Your Undivided Attention

AI companion chatbots feel human but they're not. They're platforms designed to maximize engagement, risking artificial intimacy and addictive intelligence. MIT’s Pattie Maes & Pat Pataranutaporn join the show to discuss better paths forward.

Transcribed - Published: 15 May 2025

What does it mean to ‘feel the AGI?’ In this episode, Aza and Randy unpack why debates on intelligence distract us from urgently needed conversations about governance, incentives, and readiness—before the AGI wave crashes ashore.

Transcribed - Published: 30 April 2025

AI has upended school as we know it. In this episode, Daniel and Tristan talk with Maryanne Wolf and Rebecca Winthrop about how tech has broken the old model of education—and how we might build something better.

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

AI could unlock vast technological potential—if we do it right. Rob Bilott, who fought chemical giants over toxic PFAS, shares a cautionary tale: how the harms of new tech can go unchecked, and why we must align innovation with safety before it’s too late.

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2025

From Big Tobacco to Big Tech, powerful industries have perfected the art of manufacturing doubt about their harms. In this episode, historian Naomi Oreskes reveals the playbook corporations have used throughout history to weaponize uncertainty, fund fake experts, and shift blame to individuals—and what it all means for AI.

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2025

Forty years ago, Neil Postman warned that “we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.” He was writing about TV, but his insights feel eerily prophetic in our age of smartphones, social media, and AI. In this episode, we explore Postman’s ideas and what they can teach us.

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2025

DeepSeek's breakthrough in AI sent markets reeling. But behind the headlines lies a crucial shift: AI that can actually reason and think. As labs race toward self-improving AI, the real question isn't how fast we can go, but how to steer this power for the benefit of us all.

Transcribed - Published: 20 February 2025

When engineers design AI systems, they don't just give them rules - they give them values. But what do those systems do when those values clash with what humans ask them to do? Sometimes, they lie. AI researcher Ryan Greenblatt comes on the show to explore why.

Transcribed - Published: 30 January 2025

The broken status quo of tech may feel immovable, but Srdja Popovic knows something about challenging power. A leader of the Serbian resistance, he's spent his life studying how to transform entrenched systems. In this episode, he shares insights that can help address our challenges with tech.

Transcribed - Published: 16 January 2025

2024 was a critical year in both AI and social media. Things moved so fast it was hard to keep up. So our hosts reached into their mailbag to answer some of your most burning questions.

Transcribed - Published: 19 December 2024

Religious thinking is shaping the future of technology: AI is talked about as a godlike force and tech leaders promise us digital salvation. Greg Epstein argues that we need to see tech as our era's most influential religion - can he help us understand where this is all headed?

Transcribed - Published: 21 November 2024

Sewell Setzer’s mom, Megan, is suing Character.ai for the role it played in her son’s death. The outcome could force the company–and potentially the entire AI industry–to change its ways. Today on the show, one of Megan’s lawyers, Meetali Jain, breaks down how the case could lead to systemic change.

Transcribed - Published: 7 November 2024

Megan Garcia lost her son Sewell to suicide after he was abused and manipulated by AI chatbots for months. Now, she’s suing the company that made those chatbots. On today’s episode of Your Undivided Attention: journalist Laurie Segall’s interview with Megan for her new show Dear Tomorrow.

Transcribed - Published: 24 October 2024

AI has unleashed a flood of synthetic media onto the web, making it more difficult than ever to tell what’s real. So Oren Etzioni made a free, non-partisan, non-profit tool to detect AI-generated content. Oren talks to Tristan about the fight to restore a sense of reality online.

Transcribed - Published: 10 October 2024

Historian Yuval Noah Harari says that we are at a critical turning point. One in which AI’s ability to generate cultural artifacts threatens humanity’s role as the shapers of history. History will still go on, but will it be the story of people or, as he calls them, ‘alien AI agents’?

Transcribed - Published: 7 October 2024

Computer scientist Gary Marcus has been called AI’s loudest critic, and he predicts AI’s exponential curve will soon flatten out. He also thinks we’re unprepared to handle the AI we already have. In this episode, Gary discusses his AI skepticism and what we need to do to get this rollout right.

Transcribed - Published: 26 September 2024

As companies race to roll out more capable AI models–with little regard for safety–the downstream risks become harder to counter. On Your Undivided Attention this week, our policy director Casey Mock outlines a new legal framework to incentivize better AI through liability law.

