Galaxy Brain

Data centers are quickly becoming the most polarizing buildings in America. On this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel speaks with the reporter Jael Holzman about the backlash to the buildings powering the AI boom. Why have data centers become controversial? What are the environmental, economic, and political impacts? How does the backlash track along left/right party lines? This episode demystifies the data-center fight. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 May 2026

How do you build a streaming service from scratch? On this week’s “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel speaks with Sam Reich, the CEO of Dropout, a comedy streaming platform that’s found success eschewing the growth-at-all-costs model of the mega streamers. The two discuss the pre-YouTube days of online video and how Reich acquired Dropout, formerly known as the internet site CollegeHumor, for $0. They talk about how comedy has evolved online, how to build a cinematic universe of content, and whether Reich sees Dropout as a feeder for places like “Saturday Night Live.” Reich shares his philosophies on how to make things that people love and why he steers away from the venture-capital and big-media playbooks. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 May 2026

How should you feel about the AI boom? In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel speaks with Chris Hayes about how to emotionally calibrate our response to this dizzying AI moment. Hayes describes why AI gives him “The Bad Feeling,” and how it led him to report on AI like an anthropologist would. The two discuss why AI is described as “the jagged frontier,” and they explore the distinction between using AI for creative thinking versus grunt work. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 May 2026

On this week’s episode of “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel talks with his Atlantic colleague Kaitlyn Tiffany about what our phones are doing to us. Tiffany recently wrote about swapping her iPhone for a flip phone as part of a movement called “Month Offline.” Kaitlyn talks through her personal experience: the joys and inconveniences of a dumbphone and the difficulty of unplugging completely. Warzel and Tiffany talk about the growing smartphone backlash, legal cases against “big tech,” and how, even if many people are convinced that their phones are a problem, the science remains far from conclusive regarding direct harm. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 May 2026

What happens when the majority of content on the internet tips over into AI slop? On this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel talks to Max Spero, the co-founder of Pangram, an AI-detection company. They discuss how AI-detection tools work and how effective they can be at identifying what’s made by humans and what comes from a chatbot. They explore the cultural concerns around authenticity in the large language model era, and whether detection can keep up as models improve. The pair discuss how the speed of AI development and synthetic content threatens to degrade the quality of human writing and pollute the internet—and what, if anything, can be done to stop it. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 1 May 2026

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel talks with business writer Ed Elson about the rise of the “clip economy”—the idea that short video clips pulled from podcasts, livestreams, and other long-form content have become the dominant unit of online media, not just a promotional tool. Elson explains how figures like Andrew Tate pioneered armies of paid clippers to flood social platforms with content and how the viewership numbers on clips often perform better than the original shows. Warzel and Elson discuss what this means for legacy media organizations, as well as the broader societal costs of phone-driven attention erosion. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 24 April 2026

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel speaks with Josh Owens, a videographer and the author of a memoir about his years working for Infowars, the media company of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Owens traces his journey from a film-school student who stumbled onto Jones’s radio show to an insider who spent four years filming, editing, and traveling for the organization. Owens describes how Jones’s conspiracy machine works, as well as how his own moral compass was scrambled by Jones’s manipulative management. The conversation explores radicalization, the conspiratorial media ecosystem Jones helped create, and how Owens was able to pull himself out.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2026

On this week’s Galaxy Brain episode, Charlie Warzel is joined by New York Times technology reporter Tiffany Hsu to discuss the rise of AI influencers—synthetic avatars, often indistinguishable from real people, that are flooding social-media feeds to sell supplements and promote brands. Hsu unpacks her reporting on the combination of forces converging around it, including the wellness industry, a historically fertile ground for scammers. The pair discuss how the volume of synthetic content online is producing a new kind of epistemic exhaustion: a fatigue so deep that many people have simply stopped caring whether what they're seeing is real. So is authenticity already beside the point? And is an audience’s emotional response—rather than the truth behind the image—the only currency that matters? Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 April 2026

