kill switch

kill switch

Were we sleeping when everything changed? Seems like the technologically driven future is already here. On kill switch, we explain the right NOW of our supercharged technological lives. Ask ourselves who is in control? Can we beat the computer or are we going to need to throw the kill switch? New host Dexter Thomas, Jr answers questions big and small – like who made Shrimp Jesus and why? To how and why you very well could get arrested by a computer. And we’ll be bringing the DIY back to tech – How to Now on everything from how to run your own LLM to tips to mitigate your exposure online.

Episodes

May 21, 2025 33 mins

Almost two million people watched a horrific story of a murder in Colorado: the “grisly” death of a real estate agent who had a secret affair with his stepson. The problem is, there was no crime. Dexter talks to Henry Larson, the reporter who tracked down the guy behind the video, about where the story came from and what it means for the “True Crime” genre. He also asks True Crime podcasters, Lauren Bright P...

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About 48 hours after the US National Security Advisor was spotted using a weird cloned version of Signal, someone said they’d hacked it. It took them all of 15 minutes. We now know that TeleMessage is ‘cartoonishly hackable,’ but we still don’t know why top White House officials were using it. And what about the investigation to find out if this Israel-based app is bad on accident, or on purpose? I called up...

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Have you seen Shrimp Jesus? What about the Hollywood sign burning? It probably feels random, but it’s not. There are real people behind AI Slop, and there’s real money to be made. Dexter talks to Jason Koebler from 404 Media who’s been tracking AI slop since its beginnings, and they compare notes to try to figure out where the money is coming from.

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kal...

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While you were going about your life, we all narrowly avoided a complete disaster. This is the story of how one lone Microsoft engineer saved all of us. Dexter talks to Alex Stamos, Chief Information Security Officer at SentinelOne, about how it all went down and why this story still terrifies him today.

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

See omnystudio.com/...

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April 23, 2025 39 mins

Welcome to our first episode of kill switch, where we’re diving right into the deep end – investigating how police departments are implementing AI technology. Can AI facial recognition be a magical solution to the unreliability of witness identification? Or is it just making things worse? Dexter talks to Douglas MacMillan, a reporter from the Washington Post, who has been tracking the spread of the technology, and where...

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April 16, 2025 2 mins

Sleepwalkers is now Kill Switch, where we explain the right now of living in the future. Everything from making money on saving fake baby animals to how you could get arrested by a police algorithm. Every Wednesday we talk to people to help us understand how our tech-focused society works …or doesn't work.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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April 9, 2025 7 mins

Were we sleeping when everything changed? Not if you listened to the first season of this podcast, because a whole lot of what we explored is now reality. Seems like the technologically driven future is already here. So we've decided to bring the show back -- with a new host, Dexter Thomas Jr  and a new perspective. 

On Kill Switch, we explain the right NOW of our super charged technological lives. Examining the...

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August 27, 2021 21 mins

We explore the hidden role of cobalt in the A.I. revolution. The element is a key ingredient of lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from cell phones to laptops to electric vehicles. But the way cobalt is mined is troubling. New Yorker journalist Nicolas Niarchos takes us to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which accounts for more than 70% of the world's cobalt supply. There, he exposes child labor in the supply chain and...

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January 24, 2020 24 mins

In this special bonus episode, Oz and Karah share their trip to the Consumer Electronics Show. They present excerpts from a conversation with Matt Monahan of The Washington Post about how to best harness the power of AI, while avoiding common pitfalls. Matt is head of product for Arc Publishing, which began life as The Post's internal publishing suite, and is now licensed by hundreds of partner sites. Oz and Karah also discuss thei...

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January 14, 2020 26 mins

In this special episode, Oz and Karah examine our evolving relationship with the technology we create. Karah meets Jason Cohen, CEO of Analytical Flavor Systems, to see if his team can hack her taste preferences, and use AI to create a new flavor of beverage that she will love. Oz and Karah also look ahead to Season 2, previewing stories they are excited to report, including algorithms that promise to optimize end-of-life conversat...

