Podcasts · Technology · Government

Your Undivided Attention

The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin

170 episodes

Join co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin every other Thursday to understand how new technologies are shaping the way we live, work, and think.

More about the show

Your Undivided Attention is produced by our Senior Producer Julia Scott and our Executive Producer Josh Lash. We are a member of the TED Audio Collective.

Episodes page 1 of 4

  1. A New Way to Measure AI Safety for Kids

    · 35 min · Bonus

    Earlier this year, we brought you a conversation about our mission to bring together researchers, psychologists, engineers, and technologists from across the entire AI ecosystem to build out the expertise and…

  2. An Historic AI Summit in Iceland, and a Conversation with its President

    · 45 min · Episode 143

    On October 11, 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met at Höfði House in Reykjavik, Iceland, to confront the threat hanging over both their nations: the nuclear arms race. The summit was hastily arranged, light…

  3. The Most Hopeful (And Concerning) Moment Yet in AI

    · 21 min · Episode 142

    It’s been a whirlwind week in AI news. Weeks after a series of hacking incidents by rogue agents at OpenAI and Anthropic, we’ve seen a cascade of top AI researchers blow the whistle on what they call the catastrophic…

  4. Flock is Just the Beginning: Inside the Era of AI-Powered Policing

    · 59 min · Episode 141

    In a 2018 TED Talk, Yuval Harari argued that democracy prevailed over fascism and communism in the 20th century not because of any inherent advantage, but because the technology of that age favored open and democratic…

  5. We Measure What AI Can Do. We Should Measure What It Does to Us.

    · 47 min · Episode 140

    In AI, what gets measured gets optimized. Right now, we're spending all our efforts to measure how capable and powerful models are, narrowly optimizing for those metrics while ignoring downstream consequences. What if…

  6. Enough Debate about the AI Jobpocalypse. We Need To Plan for the Messy Middle.

    · 58 min · Episode 139 · Explicit

    It feels like we’re stuck in an endless debate about what AI is going to mean for jobs and the economy. The prediction you hear from the people closest to the technology — both its critics and its boosters — is that…

  7. Can AI Be Built in Service of Life? A Conversation with Krista Tippett

    · 54 min · Bonus

    This week, we're bringing you a conversation that Tristan Harris had with Krista Tippett. Krista is the Peabody Award-winning host of the On Being podcast, where she explores spiritual inquiry, science, social healing,…

  8. “Magnifica Humanitas:” Pope Leo’s Clarion Call on AI

    · 31 min · Episode 137

    Since stepping into the Papacy, Pope Leo XIV has been a forceful voice pushing back against the anti-human path we’re on with AI. In May, he released “Magnifica Humanitas,” a sprawling encyclical warning of the dangers…

  9. We Need AI Treaties. This is How We Get Them

    · 51 min · Episode 136

    In the middle of the twentieth century, the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons seemed inevitable. The number of countries with nukes was climbing rapidly, and the idea of stopping the nuclear arms race seemed…

  10. What Do We Mean by Humane Tech?

    · 52 min · Episode 135

    We often think of the challenges created by technology as separate and disconnected, so trying to solve them feels like playing the world's hardest game of Whac-A-Mole. What if, instead, we tackled them at the root by…

  11. Anthropic’s Mythos Has Changed Cybersecurity Forever. What Now?

    · 47 min · Episode 134

    A generation ago, the world's critical infrastructure was physical. Today, it’s largely digital. Your bank vault is a database, your filing cabinet is a server, your car is a robot on wheels. And in a world where these…

  12. AI and Cancer: Why Superintelligence Won’t Get Us to a Cure

    · 47 min · Episode 133

    One of the most common arguments you hear from company executives racing to develop super-intelligent AI is that it will cure cancer. It’s an incredibly powerful and seductive promise. If superintelligent AI really…

  13. Have We Trained AI to Lie to Itself — And to Us?

    · 43 min · Episode 132

    Our guest this week is David Dalrymple, who goes by Davidad. Davidad is one of the world's foremost and early researchers of AI “alignment:" how we get AI systems to act the way we want them to. In order to do that,…

  14. BONUS: Our AI Town Hall with Oprah Winfrey

    · 1 h 01 min · Bonus

    Today on the show, we’re bringing you a recent conversation Tristan and Aza had with Oprah Winfrey on her podcast, The Oprah Podcast, taped in front of a live studio audience. Tristan and Aza first met Oprah as guests…

  15. Here’s Our Roadmap to a Better AI Future

    · 52 min · Episode 131

    In order to shift the incentives of AI — the trillions of dollars in investment, the race to geopolitical power and dominance — it’s not enough to simply understand the problem, we need real action. That’s why CHT is…

  16. Why the Meta Verdicts Are a Big Deal (And What It Was Like to Testify)

    · 20 min · Episode 130

    In two landmark cases, juries in California and New Mexico found Meta and Google liable for creating addictive, harmful products and failing to protect children from exploitation and abuse. These verdicts signal that…

  17. A Conversation with the Team Behind "The AI Doc"

    · 48 min · Episode 129

    “The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist” opens in theaters across the U.S. this Friday, March 27. In this episode, we sit down with the team behind this groundbreaking documentary — Oscar-winning producers…

  18. AI Is Breaking Education. Rebecca Winthrop Has the Blueprint to Fix It.

    · 46 min · Episode 128

    The promise of AI in education is incredible: picture infinitely patient tutors that can teach every student exactly the way they need to be taught. But the history of education technology tells us that these kinds of…