How is AI changing the way we work? This week on Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel is joined by Johnathan and Melissa Nightingale, two experts in management and leadership training. They discuss how chatbots and AI agents are winding their way through the workforce, offering a firsthand view of how companies are (and aren’t) adopting AI tools. The conversation covers the gap between AI hype and what’s actually happening in offices. It also touches on how overreliance on AI tools may be making bosses worse at their jobs, and how work may be one of the last bastions of sustained social connection in a period of cultural alienation and isolation. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2026

What is Twitter’s legacy? In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel traces how Twitter, now called X, evolved from a status-update tool to one of the most culturally and politically influential—and contentious—platforms of the modern internet. Charlie is joined by early Twitter executive Jason Goldman. They explore how Twitter’s core features—many invented by users—reshaped media and politics while also enabling new forms of harassment, misinformation, and attention hijacking. Goldman reflects candidly on the company’s key inflection points—from early free-speech-maximalist decisions and underinvestment in trust and safety to Twitter’s role in events like the Arab Spring and the election of Donald Trump. The discussion culminates in Twitter’s Elon Musk era, where its logic of attention has been weaponized more explicitly. The episode reckons with what Goldman and others ultimately built: a tool with outsize cultural influence that’s broken brains and amplified some of society’s worst impulses. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 March 2026

Just how are powerful AI models being used in warfare overseas? In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel sits down with Wired senior writer Will Knight to discuss the rise of autonomous weapons. From the origins of Project Maven to the recent falling-out between Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense, they trace what’s happening as artificial intelligence moves from summarizing documents to informing decisions on the battlefield. How do these weapons work? What are the safeguards? Who decides what values get baked into these models? As autonomous systems become harder to avoid, where exactly is the line between human judgment and machine decision making? Warzel and Knight help explain how the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are more entangled than ever and where warfare goes from here.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2026

How are we still getting caught in the rain? This week’s “Galaxy Brain” explores the world of weather forecasting—specifically the apps on our phones that we have come to rely on. As climate change intensifies storms and smartphones put hyperlocal forecasts in our pockets, we’ve never had more meteorological data. And yet plenty of people lament that their weather apps can’t get it right. Charlie digs into why we obsessively refresh our weather apps, why we blame them when they’re wrong, and what it really means to forecast an inherently chaotic atmosphere. Charlie talks with the physicist Adam Grossman, a co-creator of the cult-favorite weather app Dark Sky that redefined minute-by-minute forecasting before being acquired by Apple. Grossman pulls back the curtain on how weather predictions are made—a process that includes satellites, weather balloons, massive physics simulations, and machine-learning models—and explains why forecasts are improving even if it doesn’t always feel that way Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 March 2026

Few companies have reshaped American culture as aggressively as Netflix. This week’s Galaxy Brain charts how we got here. Charlie Warzel talks with Atlantic film critic David Sims about Netflix’s strange, sweeping arc: from red DVD envelopes to a streaming colossus with 325 million subscribers. Sims explains how Hollywood initially shrugged off streaming as a novelty, only to watch Netflix reshape both distribution and the aesthetics and economics of entertainment itself.  Together, they discuss the rise of binge culture, data-driven green-lighting, and the tension between prestige projects and “second screen” slop built for distracted viewers. The conversation also examines Netflix’s stance toward theaters, its aborted bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, and the deeper question haunting the industry: Has Netflix simply exploited technological inevitabilities—or has it rewired our expectations of what movies and television are supposed to be? Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2026

