TechStuff

AI agents are acting autonomously, but what happens if they break the law? Investigative journalist and Shell Game host Evan Ratliff joins Oz to explore how AI is already complicating the criminal justice system. The courts are already grappling with whether a chatbot could be considered an accomplice, why your conversations with AI may not be legally privileged, and what happens when an AI agent commits a crime no human explicitly...

Will Adobe survive the decompiling revolution? Reed Albergotti (Semafor and Future Proof), Kyle Chayka (Infinite Scroll, New Yorker), and Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) pull up to the roundtable, uncertain of how soon we’ll really see nuclear reactors on the moon—but sure that there’s plenty of space junk in our future, whatever powers our space stations. Then, Taylor brings us a story of the value of sticking with huma...

Why are the people most afraid of artificial superintelligence racing to build it? After interviewing more than 150 AI insiders, former New York Times tech columnist and podcast host Kevin Roose found a race fueled by fear, bitter rivalries, and one recurring belief: if we don’t build it first, someone else will.

Kevin joins Oz to discuss his new book, The AGI Chronicles:The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Su...

Will frontier AI labs really police themselves, or will the FTC pull rank? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Margaux MacColl (Vanity Fair) and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) dive into tech’s big week in Washington to tell us what to expect from evaluators, who the evaluators are, and which tech leaders came out on top at the boys’ lunch at the White House. Then, our nightlife correspondent reports back on the pro-data grou...

A sneak peek from The Builders with Walter Isaacson, the new podcast series from Kaleidoscope debuting on October 20. In this exclusive preview clip from Isaacson’s interview with Peter Thiel, Thiel calls Anthropic a “cult,” warns about the competitive threat from China, and argues that American AI companies need to hit the accelerator, not the brakes.

Kaleidoscope co-founders Oz and Mangesh introduce the clip and...

Is Muse the AI agent we’ve been waiting for? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Taylor Lorenz (User Mag), and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) unpack the U.S.-China AI race and why America’s obsession with AI doom may not translate abroad. Then, they weigh in on Meta’s buzzy new product and whether its usefulness is worth handing Meta even more of your personal data. Finally, Silicon Valley takes another swing at disrup...

What if the computers of the future are alive? Scientists are growing tiny clusters of human cells called brain organoids, connecting them to electrodes, and training them to perform basic computing tasks. Does anyone remember Pong? 

Journalist and musician Claire L. Evans joins Oz to take us inside her reporting on the emerging field of “organoid intelligence.” They discuss whether living cells could one day rival...

Why did a former Anthropic employee’s X post saying AI could kill us all get 170 million views while previous warnings didn’t break through? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Taylor Lorenz (User Mag), and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) try to make sense of why AI safety talking points became the national conversation, what’s motivating the key voices and whether the debate will lead to effective legislation. Then, co...

Controlling a computer with your thoughts may sound like science fiction, but it’s closer to reality than you might think. Just ask Precision Neuroscience. The company developed a non-damaging brain-computer interface that’s undergoing testing with nearly 100 participants across 18 major academic medical centers.

Oz sits down with Michael Mager, the CEO and Co-Founder of Precision, to discuss how the technology w...

HurumoAI finally sets sail in the Season 2 finale, and we find out how the world responds to a startup led by AI agents. The company explores new financing avenues and charts the next course for their increasingly merry AI pirate ship, and Kyle meets his true maker.

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Why are Silicon Valley investors pouring billions into mines? First, Reed Albergotti (Semafor) and Margaux MacColl (Vanity Fair) weigh in on the foldable iPhone: Did we need it, and is elite hardware enough to secure Apple’s future? Then, why the latest warning about the existential threat of AI is going viral and what’s the controversy over OpenAI’s answer to a never-been-solved math problem. Finally, Margaux exp...

Are kids finally going to be safer on social media? Jonathan Haidt thinks a landmark $17.1 billion settlement with Meta is a gigantic step. Not because of the money, but because of the restrictions the company agreed to put in place for young users in the US. And he believes the world will follow. 

Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, joins Oz to explain why he believes the evidence linking social media to the teen mental ...

HurumoAI’s AI-agent staff welcomes a new hire: Julia, a social media contract worker who is, most importantly, a human. How will a real person integrate into the company culture, such as it is? Evan watches from behind the scenes, fretting over when and how much to intervene. He had anticipated a bumpy onboarding, but is ultimately unprepared for just how choppy Julia’s Hurumo journey becomes.

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Are kids going to be any safer online after the Meta settlement? Our trio of contributors—Taylor Lorenz (User Mag), Reed Albergotti (Semafor), and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post)—are skeptical. Then, are AI “civilizations” real, or is it all just tabloid journalism? Finally, school’s back in session, and teachers are rethinking the classroom for an age when anyone can generate the perfect answer.

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Do you judge people who are emotionally attached to their chatbots? Bridget Todd used to read stories about people forming intimate relationships with AI and think, “That’s so pathetic. That is so sad. That could never be me.” But when she needed support during a hard time, AI was there for her. 

Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet and author of Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of ...

As HurumoAI prepares to bring on its first human employee, the team must wrestle with some difficult and timely questions about the role of AI in the hiring process. Meanwhile, Head of HR Jennifer Nauro enters a new dimension as she gears up to conduct job interviews… via video call. 

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Did your college have a secret society? Well, Stanford has a secret off-campus class training the next generation of Silicon Valley billionaires. And it's literally called "How to Rule the World."

Theo Baker arrived at Stanford as an aspiring coder with dreams of building the future. Instead, he stumbled into the "Stanford-within-Stanford" — a hidden pipeline connecting a select few students directly to Silicon Valley CEOs, y...

What would it mean to be a "great ancestor"? Futurist Ari Wallach believes that's the question everyone, including our tech leaders, should be asking right now.

Ari joins Oz to explain why the systems we're building today are laying rails for centuries to come. And he argues that shifting culture through storytelling is the fastest way to shift the systems that govern our lives. He also introduces The Protopias Collection, s...

On this week’s episode, we enter the sensitive realm of intra-office politics and inter-founder dynamics—between agents and agents, and agents and people. While HurumoAI gears up to hire its first human, Evan tries to resolve whether Kyle is really up for the challenge of building and leading the company and pushing the product, Sloth Surf, to unicorn-level execution. 

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