning: there are...
Published 07/21/23
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 dangerous “races to the bottom” and have big parallels with AI. Our first guest in this pairing is the bestselling author Michael Moss. We discuss how we can leverage the lessons learned from Big Food’s coordination failures, and whether it’s the responsibility of the consumer, the government, or the companies to regulate.
Published 07/06/23
On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin speak with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, the Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content for the Sesame Workshop, the non-profit behind Sesame Street. What happens when app creators consider what lifelong human development looks like in terms of the tools we make? And what philosophies from Sesame Street can help us steward the power of AI and social media to influence minds in thoughtful, humane directions?
Published 06/22/23
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, 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 upgrade those values to meet the realities of our modern world.
Published 06/08/23
Kara Swisher challenges Tristan Harris on the so-called ‘AI Doomsday’ in a wide-ranging discussion. If you enjoy their conversation and want to hear more of Kara’s interviews with folks like Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and others, you can find episodes of ON with Kara Swisher on your favorite podcasting app.
Published 06/02/23
Democracy in action has looked the same for generations. What would an upgrade look like - not just for democracy, but for all the different places that democratic decision-making happens? On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, we’re joined by political economist and social technologist Divya Siddarth, one of the world's leading experts in collective intelligence.
Published 05/25/23
A few episodes back, we presented Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin’s talk The AI Dilemma. The talk resonated - over 1.6 million people have viewed it on YouTube as of this episode’s release date. However, now that so many people have watched or listened to the talk, we’ve found that there are some AI myths getting in the way of making progress. On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, we debunk five of those misconceptions.
Published 05/11/23
Despite our serious concerns about the pace of deployment of artificial intelligence, there are use cases for the technology 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. In this episode, Aza presents the machine learning breakthroughs that will soon make talking to animals a possibility - and the ethical...
Published 05/04/23
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? Answers to these questions are playing out in real time. Our guest Marietje Schaake, a former EU Parliamentarian, argues that if we wait for more AI harms to emerge before proper regulations are put in place, it may be too late… and she traces the path...
Published 04/21/23
In 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.
Published 04/06/23
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 people who are closest to the risks and harms inside AI labs are telling us. We translated their concerns into a cohesive story and presented the resulting slides to heads of institutions and major media organizations in New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco. The talk you're about to hear is the culmination of that work, which is ongoing.
Published 03/24/23
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 about the dangers of the China-owned company. More people in Western governments and media are saying that they used to believe that TikTok was an overblown threat. As we've seen mounting evidence of national security risks play out, there’s even talk of banning TikTok completely. But is that the best solution? If we opt for a ban, how do we, as...
Published 03/02/23
It may seem like the rise of artificial intelligence, and increasingly powerful large language models you may have heard of, is moving really fast… and it IS. But what’s coming next is when we enter synthetic relationships with AI that could come to feel just as real and important as our human relationships... And perhaps even more so. In this episode of Your Undivided Attention, Tristan and Aza reach beyond the moment to talk about the risks and possibilities of this powerful new AI, and...
Published 02/16/23
It’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. But what if that’s not the whole story of evolution? On Your Undivided Attention, we speak with evolutionary theorist, author, and professor David Sloan Wilson about his work documenting where an enlightened...
Published 02/02/23
Welcome to our first-ever Ask Us Anything episode. We thought it’d be fun at the end of the year to engage our community of listeners by answering your questions. When we created this podcast, the goal was to explore the incredible power technology has over our lives and how we can use it to catalyze a humane future. Three years and a global pandemic later, we’re more committed than ever to helping meet the moment with crucial conversations about humane technology - even as the tech...
Published 12/29/22
When you look at the world, it can feel like we're in a precarious moment in our ability to relate to one another and cooperate. That's why we’re talking to Rick Doblin, the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS – a non-profit focused on educating and researching the benefits of using psychedelic therapy to address PTSD and promote humane ways of relating worldwide. Both MAPS and Center for Humane Technology want to understand...
Published 12/15/22