A return to pragmatism

Shameless

Shameless Media

Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

MONDAY ANALYSIS: Reese Witherspoon has copped it this week for her comments about learning how to use AI tools. Emma Grede has continued to cop it for her comments about work-from-home culture. All of this backlash got us wondering: do we need a societal return to…pragmatism? Huge thanks to Merit for making this episode of Shameless possible! Sam Altman’s Trust Issues at OpenAI | The New Yorker Radio Hour Your hosts are Zara McDonald (@zamcdonald) and Michelle Andrews (@michelleandrews1). Shameless Podcast is produced by Annabelle Lee and Eilish Gilligan, executive-produced by Lucy Hunt and audio-edited by Eilish Gilligan. Our social media team consists of Naima Fatema, Divya Simmie and Eilish Gilligan, and our partnerships manager is Cindy Luu. Want to support our show? Clicking ‘follow’ on Apple and Spotify is the best way to do that, and we're super grateful to anyone who leaves a five-star review while they're at it. Also! An old-fashioned 'Tell a Friend In Real Life' is equally appreciated. Want more? We've got more… Subscribe to our newsletter Smart, Dumb Stuff: https://tinyurl.com/4yasjphn Follow us on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/2mf557ux Aaaand we’re on TikTok: https://tinyurl.com/2hchchrp Everything else your heart could ever desire is here: https://linktr.ee/shamelesspodcast Thanks for listening! We’re huge fans of yours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Shameless Media
0:07.0	M.
0:08.0	M.
0:09.0	M.
0:10.0	Ha,
0:11.0	ha,
0:12.0	who
0:13.0	who
0:14.0	who
0:15.0	ha
0:16.0	ha
0:17.0	ha
0:18.0	ha ha ha ha Hello and welcome to Shameless, the pop culture podcast for smart people who love dumb stuff.
0:36.9	You're joined, as always, by Melbourne
0:38.6	writers, Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald. Hello, Zazzie McDonald. Happy Monday and hello,
0:43.4	producer, Elish Gilligan. Hello. How we're both coming up on today's show,
0:47.3	Reese Witherspoon is copying it for saying women should learn more about AI. And that has given
0:53.8	us pause for thought, Michelle Andrews.
0:56.3	Yes. Not just about the specific conversation about women and AI. Don't worry, we won't
1:01.2	spend this entire episode on AI, but kind of the realities of the world we live in today and how
1:06.8	much we have to kind of weigh up idealism versus pragmatism. Yeah, a big wrestling of those
1:12.7	two competing things. Well, maybe some people don't think they're competing. We're going to
	...

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