Every Friday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Latest episodes
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36 min
When A.I. Regulates Itself
Everyone wants A.I. to be regulated—including the major A.I. companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. There’s just one problem… they want to have a say in what regulation looks like fo…
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25 min
How Hormones Took Over Your Feed
Perimenopause’s journey from little-understood phase before menopause to the subject of every ad on social media for women of a certain age was quick—and impossible to imagine with…
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39 min
The Making of Elon Musk
An exchange of insults on X was all that director Alex Gibney got directly from the main character of his new documentary, “Musk.” But by interviewing his business partners, father…
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31 min
ChatGPT Doesn't Love You
A.I. large language models are prompt, attentive, positive and frictionless—in short, much easier to deal with than humans with their own needs, wants, and moods.But, as long as hu…
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28 min
Is the A.I. Race Real?
Artificial intelligence is pitched as a potential economic powerhouse—and also a potential bringer of the apocalypse. Can two economic and military rivals cooperate enough to fulfi…
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30 min
But HOW Might A.I. Kill Us All?
Why did the “Hugging Face Incident” scare A.I. researchers so much? And if they are so confident artificial intelligence needs to be slowed down, why aren’t they slowing it down?Gu…
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28 min
A.I-pocalypse Now?
After OpenAI agents hacked a rival company this summer, the word from Silicon Valley was “That’s it! They’re almost ready to kill us all!” But…are they? Really?Guest: Paul Ford, co…
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28 min
Meta Settled. Is it a "Reckoning?"
Does Meta’s $17 billion (give or take) settlement address people’s concerns about social media and its impact on teenagers… or is it already too late?Guest: Paresh Dave, senior wri…
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33 min
A.I. Enshittifies Everything (Still)
Through stealing your job or simply tanking the stock market—whichever comes first—the rise of artificial intelligence (companies) is a very futuristic sounding problem. It may hav…
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34 min
Can the Midterms Withstand Prediction Markets?
Hundreds of millions of dollars, desperation for insider info, fury and accusations of conspiracy when it doesn’t go your way—is this gambling or elections? Through the magic of pr…
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27 min
Are Flock Cameras Watching You?
In a world where everyone is carrying smartphones and setting up Ring cameras, you could be forgiven for thinking the war is over and the surveillance state won. But Flock cameras…
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32 min
Artificial Intelligence, Very Real Debt
Investments in—and among—artificial intelligence companies have pushed the S&P 500 to record highs. It’s also introduced a volatility to the markets that may be unprecedented. Is t…
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33 min
Can We Trust the Jobs Report?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a department for wonks, by wonks. But under the dual pressures of the changing nature of work—like the growing gig economy—and an administration t…
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6 min
Off-the-Record: Wait, You Ran THAT Boston Marathon?
Why are kids getting faster? Is it the shoes? Also, running the Boston Marathon is obviously a huge accomplishment, but if you ran the 2013 Boston Marathon, you should lead with th…
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24 min
Trump’s Only Friend
Steve Witkoff is a real estate investor, an attorney, and now America’s Special Envoy to the Middle East. It may seem like a weird career shift for Witkoff, but he’s such an outlie…
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5 min
A.I. Vs. Eh, I’m Walkin’ ‘Ere!
Ah, New York—where it’s hot, loud, and the air is barely breathable. So it’s not especially surprising that Governor Kathy Hochul is opting out of adding to all of that and announc…
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29 min
Game Over for Video Games?
Is Microsoft laying off 3,200 employees from the Xbox division just a new boss coming in and pruning an overgrown asset, or is it a sign that console gaming is coming to the end? G…
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21 min
Should You Take Trump’s Free $1,000?
If you’ve seen ads for Trump Accounts for kids, but also know anything about Donald Trump, you might be wondering “Free $1,000 per baby? Okay, what’s the catch?” It’s a classic. Gu…
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16 min
Diving In | How Food Delivery Killed Competition (And Took Your Budget With It)
Thanks for joining us during the holidays. White our team is taking a break, we want to share a series with you that we think you’ll love. It’s called Diving In. Getting food deliv…
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32 min
A.I. Enshittifies Everything
Through stealing your job or simply tanking the stock market—whichever comes first—the rise of artificial intelligence (companies) is a very futuristic sounding problem. It may hav…