What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future

When you’re sending troops to war, it seems like there are more important things to consider than how it will impact the stock market. However, it doesn’t seem coincidental that this administration waited until the markets closed on a Friday to launch its attacks on Iran.

Guest: Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-...

How much would it change your life and approach to health if you had instant access to your quantified biometrics? RFK Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services have bet the difference would be huge, and loosened regulation on them—leaving TBD no choice but to strap in and give ‘em a try. 

Guests: 

Nadira Goffe, Slate staff writer.

Mario Aguliar, health tech correspondent for Stat News

Dr. Sandeep Kishore, assoc...

The Pentagon wants Anthropic to hand over its A.I. with no strings attached. Anthropic doesn’t want its products used to surveil Americans or create autonomous machines of war. 

Naturally, the Pentagon is mad - so mad, they’re threatening to invoke the Defense Production Act against them. But who has more leverage here? 

Guest: Sheera Frenkel, reporter for the New York Times 

Want more What Next TBD? Subscri...

You might not think you need artificial intelligence added to your shopping experience. Store employees might not see the point either. So why is it there anyway?

Guest: Mia Sato, reporter at The Verge who covers tech companies, platforms, and users.

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts...

Tech companies proudly touting that the imminent artificial intelligence revolution are pushing the stock market to ever higher heights, even as workers wonder what their role will be in this brave new world. But outside of the big A.I. players, the rest of the market seems to be wondering the same thing.

Guest: Emily Peck, co-host of Slate Money and national correspondent at Axios.

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate...

Data centers are a hot issue - tech companies say they need them, but communities don’t want to be anywhere near them. Senator Van Hollen stops by the show to share his plan to address the rising costs of energy for consumers that data centers create, as well as his thoughts on ICE and the future of the Democratic Party. 

Guest: Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to acce...

Markiplier has been entertaining millions of fans on YouTube for over a decade. But his new movie Iron Lung - which he self-financed, directed, wrote and acted in - was a smash at the box office, not on his YouTube channel. Is it proof that he’s more than a YouTuber? Or is it proof that Hollywood is thinking about the platform and its creators all wrong? 

Guest: Mark Fischbach aka Markiplier, YouTuber, filmmaker and directo...

Scamming attempts might seem to just come out of nowhere to suddenly appear in your WhatsApp, but a special economic zone in Laos has emerged as a hotbed of cryptocurrency schemes—where victims of human trafficking are trapped and forced to attempt more crime.

Guest: Andy Greenberg, senior writer for WIRED.

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your ...

He’s discontinuing Tesla’s signature models, taking SpaceX public, and putting more chips on A.I. and robotics. As Elon Musk prepares for his next phase, will he rein in any of his excesses? 

And in this week’s Plus segment: Elon in Epstein files.

Guest: Faiz Siddiqui, technology reporter for the Washington Post’s Business Desk, author of “Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk.”

Want more What Next TBD? Subscrib...

The Iranian government cut off nearly all internet access on January 8 as part of a crackdown on protestors, an example of why authoritarians attempt internet blackouts—and why they don’t always work the way authoritarians want them to.

Guest: Steve Feldstein, political scientist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program.

Want more What Next TBD? Sub...

In the immediate aftermath of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, federal authorities presented very different accounts of what happened from what videos from witnesses showed. Did having footage from multiple angles of each shooting make the truth clear?

Guests: 

Jake Godin, researcher for Bellingcat.

Julia Angwin, investigative journalist, founder of Proof News and contributing opinion writer for Ne...

Having already taken over Paramount, David Ellison was vying to add Warner Bros. Discovery to his portfolio. Are his dad’s politics behind his drive to run Hollywood or is there something else going on?

Guest: Reeves Widemann, features writer at New York Magazine.

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on ...

The administration’s justification for their actions in Minneapolis owe a lot to the right-wing influencers—and they seem happy to keep this vicious cycle rolling onto California next. 

Guest: Will Sommer, journalist for the Bulwark.

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking...

Doctors are already using artificial intelligence to take notes while with patients—but are large language models ready to consult? 

Guest: Brittany Trang, health tech reporter for Stat News.

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. S...

Where do you turn for vaccination advice for your kids—or yourself—when the government’s own recommendations can’t be trusted anymore?

Guest: Dr. Lauren Hughes, board-certified pediatrician, science communicator, and author of “The Public Hughesletter.”

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podca...

To kick off the new year, users on X have been asking Grok to nudify people - and kids - at an astonishing rate. And X leadership is egging them on. 

Guest: Jason Koebler, founder of 404 Media and host of the 404 Media Podcast

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try F...

While the U.S. was busy capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, someone online was  busy placing bets on prediction markets on the ouster. And these well-timed bets may have netted a still-anonymous someone more than $400,000. Was this a case of kind-of-legal insider trading? Or is America going all-out on its efforts to make everything a casino?

We’re going to be talking to pediatrician Dr. Lauren Hughes about the major chan...

The Trump administration wants NASA to land astronauts on the moon by 2027. They also want them to do it with their budget slashed, a leadership carousel and competing views that Mars is more important. 

Guest: Joel Achenbach, freelance journalist and author of Moondoggle

If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slat...

Artificial intelligence boosters spent the year wedging the tech into our lives – whether we wanted it or not. But one new product brought A.I. from every app and website into the meatspace, forcing you to face it eye-to-eye.

Guest: Nitish Pahwa, staff writer at Slate covering business and technology

Want more What Next: TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your...