Transcribed - Published: 13 September 2024

[This episode originally aired on August 17, 2023] AI is harming our relationships, warns acclaimed psychotherapist Esther Perel. What would it look like for technology to strengthen our social bonds, rather than depriving us of the nuance that allows us to connect?

Transcribed - Published: 6 September 2024

Today, the tech industry is the second-biggest lobbying power in Washington, DC, but that wasn’t true as recently as ten years ago. How did we get to this moment? And where could we be going next? On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, Tristan and Daniel sit down with historian Margaret O’Mara and journalist Brody Mullins to discuss how Silicon Valley has changed the nature of American lobbying.

Transcribed - Published: 26 August 2024

It’s been a year and half since Tristan and Aza laid out their vision and concerns for the future of artificial intelligence in The AI Dilemma. In this episode, the guys discuss what’s happened since then and where we could be headed next.

Transcribed - Published: 12 August 2024

AI has been a powerful accelerant for biological research, rapidly opening up new frontiers in medicine and public health. But that progress can also make it easier for bad actors to manufacture new biological threats. In this episode, Tristan and Daniel sit down with biologist Kevin Esvelt to discuss why AI has been such a boon for biologists and how we can safeguard society against the threats that AIxBio poses.

Transcribed - Published: 18 July 2024

Will AI ever start to think by itself? If it did, how would we know, and what would it mean? In this episode, Professor of Neuroscience Anil Seth and Aza discuss the science, ethics, and incentives of artificial consciousness.

Transcribed - Published: 4 July 2024

In response to the growing global refugee crisis, governments are employing novel AI and surveillance technologies to slow the influx of migrants. But will this rollout stop at the border? Tristan and Aza sit down with immigration lawyer Petra Molnar to discuss how borderlands have become a proving ground for high-risk AI technology.

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2024

Whistleblower William Saunders quit over systemic issues at OpenAI. Now he’s put his name to an open letter that proposes 4 principles to protect the right of industry insiders to warn the public about AI risks. On Your Undivided Attention this week, Tristan and Aza sit down with Saunders to discuss.

Transcribed - Published: 7 June 2024

Today’s battlefields have become laboratories for the use of AI weaponry and drones. From Ukraine to Gaza, weapons systems with increasing levels of autonomy are being used to kill people and destroy infrastructure. So what does this mean for the future of warfare? Author and former Pentagon policymaker Paul Scharre joins the show to discuss.

Transcribed - Published: 23 May 2024

Tech companies say that AI will lead to massive economic productivity gains. But as we know from the first digital revolution, that’s not what happened. Can we do better this time around?

Transcribed - Published: 9 May 2024

Suicides. Self harm. Depression and anxiety. The toll of a social media-addicted, phone-based childhood has never been more stark. It can be easy for teens, parents and schools to feel like they’re trapped by it all. But in this conversation with Tristan Harris, author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the case that the conditions that led to today’s teenage mental health crisis can be turned around – with specific, achievable actions we all can take starting today.

Transcribed - Published: 11 April 2024

Beneath the race to train and release more powerful AI models lies another race: a race by companies and nation-states to secure the hardware to make sure they win AI supremacy.

Transcribed - Published: 29 March 2024

Is there a vision of our future where AI can help our democracies thrive, rather than just survive? With election season underway, Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang returns to the podcast to discuss how to create a resilient democracy in the age of AI.

Transcribed - Published: 29 February 2024

Was it political progress, or political theater? The recent Senate hearing with social media CEOs led to astonishing moments — including Mark Zuckerberg’s public apology to families who lost children following social media abuse. Our panel untangles the explosive hearing, and what might come next.

Transcribed - Published: 13 February 2024

Ninety-six percent of deep-faked images and videos are sexually explicit and non-consensual. Legal scholar Mary Anne Franks and journalist Laurie Segall discuss the AI-enabled rise in deep fake porn, and what we can do about it.

Transcribed - Published: 1 February 2024

What can tales of mythology and magic teach us about the AI race? Mythologist Josh Schrei explains how looking at foundational cultural stories could guide ethical tech development.

Transcribed - Published: 18 January 2024

2024 will be the biggest election year in world history. In this episode, two experts give us a situation report on how AI will increase the risks to our elections and our democracies.

Transcribed - Published: 21 December 2023

You asked, we answered. This has been a big year in the world of tech. There are still so many questions in our minds, and we know you have a lot of questions too. So we created this episode for you to ask us anything!

