We're in the invisible grip of technology, politics, and our own weirdness. We gotta get better at seeing it. Hosted by veteran journalist Jacob Ward (correspondent for Al Jazeera, PBS, NBC News, and CNN), The Rip Current is your guide to spotting the hidden forces at work in our lives and getting across them safely. Each week we speak to experts in the stuff you didn't know was having an impact on your life, from venture capital to racism to the tried-and-true tactics of bullies, and teach you how to see The Rip Current before it sweeps you out to...
Latest episodes
-
1 h 04
Debating Khan Academy’s Founder: Is AI Ruining Education?
Sal Khan is one of the most universally admired people in tech — a tutor who turned his makeshift online study guides for his young cousin into a free online education for 200 mill…
-
13 min
Trump Says AI Companies Will Police Themselves Under “Morally Binding” Agreement
I’m currently in Amsterdam to speak at a pair of events — TechSummit this week and World Summit AI next week — and I’m learning that being a European correspondent for American net…
-
57 min
Comparing Notes: Meta Trial Verdict w/ Jacob Ward
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe
-
22 min
The Terrifying Things Claude Can Do
The public resignation of Jacob Coxon — who told the world his industry is “gambling with our lives” — buried two other chilling warnings from inside the AI industry this week.The…
-
4 min
“They Are At The Whim of The President”
The story of MapQuest refusing to rename a lake isn’t about MapQuest. It’s about Big Tech, and whether we can rely on its principles. On Anderson Cooper 360 last night, anchor Jim…
-
28 min
“We Were Gonna Win.” So Why Did the States Settle with Meta? I Asked Colorado’s Attorney General.
By now you know how I felt about it. When I heard, seven days into the Meta trial, that the company would be allowed to settle with the States, I was astounded. “They did what?” I…
-
6 min
"Maybe He'll Listen to the CEOs Who Are About to Get This in the Throat"
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has spent a career worrying about the twin threat of debt and valuations. On Monday, in the Financial Stability Board’s letter to the G20’s f…
-
21 min
Inside the Meta Settlement: $16.7 Billion, No Fault, and a Clause That Saves Meta $5 Billion.
Meta Platforms settled with 51 state and territorial attorneys general at 6am PT this morning — about an hour after I’d published a vast think piece about what I thought the next s…
-
13 min
Meta Trial Day 2: If Zuckerberg Wanted it Done, It Would Be Done
Day two of the multistate trial against Meta in federal court in Oakland, where 29 state attorneys general are asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to reach inside the company and c…
-
13 min
The Meta Trial: How Zuck Will Fight Back
Reader note: I’m making these installments free for everyone, as I consider this trial to be a matter of crucial public interest. Still, support the work! Become a paid subscriber…
-
13 min
The Meta Trial: The States Say “We Have the Evidence”
Reader note: I’m making these installments free for everyone, as I consider this trial to be a matter of crucial public interest. Still, support the work! Become a paid subscriber…
-
3 min
Inside Meta's Biggest Case Yet
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comMeta goes to trial in Oakland tomorrow, and this one works differently from the two it already lo…
-
2 min
Zuckerberg's Biggest Trial Yet
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comA.I. Disclosure: I use LLM technology to help with research, fact-checking, document summaries, e…
-
16 min
Why AI Must Confess Now
In 1937, a Texas school exploded because natural gas has no smell — nobody could detect the leak until it killed nearly 300 people, most of them children. Within weeks, Texas passe…
-
10 min
Here Come AI Romance Scams
In 2022 I interviewed a young Nigerian man outside Lagos who’d spent years working as a romance scammer, grinding one target at a time until he finally convinced a lonely widow to…
-
5 min
"You Did It Before You Considered Whether You Should"
I do a lot of hits these days as a contributor to CNN, but I don’t post most of them — you’re getting the raw thinking here as a subscriber. But every so often the conversation pro…
-
1 min
Let Us Make A.I. Nudes If We Want, Say Elon Musk's xAI Lawyers
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comMinnesota’s HF 1606 takes effect this weekend. It is the first law in the country to target the c…
-
1 min
Here's Where Prediction Markets Go Wrong
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comGabriel Perez has run Donald Trump’s teleprompter since 2016. According to CFTC investigators, he…
-
14 min
Revisiting "The Loop"
I’ve been on a very lovely summer break, thanks to you. Your patience allowed me time with my family camping, roaming New York City in apocalyptic heat, and squiring a kid to a nat…
-
26 min
The Fight to Protect You Against AI (with Rep Sara Jacobs)
Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) just introduced the Sectoral AI Governance Act, a bill that would let federal agencies enforce existing laws — on housing, hiring, disability rights, benefi…