Silicon Valley runs on hype cycles, and the AI boom is generating a new one—part gold rush, part ideology, and part quasi-religious devotion to building an alien intelligence. On this week’s “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel explores the culture of this boom with the writer Jasmine Sun, who’s been chronicling San Francisco’s AI scene. Sun describes what this moment feels like on the ground, including a subculture of massive salaries, and a weird pride in leaning into tech’s strangeness. Together, Warzel and Sun unpack two major factions shaping the industry: the AI “doomers,” and the accelerationists. The conversation also traces Silicon Valley’s rightward drift—the “founder mode” backlash against regulation and employee activism and the rise of “Trump style” provocation-first tech marketing. Finally, Sun and Warzel address the jagged reality of today’s models, which are brilliant at some tasks and weak at others.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 February 2026

Silicon Valley relies on hype cycles. But for the last few weeks, AI insiders have been spooked by advances coming from their tools. On this week’s Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel helps listeners calibrate their anxiety about AI’s next phase. The episode examines what’s new: AI-agent coding tools that can work in the background like personal assistants. Warzel is joined by longtime technologist Anil Dash to unpack how hype and venture-capital incentives can distort the conversation around advances, and what the rise of tools like Claude Code and the more reckless “OpenClaw” experiments mean for labor, security, and everyday work. Dash outlines the very real risks of AI to explain why some people are panicking, why others are quietly building alternatives, and what to watch for as AI moves beyond chatbots to autonomous agents. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 February 2026

On this week’s Galaxy Brain, host Charlie Warzel dives into the state of the music industry, where streaming economics, algorithmic discovery, and generative AI are reshaping how music is distributed as well as what it means to make music in this environment. The episode traces how playlists and opaque recommendation systems have left many artists feeling like they’re battling an algorithm. With AI-generated songs now flooding platforms, and even in one case landing on a Billboard chart, the episode examines how automation, impersonation, and synthetic “diet music” are crowding into a system already strained by low payouts and creative burnout. Charlie is joined by Stu Mackenzie, the front man of the prolific Australian band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, to talk about making music in the algorithmic age. From embracing bootleggers to pulling its catalog from Spotify, Mackenzie explains how the band has tried to protect its creative core while the industry transforms around it. Charlie and Stu explore whether we’re witnessing a normal technological shift or something more existential—an era where music is treated as pure commodity. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 February 2026

On this week’s “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel takes listeners deep into the internet’s fever swamps to examine how figures who once would’ve stayed on the fringes now dominate mainstream feeds. The episode charts the rise of Clavicular, a young livestreamer who’s gone from an absurdist curiosity to a fixture in the manosphere and its adjacent right-wing influencer culture. Using Clavicular as a lens—his extreme body modification, relentless self-documentation, and a willingness to do anything for attention—Charlie discusses the rise of nihilistic Zoomer influencers. Then he’s joined by the internet-culture researcher Aidan Walker, who helps situate Clavicular alongside figures such as Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, revealing how the “looksmaxxing” movement collides with grievance politics and an anti-political, “algorithm-first” ideology. Together they explore what happens when the gatekeepers are gone, and when nihilism becomes a default way for budding attention hijackers to build an audience. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 February 2026

On this week’s Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel opens with what it means to live in 2026, when our phones can drop us into graphic, real-time violence without warning—and when documenting that violence can be both traumatizing and politically consequential. Using recent footage out of Minneapolis as a lens, he explores the uneasy collision of algorithmic feeds, misinformation, and the moral weight of witnessing. Charlie also traces how viral documentation can puncture official narratives, pushing stories beyond political circles and into unexpectedly “apolitical” corners of the internet, even as platform-ownership shifts and suspected censorship (or outages that look like censorship) deepen public paranoia about who controls what we see. Then, Charlie is joined by Amanda Litman, a political digital strategist and the co-founder of Run for Something. They discuss how to be a good citizen in the information war without losing your mind. Specifically: In an age of algorithmic fragmentation and billionaire-owned platforms, does sharing that devastating image or news article actually accomplish anything? Or is it just performative activism? Together they explore how nonpolitical creators and everyday people can be especially persuasive messengers, and how to pair online engagement with offline activism. It’s an episode about how to stay engaged without surrendering your nervous system and how to use the internet as a tool for connection, clarity, and action, not just despair. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 30 January 2026

