Anthropic Isn't Woke
ICYMI
Slate Podcasts
3.9 • 800 Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Slate editor Tony Ho Tran to talk about everyone’s sudden obsession with Anthropic, the AI company that refused to allow the Trump administration to use it for potential domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. Now, the right is branding them as “woke,” and the left is rushing to download Claude, Anthropic’s AI chatbot. Both sides, however, are wrong. An AI company will never be the leader of the #resistance, and stanning them for this choice risks normalizing all of AI’s other problems.
This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, I'm Kate Lindsay, and you're listening to I-C-Y-M-I-M-I, or in case you missed it, Slate's podcast about internet culture. And today we're |
| 0:22.4 | welcoming Tony Hotran back to the pod. Welcome Tony. Hi. It's good to be back. This is your third time |
| 0:28.0 | on the pod, which this is something we've decided this year. That gives you friend of the pod status. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm so honored, honestly. Three is friend. I think like five is like cousin and we'll go from there. |
| 0:38.6 | And I can't wait for what we have you here to talk about today because I am notoriously an AI hater. |
| 0:48.9 | But first, I have a quick favor for listeners before we start. |
| 0:52.4 | If you enjoy listening to us on Spotify, can you go and |
| 0:55.0 | take a second and hit follow on ICY My Show page? That will make sure that new episodes are front |
| 1:00.3 | and center in your feed. Plus, if you found us through Spotify's Your Daily Drive mix, please |
| 1:05.6 | note that this Spotify mix is going away on March 15th. So be sure to follow us now to keep getting our episodes all year long. And remember, we love reading your comments on Spotify. And the best way to keep up with the conversations is to follow us. Who knows, if you leave a comment, it just might end up on the show. With that out of the way. Tony, we are here today to talk about AI, but I'm building so much suspense for this thing because |
| 1:27.7 | there's one more quick thing I do want to talk about before we get to that, and that's |
| 1:31.1 | burgers. |
| 1:32.5 | I know out of left field, but have you borne witness to this sort of CEO burger off that is |
| 1:37.8 | happening on social media right now? |
| 1:39.5 | Yeah, that's like one of those things where I've been seeing it on social media, |
| 1:42.4 | but for my own mental health, |
| 1:44.9 | I have been avoiding learning as little as much as I possibly can about it. As I understand, |
| 1:49.5 | like the McDonald's CEO, like ate a burger in a really weird and awkward way. And so a bunch |
| 1:55.9 | of other burger CEOs have been like jumping in on it too. Yeah. So it's hard to tell, |
| 2:00.6 | and this isn't necessarily like a nice thing for them to hear Yeah. So it's hard to tell, and this isn't necessarily, like, a nice thing for them to hear either, |
| 2:03.4 | but it's hard to tell if, like, the CEO's way of eating a burger was just, like, weird in the way that all really rich men are kind of weird. |
| 2:11.6 | Or if it was that he genuinely didn't like the product. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.