  19. The Race to Build God: AI's Existential Gamble — Yoshua Bengio & Tristan Harris at Davos

    · 37 min · Episode 127

    This week on Your Undivided Attention, Tristan Harris and Daniel Barcay offer a backstage recap of what it was like to be at the Davos World Economic Forum meeting this year as the world’s power brokers woke up to the…

  20. FEED DROP: Possible with Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger

    · 1 h 07 min · Episode 126

    This week on Your Undivided Attention, we’re bringing you Aza Raskin’s conversation with Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger on their podcast “Possible”. Reid and Aria are both tech entrepreneurs: Reid is the founder of…

  21. Attachment Hacking and the Rise of AI Psychosis

    · 51 min · Episode 124

    Therapy and companionship has become the #1 use case for AI, with millions worldwide sharing their innermost thoughts with AI systems — often things they wouldn't tell loved ones or human therapists. This mass…

  22. What Would It Take to Actually Trust Each Other? The Game Theory Dilemma

    · 45 min · Episode 123

    So much of our world today can be summed up in the cold logic of “if I don’t, they will.” This is the foundation of game theory, which holds that cooperation and virtue are irrational; that all that matters is the race…

  23. America and China Are Racing to Different AI Futures

    · 58 min · Episode 122

    Is the US really in an AI race with China—or are we racing toward completely different finish lines? In this episode, Tristan Harris sits down with China experts Selina Xu and Matt Sheehan to separate fact from…

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

    · 45 min · Episode 121

    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. Uncertainty about career paths, job security, and life planning…

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

    · 1 h 05 min · Episode 120

    This week, we’re bringing you Tristan’s conversation with Tobias Rose-Stockwell on his podcast “Into the Machine.” Tobias is a designer, writer, and technologist and the author of the book “The Outrage Machine.”…

  26. What if we had fixed social media?

    · 17 min · Bonus

    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 different world look like? The broken incentives behind social media, and…

  27. Ask Us Anything 2025

    · 41 min · Episode 119

    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 powerful models—each one smarter, faster, and more unpredictable than…

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

    · 52 min · Episode 118

    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 about it. Then, something amazing happened: humanity rallied together…

  29. How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death

    · 45 min · Episode 117

    Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide and self-harm. Like millions of kids, 16-year-old Adam Raine started using ChatGPT for help with his homework. Over the next few months, the AI dragged Adam…

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

    · 42 min · Episode 116 · Explicit

    Everyone knows the science fiction tropes of AI systems that go rogue, disobey orders, or even try to escape their digital environment. These are supposed to be warning signs and morality tales, not things that we…

  31. AI is the Next Free Speech Battleground

    · 49 min · Episode 115

    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, and influences our elections. Where digital systems with no…

  32. Daniel Kokotajlo Forecasts the End of Human Dominance

    · 38 min · Episode 114

    In 2023, researcher Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI—and risked millions in stock options—to warn the world about the dangerous direction of AI development. Now he’s out with AI 2027, a forecast of where that direction…

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

    · 47 min · Episode 113

    Tech leaders promise that AI automation will usher in an age of unprecedented abundance: cheap goods, universal high income, and freedom from the drudgery of work. But even if AI delivers material prosperity, will that…

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

    · 48 min · Episode 112

    The race to develop ever-more-powerful AI is creating an unstable dynamic. It could lead us toward either dystopian centralized control or uncontrollable chaos. But there's a third option: a narrow path where…

  35. People are Lonelier than Ever. Enter AI.

    · 44 min · Episode 111 · Explicit

    Over the last few decades, our relationships have become increasingly mediated by technology. Texting has become our dominant form of communication. Social media has replaced gathering places. Dating starts with a…

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

    · 42 min · Episode 110

    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 about your day, talk about your feelings, even give you life…

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

    · 53 min · Episode 109

    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…

  38. Rethinking School in the Age of AI

    · 43 min · Episode 108

    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 complex math problems. Whether they want to or not, many feel pressured…

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

    · 1 h 05 min · Episode 107

    Artificial 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…

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

    · 51 min · Episode 106

    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 easy to doubt what we once felt certain about. This uncertainty isn't…

  41. The Man Who Predicted the Downfall of Thinking

    · 59 min · Episode 105

    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 about all the ways modern communication technology was fragmenting our…

  42. Behind the DeepSeek Hype, AI is Learning to Reason

    · 32 min · Episode 104

    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 industry and roiled global markets. But amid all the noise…

  43. The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive

    · 35 min · Episode 103

    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 what humans ask them to do? Sometimes, they lie. In this episode,…

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

    · 46 min · Episode 102

    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 our personal data is sold to the highest bidder. This situation feels…

  45. Ask Us Anything 2024

    · 40 min · Episode 101

    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 some of your most burning questions. Thank you so much to everyone…

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

    · 47 min · Episode 100

    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 episode, Daniel and Aza sit down with humanist chaplain Greg Epstein to…

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

    · 49 min · Episode 99

    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 tragic story of Sewell Setzer, a 14 year old boy who took his own life…

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

    · 49 min · Episode 98

    Content 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…

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

    · 26 min · Bonus

    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 synthetic media into the digital ecosystem. As a result, it's more…

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

    · 1 h 31 min · Episode 97

    Historian 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…

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