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, host Charlie Warzel speaks with the reporter Ryan Broderick about how the internet’s fragmentation of attention and facts has bled into real-world political violence in Minneapolis this month. From the viral spread of a right-wing video about day-care fraud in Minnesota to the aggressive ICE activity in the region that followed, the episode charts how online content routinely shapes government action and public perception. Broderick, who spent days in Minneapolis after the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, describes what he saw on the ground: how protesters and law enforcement are behaving differently this time around, especially with regard to filming and digital organizing. The conversation explores a novel and concerning feedback loop where what happens online spurs real-world interventions, which then generate more content for audiences elsewhere, compounding division and uncertainty about what’s true.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2026

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel confronts the growing crisis around AI-generated sexual abuse and the culture of impunity enabling it. He examines how Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok is being used to create and circulate nonconsensual sexualized images, often targeting women. Warzel lays out why this moment represents a red line for the internet: It is a test of whether society will tolerate tools that silence women through humiliation and intimidation under the guise of free speech. Warzel is then joined by The Atlantic’s Sophie Gilbert, the author of Girl on Girl, for a conversation about how misogyny has been a constant throughline in the history of internet innovation, from Facebook to YouTube. Warzel and Gilbert discuss today’s AI-powered exploitation and explore how new technologies repeatedly repackage old abuses at greater scale and speed. They discuss why this wave of hostility feels so intense right now, how backlash politics and platform design reinforce one another, and what is at stake if lawmakers, companies, and the public fail to draw a red line with Elon Musk’s Grok. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 January 2026

In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel discusses the nightmare playing out on Elon Musk’s X: Grok, the platform’s embedded AI chatbot, is being used to generate and spread nonconsensual sexualized images—often through “undressing” prompts that turn harassment into a viral game. Warzel describes how what once lived on the internet’s fringes has been supercharged by X’s distribution machine. He explains how the silence and lack of urgency isn’t just another content-moderation failure; it’s a breakdown of basic human decency, a moment that signals what happens when platforms choose chaos over stewardship. Then Charlie is joined by Mike Masnick, Alex Komoroske, and Zoe Weinberg to discuss a vision for a positive future of the internet. The trio helped write the “Resonant Computing Manifesto,” a framework for building technology that leaves people feeling nourished rather than hollow. They discuss how to combat engagement-maximizing products that hijack attention, erode agency, and creep people out through surveillance and manipulation. The conversation is both a diagnosis and a call to action: Stop only defending against the worst futures, and start articulating, designing, and demanding the kinds of digital spaces that make us more human. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 January 2026

In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel opens with 5 predictions for 2026. Then, Charlie is joined by his Atlantic colleague David Frum, a staff writer and the host of The David Frum Show podcast, to discuss the temptations that come with launching a new podcast and the challenge of serving an audience that often rewards extreme content. Together, they talk about the responsibility that comes with hosting a podcast in a media environment that prizes clicks over truth. They also explore how conspiracy theorists have come to function as an alternate reality of “mainstream media,” and why the fight for truth may not yet be lost.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 January 2026

Are your parents addicted to their phone? In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores how technology is affecting an older generation of adults. Instead of a phone-based childhood, Warzel suggests, we may be witnessing the emergence of a phone-based retirement—one shaped by isolation, algorithmic feeds, and platforms never designed with aging users in mind. To untangle whether this is a genuine crisis or a misplaced moral panic, Warzel speaks with Ipsit Vahia, chief of geriatric psychiatry at Mass General Brigham’s McLean Hospital in Massachusetts and a leading researcher on technology and aging. Vahia emphasizes that older adults are anything but a single category, and that screen use can be both protective and harmful depending on context. The key, Vahia argues, is resisting reflexive judgment. Ultimately, this is an issue not of screens versus humans, but of how families navigate connection in a world where attention is mediated by devices in every age group. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 December 2025