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July 4, 2019 44 mins

The rules are changing. At a time when technology promises to allow the lame to walk and the blind to see, we're forced to ask: what makes us uniquely human? In this final episode of Season 1, we speak with the so-called "sage of Silicon Valley," Yuval Noah Harari, about humanity's future. We try out technology that claims to deliver on a miracle, and we meet the source of several new innovations being created by people normally le...

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June 27, 2019 43 mins

A.I. is already better than human doctors at diagnosing skin and breast cancer. And as machine learning advances, it's becoming able to decode more complex information, like brain waves and the human genome. A.I. is beginning to revolutionize medicine, and allowing us to see into the future of our bodies...but can we ever know too much about ourselves? What will happen when machine learning lets us open our own black boxes?

 

In thi...

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June 20, 2019 42 mins

War has been a driver of breakthrough technology for a long time. The first waves of artificial intelligence and even the internet came out of DARPA, a defense agency whose original mission was to keep the U.S. technologically ahead of the Soviet Union. But what happens when the battlefield is increasingly dominated by autonomous weapons, which don't require humans in the loop to shoot and kill? In this episode: Arati Prabhakar, fo...

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June 13, 2019 30 mins

Robots are coming for our jobs, and not just in factories. Artificial intelligence doesn't distinguish between blue collar and white collar work, which means that the economy of the future will look very different. And as it changes, we'll need to make big adjustments. But A.I. is also being used in the fight against world hunger. This episode, we speak with roboticists, inventors, and a fast food regular about how we'll put food o...

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June 6, 2019 37 mins

We travel to Silicon Valley where Astro Teller welcomes us inside X, Google's secretive innovation laboratory, to explain how one of the most powerful companies on earth is building the future. X is working on everything from creating new antibiotics to restoring internet connectivity after natural disasters. And they're not alone. Tech companies are increasingly involved in building infrastructure, and even playing the role of gov...

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May 30, 2019 38 mins

It's getting harder to tell reality from fiction. Fake news and misinformation are all around us, and they're increasingly used as weapons of war. But what happens when A.I.-doctored videos are added to the mix? We meet the people fighting back against deep fakes, and even using them for good. And we visit Facebook headquarters to learn how Russian agents are trying to manipulate our behavior.

 

In this episode: Nathaniel Gleicher o...

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May 23, 2019 32 mins

Ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where computers know exactly what we're feeling? It may sound far-off but advances in sensor technology and A.I. are making us easier to read than ever. For some, this conjures fears of a Minority Report future. For others, it means revolutions in medicine and end-of-life care. We speak with leading experts in the field of empathetic technology to understand the risks and rewar...

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May 16, 2019 35 mins

If data doesn't make you think of a new world order, it should. AI is enabling wholesale surveillance, and changing the landscape in countries like China, where cameras monitor citizens to decide their social credit score. But how is this already playing out in the US? We speak with experts on both sides of the Pacific, and visit the NYPD to learn how they use AI. Plus, we see where else predictive technology is being used in the A...

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May 9, 2019 29 mins

If there's one thing that sets people apart from machines, it's creativity, right? Automation may take over certain jobs, but what happens when algorithms start to learn from our work to create their own? This episode, we speak with people using AI to generate films, poetry, music, and even recipes. And the founder of Google X, Sebastian Thrun, explains what's powering this new wave of AI.

In this episode: Ross Goodwin and Oscar Sh...

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May 2, 2019 33 mins

Welcome to the A.I. revolution that is already transforming our lives, for good and evil. But what exactly are we sleepwalking into? We start by investigating the connections between online dating, terrorism, and screen addiction.

In this episode we hear from: Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology, Gillian Brockell of the Washington Post, Yasmin Green of Jigsaw, and Dr. Helen Fisher.

Learn more about your ad-choices at...
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