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Your Undivided Attention

The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin

171 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 2 of 4

  1. '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…

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

    · 42 min · Episode 96

    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 is about to hit a wall. Gary Marcus is in the latter camp. He’s a…

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

    · 39 min · Episode 95

    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…

  4. Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy (rerun)

    · 45 min

    [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…

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

    · 44 min · Episode 94

    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 to this moment? And where could we be going next? On this episode of…

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

    · 37 min · Bonus

    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 this Spotlight episode, the guys discuss what’s happened since then–as…

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

    · 33 min · Episode 93

    AI 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.…

  8. How to Think About AI Consciousness With Anil Seth

    · 48 min · Episode 92

    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, ethics, and incentives of artificial consciousness. Seth is…

  9. Why Are Migrants Becoming AI Test Subjects? With Petra Molnar

    · 46 min · Episode 91

    Climate 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,…

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

    · 38 min · Episode 90

    This 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…

  11. War is a Laboratory for AI with Paul Scharre

    · 59 min · Episode 89

    Right 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…

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

    · 47 min · Episode 88

    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 happened. Can we do better this time around? RECOMMENDED MEDIA Power and…

  13. Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis

    · 1 h 05 min · Episode 87

    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 teens, parents and schools to feel like they’re trapped by it all.…

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

    · 45 min · Episode 86

    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 sure they win AI supremacy. Correction: The latest available Nvidia…

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

    · 35 min · Episode 85

    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 for election season, Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang…

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

    · 25 min · Episode 84

    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…

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

    · 43 min · Episode 83

    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 sexual images in just a few clicks. With cases proliferating in high…

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

    · 36 min · Episode 82

    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 force with the powers of code — sounds more... magical. So, what can…

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

    · 47 min · Episode 81

    2024 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…

  20. 2023 Ask Us Anything

    · 35 min · Episode 80

    You 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…

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

    · 39 min · Episode 79

    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…

  22. A First Step Toward AI Regulation with Tom Wheeler

    · 35 min · Episode 78

    On 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…

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

    · 48 min · Episode 77

    In 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…

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

    · 32 min · Episode 76

    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…

  25. Inside the First AI Insight Forum in Washington

    · 27 min · Bonus

    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 Washington, D.C. Tristan and Aza were invited speakers at the event, along…

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

    · 44 min · Bonus

    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…

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

    · 46 min · Episode 75

    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 dig into the nuances of this argument, Tristan and Aza speak with academic…

  28. Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy

    · 44 min · Episode 74

    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…

  29. Protecting Our Freedom of Thought with Nita Farahany

    · 44 min · Episode 73

    We 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…

  30. Social Media Victims Lawyer Up with Laura Marquez-Garrett

    · 35 min · Episode 72

    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…

  31. Big Food, Big Tech and Big AI with Michael Moss

    · 35 min · Episode 71

    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. And…

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

    · 30 min · Episode 70

    What happens when creators consider what lifelong human development looks like in terms of the tools we make? And what philosophies from Sesame Street can inform how to steward the power of AI and social media to…

  33. Spotlight: How Zombie Values Infect Society

    · 23 min

    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 brain. Zombies are the perfect metaphor to explain something Tristan and…

  34. Feed Drop: AI Doomsday with Kara Swisher

    · 56 min · Episode 69

    There’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…

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

    · 39 min · Episode 68

    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 people who don't actually represent everything that they care about.…

  36. Spotlight: AI Myths and Misconceptions

    · 27 min

    A 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…

  37. Talking With Animals… Using AI

    · 24 min · Episode 67

    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 better understand ourselves and the world around us. Your Undivided…

  38. Can We Govern AI?

    · 40 min · Episode 66

    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,…

  39. Spotlight: The Three Rules of Humane Tech

    · 22 min

    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…

  40. The AI Dilemma

    · 42 min · Episode 65

    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 reliability, creativity, and ability to process intricate instructions. It…

  41. TikTok’s Transparency Problem

    · 37 min · Episode 64

    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: We've seen evidence of…

  42. Synthetic Humanity: AI & What’s At Stake

    · 46 min · Episode 63

    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…

  43. The Race to Cooperation

    · 35 min · Episode 62

    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…

  44. Ask Us Anything: You Asked, We Answered

    · 43 min · Episode 61

    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 responses from listeners to this podcast from all over the world. It was…

  45. Can Psychedelic Therapy Reset Our Social Media Brains?

    · 43 min · Episode 60

    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-crisis — an era of overlapping and interconnected crises like climate…

  46. Real Social Media Solutions, Now — with Frances Haugen

    · 27 min · Episode 59

    When 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…

  47. Spotlight — Humane Technology on '60 Minutes'

    · 12 min

    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…

  48. Spotlight — Elon, Twitter and the Gladiator Arena

    · 18 min

    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 episode about what this could mean for Twitter users and our global…

  49. They Don’t Represent Us — with Larry Lessig

    · 40 min · Episode 58

    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 research shows, there's pretty much no correlation between the…

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

    · 1 h 00 min · Episode 57

    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 $10 billion in corporate bonds to raise money for metaverse-related…

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