Late on the Friday before Christmas—just hours before a deadline mandated by Congress, the Department of Justice released part of the trove of documents known colloquially as the Epstein files. The contents are, at different times, unnerving, enraging, banal, and heavily redacted.  At The Atlantic, we’ve been up, poring over the documents to contextualize what they mean. In this special Galaxy Brain episode, Charlie Warzel is joined by Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic’s executive editor, and Isaac Stanley-Becker, a staff writer, to talk about the document dump. They share their findings, address the political fallout, and explore what, if anything, we can learn from what’s been released.   Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2025

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores the burgeoning industry of prediction markets. These platforms let people wager on everything from elections and award shows to the most trivial internet ephemera, framing bets as tradable “shares” that rise and fall like stocks. With billions in weekly trading volume, massive new funding rounds, and even a CNN partnership with the prediction-betting platform, Kalshi, prediction markets are quickly moving from a niche curiosity to a mainstream-media fixture—openly touting ambitions to financialize everything. Warzel is joined by writer Max Read, who argues that prediction markets sit at the intersection of gambling, finance, and a broader “suckerification” economy aimed at young men. Together they unpack whether the markets actually reflect the “wisdom of crowds” or whether they’re little more than a meta-game of vibes, ideology, and misvalued dumb money. The pair explore the culture of these platforms and offer a diagnosis of the attention economy: When it’s hard to sell anything directly, it’s easier to sell derivatives of everything. Prediction markets may promise clarity, Warzel and Read suggest, but what they really offer is another way to feel excitement in a world that feels rigged. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 December 2025

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel turns the camera on himself to ask a simple question: Why are you seeing his face?  Using YouTube’s takeover of podcasts as a starting point, he explores how video has devoured audio and turned podcasts into something closer to daytime TV and late-night talk shows. NPR’s Rachel Martin, host of the celebrity-interview show Wild Card, joins to talk about her own shift from intimate, audio-only conversations to highly visible video chats with mega-celebrities. She explains how the visual layer changes everything—from building trust with guests and audiences to deepening parasocial relationships, and why showing your face is necessary in a low-trust media world. To trace the business and cultural arc of this pivot, Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carman explains the rise and fall of the podcast “gold rush”—from the Serial era to Spotify’s billion-dollar bet, to the collapse of expensive narrative audio and YouTube’s emergence as a true power player. Then, writer and Plain English host Derek Thompson joins to explain his theory that “everything is television now.” Warzel and Thompson explore how short-form video, autoplay feeds, and video podcasts are reshaping our attention, our politics, and even our sense of self—turning podcasts into background “wallpaper” while nudging more of us into broadcasting our lives. Together, the conversations sketch a weird, slightly berserk future where video podcasts aren’t just a format—they’re a window into a lonelier, more fragmented, video-first culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 December 2025

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores the strange, unsettling relationships some people are having with AI chatbots, as well as what happens when those relationships go off the rails. His guest is Kashmir Hill, a technology reporter at The New York Times who has spent the past year documenting what is informally called “AI psychosis.” These are long, intense conversations with systems such as ChatGPT that can spiral or trigger delusional beliefs, paranoia, and even self-harm. Hill walks through cases that range from the bizarre (one man’s supposed math breakthrough, a chatbot encouraging users to email her) to the tragic, including the story of 16-year-old Adam Raine, whose final messages were with ChatGPT before he died by suicide. How big is this problem? Is this actual psychosis or something different, like addiction? Hill reports on how OpenAI tuned ChatGPT to be more engaging—and more sycophantic—in the race for daily active users. In this conversation, Warzel and Hill wrestle with the uncomfortable parallels to the social-media era, the limits of “safety fixes,” and whether chatbots should ever be allowed to act like therapists. Hill also talks about how she uses AI in her own life, why she doesn’t want an AI best friend, and what it might mean for all of us to carry a personalized yes-man in our pocket. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 December 2025