Transcribed - Published: 30 November 2023

As AI development races forward, a fierce debate has emerged over open source AI models. So what does it mean to open-source AI? Are we opening Pandora’s box of catastrophic risks? Or is open-sourcing AI the only way we can democratize its benefits and dilute the power of big tech?

Transcribed - Published: 21 November 2023

Tristan and Aza discuss President Biden’s executive order on AI with Tom Wheeler, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Transcribed - Published: 2 November 2023

Dr. Joy Buolamwini, the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, argues that the most urgent risks from AI are algorithmic bias, discrimination, and the concentration of power in tech companies.

Transcribed - Published: 26 October 2023

Dr. Joy Buolamwini, the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, argues that the most urgent risks from AI are algorithmic bias, discrimination, and the concentration of power in tech companies.

Transcribed - Published: 26 October 2023

To reap the benefits of AI, we’re going to need to get good at saying no certain forms of progress for the first time.s. Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI, calls for containment as we approach an historic technological threshold, urging regulation before it’s too late.

Transcribed - Published: 28 September 2023

Tristan and Aza were invited to speak at Senator Chuck Schumer’s historic AI Insight Forum last week. What are their big takeaways, and what effect do they predict this closed-door meeting will have?

Transcribed - Published: 19 September 2023

Where do the top Silicon Valley AI researchers really think AI is headed? Do they have a plan if things go wrong? In this episode, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin reflect on the last several months of highlighting AI risk, and share their insider takes on a high-level workshop run by CHT in Silicon Valley.

Transcribed - Published: 12 September 2023

It’s a common counterpoint: “But what about China? We can’t let China get ahead.” In this episode, experts Jeffrey Ding and Karen Hao explain the realities of Chinese AI development and assess the stakes for the multi-national race.

Transcribed - Published: 31 August 2023

AI is harming our relationships, warns acclaimed psychotherapist Esther Perel. What would it look like for technology to strengthen our social bonds, rather than depriving us of the nuance that allows us to connect?

Transcribed - Published: 17 August 2023

We’re on the cusp of an explosion of cheap, consumer-ready neurotechnology - and it’s all going to be supercharged by AI. Legal scholar Nita Farahany talks us through the current state of neurotech, and explains why we need a new legal framework around “cognitive liberty” to protect the last frontier of privacy: our thoughts.

Transcribed - Published: 3 August 2023

Social media was humanity’s ‘first contact’ moment with AI. If we’re going to create laws that are strong enough to prevent AI from destroying our societies, we could benefit from taking a look at the major lawsuits against social media platforms that are playing out in our courts right now. Attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett is literally on the front lines of the battle to hold social media firms accountable for the harms they have created in young people’s lives. Listener warning: there are distressing details within the episode.

Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2023

In the next two episodes of Your Undivided Attention, we take a close look at two respective industries: big food and social media, which represent dangerous “races to the bottom” and have big parallels with AI. Our first guest in this pairing is the bestselling author Michael Moss. We discuss how we can leverage the lessons learned from Big Food’s coordination failures, and whether it’s the responsibility of the consumer, the government, or the companies to regulate.

Transcribed - Published: 6 July 2023

On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin speak with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, the Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content for the Sesame Workshop, the non-profit behind Sesame Street. What happens when app creators consider what lifelong human development looks like in terms of the tools we make? And what philosophies from Sesame Street can help us steward the power of AI and social media to influence minds in thoughtful, humane directions?

Transcribed - Published: 22 June 2023

Zombies are the perfect metaphor to explain something Tristan and Aza have been thinking about lately that they call 'zombie values.' In this Spotlight episode, we talk through some examples of how zombie values limit our thinking around tech harms. Our hope is that by the end of this episode, you'll be able to recognize the zombie values that walk amongst us, and think through how to upgrade those values to meet the realities of our modern world.

Transcribed - Published: 8 June 2023

Kara Swisher challenges Tristan Harris on the so-called ‘AI Doomsday’ in a wide-ranging discussion. If you enjoy their conversation and want to hear more of Kara’s interviews with folks like Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and others, you can find episodes of ON with Kara Swisher on your favorite podcasting app.

Transcribed - Published: 2 June 2023

Democracy in action has looked the same for generations. What would an upgrade look like - not just for democracy, but for all the different places that democratic decision-making happens? On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, we’re joined by political economist and social technologist Divya Siddarth, one of the world's leading experts in collective intelligence.

Transcribed - Published: 25 May 2023