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Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2017
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s If Then, Slate’s April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss some recent tech news, like the head-scratching revelation that WikiLeaks actually sent Donald Trump, Jr. Direct Messages on Twitter before and after the election, and a speech by Senator Al Franken that suggests we should regulate big tech companies more like utilities. The hosts are also joined by T. Dalton Brown from Dopamine Labs, the cofounder of an interesting and controversial startup whose mission is to help other companies make their apps and online platforms more addictive, by playing on our cognitive biases and psychological weaknesses.
You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April is @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment for us, you can email as well at ifthen@slate.com.
If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to If Then, the show about how technology is changing our lives and our future. |
| 0:12.5 | I'm Will Oremus. |
| 0:13.7 | And I'm April Glazer. |
| 0:23.7 | Hey, everyone, welcome to If Then. |
| 0:27.6 | We're coming to you from Slate and Future Tenths, a partnership between Slate, Arizona State University, and New America. |
| 0:29.3 | We're recording this on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 14th. |
| 0:33.2 | On today's show, we'll talk about how WikiLeaks, the radical whistleblowing group, run by |
| 0:37.0 | its pugnacious chief in exile, Julian Assange, actually sent Donald Trump, the son of President Trump, direct messages on Twitter before and after the election. |
| 0:47.5 | Nice going, WikiLeaks. |
| 0:48.7 | And how incredibly audacious and stupid that was, considering the suspicion of Russian ties to WikiLeaks, we'll also take a quick look at the data firm Trump's campaign used to target voters online, Cambridge Analytica, which also has a suspicious WikiLeaks connection. |
| 1:03.7 | All right. And I know April has strong feelings on this. We're also going to talk about a speech by Senator Al Franken that suggests we should regulate big tech |
| 1:11.2 | companies more like utilities. We'll debate whether that's a big deal, a sort of sea change in how we view |
| 1:16.1 | the tech industry, or whether I'm just overreacting to an inconsequential speech given by one senator |
| 1:21.6 | based on my own confirmation bias, which is entirely possible. And speaking of biases, we're going to |
| 1:26.6 | interview the co-founder |
| 1:27.5 | of an interesting and controversial startup, whose mission is to help other companies make their |
| 1:32.1 | apps and online platforms more addictive by playing on our cognitive biases and psychological |
| 1:37.7 | weaknesses. The company is called Dopamine Labs, and our guest is Dalton Combs. He has a |
| 1:43.5 | PhD in neuroeconomics, and hopefully he will tell us |
| 1:46.0 | what the hell that means. And then we'll end with Don't Close My Taps, our segment on some of the |
| 1:50.4 | best things we've seen on the web this week. So, next week should be fun because I am a human |
| 1:57.8 | guinea pig. What are you guinea piging? I am guinea pigging a AI assistant of robot that I let into my home made by Google, the all too powerful subsidiary of alphabet. |
... |
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