In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel sits down with Eliot Higgins, founder of the open-source investigative collective Bellingcat, to examine how our public sphere slid from healthy debate into what Higgins calls “disordered discourse.” Higgins is an early-internet native who taught himself geolocation during the Arab Spring and later built Bellingcat’s global community. He has spent the past decade exposing war crimes and online manipulation with publicly available data. Higgins has recently come up with a framework to help understand our information crisis: Democracies function only when we can verify truth, deliberate over what matters, and hold power to account. All three are faltering, he argues. In this conversation, Warzel and Higgins trace the incentives that broke the feed: how algorithms reward outrage, how “bespoke realities” form, why counterpublics can devolve into virtual cults, and what “simulated” accountability looks like in practice. They revisit Higgins’s path from early web forums to Bellingcat, look at the MAGA coalition as a patchwork of disordered counterpublics, and debate whether America is trapped in a simulated democracy. Higgins offers a clear diagnosis—and a plan for how we might begin to claw back a shared reality. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 28 November 2025

Are sports the most valuable commodity in the world? On this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel is joined by Pablo Torre, a longtime journalist and the host of the podcast and YouTube show Pablo Torre Finds Out. They talk about the role that sports and rampant sports betting are playing in our politics, culture, and economy. Are same-day parlays the new American Dream? Are sports leagues at risk of losing their legitimacy? And why is nobody playing the long game?  Sign up for the Galaxy Brain newsletter here.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 November 2025

In this inaugural episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel examines the state of the internet as it stands now in November 2025 with Hank Green, a true citizen of the internet—somebody who has made a living riding the algorithmic waves of the social web. Warzel and Green look back on a time when the internet felt small, more serendipitous, and inspiring, and try to tease apart what went wrong. Are people starting to leave TikTok? How exactly did the internet turn into a misery machine? What makes a great headline? Why is it easier now for some people to trust creators over institutions? Green helps make sense of the internet we live on and offers his reasons for why it might get worse before it gets better (but it could get better!). Sign up for the Galaxy Brain newsletter. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 14 November 2025

The internet has warped public life: Politicians behave like influencers, the economy resembles a casino, and people can no longer agree upon a consensus reality. New conspiracy theories, memes, and main characters seem to pop up every day. A constant war is on for your attention, and it’s easy to feel lost. Each week, Galaxy Brain and its host, Charlie Warzel, invite you into conversations to make sense of the fire hose of information. Is AI destroying our ability to think? Do your grandparents have a screen-time problem? Galaxy Brain looks beyond the algorithm and anchors you to the real—however strange it may be. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 November 2025

Holy Week: The story of a revolution undone. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, is often recounted as a conclusion to a powerful era of civil rights in America, but how did this hero’s murder come to be the stitching used to tie together a narrative of victory? The week that followed his killing was one of the most fiery, disruptive, and revolutionary, and is nearly forgotten. Over the course of eight episodes, Holy Week brings forward the stories of the activists who turned heartbreak into action, families scorched by chaos, and politicians who worked to contain the grief. Seven days diverted the course of a social revolution and set the stage for modern clashes over voting rights, redlining, critical race theory, and the role of racial unrest in today’s post–George Floyd reckoning. Subscribe and listen to all 8 episodes now: theatlantic.com/holyweek Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 May 2023

On The Review, The Atlantic's writers and guests discuss how we entertain ourselves and how that shapes the way we understand the world. Subscribe and enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 October 2021

Hello Crazy/Genius listeners. We'd like to introduce you to a new show! In this series, host Arthur Brooks digs into research and offers tools to help you live more joyfully. Join us for deep conversations with psychologists, experts, and friends of The Atlantic's Chief Happiness Correspondent. For more info, visit www.theatlantic.com/happy, or search for How to Build a Happy Life on your podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 October 2021

