Factually! with Adam Conover

Even if the AI bubble bursts, the technology won’t just disappear. We’re going to live alongside some version of AI, so we have to ask: what does our future with AI look like? This week, Adam invites Ethan Mollick, AI expert and professor at Wharton School of Business, to challenge his skeptical view on AI and look at how it might impact our daily lives. Find Ethan's book at factuallypod.com/books

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Why should we assume that AI is safe? As the technology has grown at an alarming rate, companies like OpenAI have seen wrongful death lawsuits begin to stack up as their product drives users to suicide. With the mental health risks, the societal risks, and the unknown risks, we have to ask, can AI ever really be safe? This week, Adam speaks with Steven Adler, an A.I. researcher who led product safety at OpenAI, about the d...

While it feels like the very concept of an accepted collective reality has crumbled around us, Wikipedia has gradually revealed itself to be our accepted arbiter of truth. How did this social project, built on the backs of countless volunteers, come to be the one site on the internet that we all pretty much agree to be “true”? Or mostly true, at least. Annie Rauwerda is a Wikipedia editor known for her incredible social me...

Plastic is everywhere. Over the past century, we’ve stuffed our landfills, lined the bottom of the ocean floor, and even managed to get microscopic particles floating through our blood and bodies. Topping things off, the industry is only growing. Plastics simply do not go away, and neither will this problem unless we do something about it. This week, Adam talks about ending plastic pollution with Judith Enck, a former EPA ...

The rumors are true: our world is a dumpster fire, and it feels like it’s growing hotter and stinkier by the day. If it feels hopeless, like it’s useless for one person to even try, perhaps it’s a change in perspective. This week, Adam sits with two philosophers to explain why change is ALWAYS possible. Alex Madva is a professor of philosophy at Cal Poly Pomona, and Michael Brownstein is a professor of philosophy at t...

Do you have the not-so-creeping feeling that the world is ending? You might be right. The world’s ended before, and the world will end again—just not in the way we see in TV and movies. Lizzie Wade’s new book, Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures, explores how events like the colonial extermination of indigenous peoples or the Black Death were the end of the world for the affected peo...

You’ve almost certainly heard Peter Thiel’s name. You very likely even have an opinion about him. But how much do you actually know about him? One of the most powerful people in America is also one of the most secretive, because that lack of public visibility gives him much more room to exercise a scary amount of control over our country. This week, Adam gets the in-depth scoop on Peter Thiel with Bloomberg Business Week r...

Our politicians are too f*#&ing old. We’ve covered the state of our dismal, sleepy, cranky gerontocracy before—but how do we actually get power into the hands of people who are not Boomers? Waiting for a mass die-off isn’t an option. This week, Adam speaks with Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run For Something, a PAC that recruits young progressive candidates, and the author of When We're in Charge: The Next...

Half the states in the US have passed age verification laws that put pornography under threat. Not only does this compromise a vital industry, it puts all of free speech in danger as well. Today, Adam is joined by Siri Dahl, an adult performer and outspoken critic of age verification laws, and Noelle Purdue, a writer and internet porn historian. Together, they discuss how attacks on porn have been an entry point for devast...

Everyone in their right mind already knows the gift: Trump ran on helping working people, then immediately threw working Americans to the wolves in favor of helping the ultra-wealthy. But it’s not just Trump who is screwing us; he’s made it easier for businesses to exploit the average American as well. He recently eviscerated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has stood in place to defend average Americans fro...

While we think of automobiles as an integral part of American life, the fact is that they’re just objectively a bad form of transportation. They’re costly, they don’t scale well, and they’re a leading cause of death in the country. The oil and automobile lobbies have done a lot of work to make it feel like there’s no way we could live without cars, but the fact remains that it’s very possible to take significant steps to d...

Benny Feldman is one of the funniest new comics working today. He also has Tourette Syndrome, a neurological condition characterized by involuntary vocalizations and tics. Not only does this give Benny a unique rhythm to his performances, it also has helped him develop a fascinating personal understanding of how humor even works. This week, Adam talks with Benny about Tourette’s, comedy, and the power that comes with under...

The internet is getting shittier. Hell, the whole world is getting shittier. The thing is, it’s no accident—it’s by design. The tech giants who run the internet have figured out how to make bank off of making our everyday experience with the internet worse, and this process is bleeding over into the physical world. This process is called “enshittification”, a term coined by the massively influential tech writer Cory Doctor...

Trump despises the average worker and has spent the past several months doing everything he can to demolish the labor protections that Americans of previous generations fought and died to win. We’re at an inflection point for the future of American labor, with our very livelihoods in the balance. Julie Su has been a civil rights attorney, California’s Labor Commissioner, and then acting Secretary of Labor in the last Biden...

A.I. slop is competing for space all across the web, and it’s starting to edge out actual human creators. The internet, once rife with possibility, is rapidly turning into a depressing wasteland of mind numbing garbage. Despite the massive volume of brain-waste being sludged out every day, there are still some brilliant human minds trying to turn the tides of the battle. 404media is a worker-owned tech journalism outlet, a...

Comedy has changed as an art form. On top of social media fundamentally reconfiguring the expectations of the audience for what the role of a comedian is meant to be, we live in deeply unfunny times. Despite these challenges, we still all need to laugh. This week, Adam talks with comedian Gianmarco Soresi about how to adapt to the times without compromising integrity.

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(In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!)

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The Palestinian people are being killed en masse, they are being starved, and many are dying of preventable disease. More and more people are beginning to understand that it’s Israel’s intention to eliminate the entire Palestinian population of Gaza. Yet as untold thousands are dying, there are still people who insist that this is not “genocide” despite every bit of evidence to the contrary. This week, Adam speaks with Ome...

Being in “good shape” doesn’t just mean changing your diet in pursuit of unrealistic standards of thinness; it means challenging your body to be more capable today than it was yesterday. In recent years, weight lifting has been catching on as a primary exercise focus for both men and women who are trying to live healthier lifestyles. This week, Adam sits with Casey Johnston, author of A Physical Education: How I Escaped Di...