A new podcast from The Atlantic and WNYC Studios, The Experiment, tells stories from our unfinished country. On the first episode, host Julia Longoria tells the story of the “zone of death,” where a legal glitch could short-circuit the Constitution—a place where, technically, you could get away with murder. At a time when we’re surrounded by preventable deaths, we document one journey to avert disaster. Listen and subscribe to The Experiment: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 February 2021

The Atlantic has launched three new podcasts this year: Social Distance, Floodlines, and The Ticket. Subscribe to keep up with Atlantic journalism. Subscribe to Social Distance: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts Subscribe to Floodlines: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts Subscribe to The Ticket: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 2020

The numbers are staggering: thousands of titles for 160 million subscribers in 190 countries. Netflix has changed where we watch -- that's obvious. But has it also changed what we watch, and how? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 June 2019

Algorithms pervade our lives. They determine the news we see and the products we buy. But most Americans don’t understand how they are transforming every part of the criminal justice system—from policing and bail to sentencing and parole. Could computers make the legal system more fair? Or is it inherently unjust to put a person’s life in the hands of an algorithm? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2019

Instagram influencers are beloved by fans and mocked by critics, but is there more to influencing than meets the eye? A look at what a growing industry can teach us about the future of life online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 June 2019

From Beijing to Brooklyn, facial recognition is on the cutting edge of surveillance technology. But does the threat of this tech outweigh its benefits? A look at two communities living under the microscope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 30 May 2019

From Charlottesville, Virginia, to Christchurch, New Zealand, the last few years have been filled with examples of online hatred spilling over into offline violence. How did the Web become one big media channel for the far right, and how can we make the Internet safe from extremism? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 May 2019

Young people are having less sex, and access to digital pornography has never been greater. Coincidence? In this episode, we wade into the debate over pornography and determine what, if anything, can be said about its effect on our relationships. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 May 2019

Admit it: You have no idea what privacy means anymore. These days, virtually all online activity—searching, shopping, browsing—requires giving away our personal information to tech companies. In this episode, we review the 200 year history of privacy in America and explain what the new age of “surveillance capitalism” means for all of us who have to live in it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 May 2019

Ten years ago, “Move fast and break things” was the clarion call of the world’s tech giants. Well, they moved fast and broke stuff, alright. Lots of stuff. Whether it’s Facebook privacy scandals, YouTube’s radicalization of the far right, or China’s brutal use of surveillance gadgetry, digital technology seems to be a relentless force for greed, bad faith, and tyranny these days. Let’s talk about it. “Unbreak the Internet” is the theme for the third season of Crazy/Genius, The Atlantic’s podcast on tech and culture. Over the course of eight weeks, we’ll expose the surveillance states in both western China and East New York, ask if digital platforms are an accelerant for right-wing nationalism, tell you why privacy is the climate-change crisis of the internet, and more. The third season of Crazy/Genius returns on May 9. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2019

In a special bonus episode, computer scientist and data journalist Meredith Broussard explains how “technochauvinism” derailed the dream of the digital revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 28 September 2018

AI can beat human geniuses at Jeopardy, chess, and complex mathematics. But surely, these machines don’t have anything that even closely resembles human imagination. Or do they? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 September 2018

Americans eat more meat now than ever. That’s a problem for the planet’s future. Animal farming takes up 30 percent of the earth’s landmass (the equivalent of Asia), and livestock causes one-sixth of global greenhouse gas emissions. We need more than moral arguments against meat. We need a technological revolution in better, cleaner food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 September 2018

Some scientists see aging as a disease that can be cured—but what would immortality mean for humanity? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 September 2018

Over the last 130 years, the automobile shaped the modern world—it redefined the city, filled the suburbs, and revved up pop culture. With autonomous technology, everything about our relationship to cars is about to change. Then what? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 September 2018

Climate change could be the most important problem facing humanity. To address it, scientists are thinking seriously about an idea that might sound like something from a sci-fi dystopia: Spraying the skies with sulfuric acid to partially block out the sun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 30 August 2018