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Your Undivided Attention
Join co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin every other Thursday to understand how new technologies are shaping the way we live, work, and think. Your Undivided Attention is produced by our Senior Producer Julia Scott and our Executive Producer Josh Lash. We are a member of the TED Audio Collective.
Episodes
- Your Undivided Attention
Why Silicon Valley Wants to Leave Humanity Behind
Behind the AI race, there's a philosophy with an intellectual lineage and a body of work that holds that human beings are a defective early draft, that the…
- Your Undivided Attention
A New Way to Measure AI Safety for Kids
Earlier this year, we brought you a conversation about our mission to bring together researchers, psychologists, engineers, and technologists from across the…
- Your Undivided Attention
An Historic AI Summit in Iceland, and a Conversation with its President
On October 11, 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met at Höfði House in Reykjavik, Iceland, to confront the threat hanging over both their nations: the…
- Your Undivided Attention
The Most Hopeful (And Concerning) Moment Yet in AI
It’s been a whirlwind week in AI news. Weeks after a series of hacking incidents by rogue agents at OpenAI and Anthropic, we’ve seen a cascade of top AI…
- Your Undivided Attention
Flock is Just the Beginning: Inside the Era of AI-Powered Policing
In a 2018 TED Talk, Yuval Harari argued that democracy prevailed over fascism and communism in the 20th century not because of any inherent advantage, but…
- Your Undivided Attention
We Measure What AI Can Do. We Should Measure What It Does to Us.
In AI, what gets measured gets optimized. Right now, we're spending all our efforts to measure how capable and powerful models are, narrowly optimizing for…
- Your Undivided Attention
Enough Debate about the AI Jobpocalypse. We Need To Plan for the Messy Middle.
It feels like we’re stuck in an endless debate about what AI is going to mean for jobs and the economy. The prediction you hear from the people closest to the…
- Your Undivided Attention
Can AI Be Built in Service of Life? A Conversation with Krista Tippett
This week, we're bringing you a conversation that Tristan Harris had with Krista Tippett. Krista is the Peabody Award-winning host of the On Being podcast…
- Your Undivided Attention
“Magnifica Humanitas:” Pope Leo’s Clarion Call on AI
Since stepping into the Papacy, Pope Leo XIV has been a forceful voice pushing back against the anti-human path we’re on with AI. In May, he released…
- Your Undivided Attention
We Need AI Treaties. This is How We Get Them
In the middle of the twentieth century, the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons seemed inevitable. The number of countries with nukes was climbing…
- Your Undivided Attention
What Do We Mean by Humane Tech?
We often think of the challenges created by technology as separate and disconnected, so trying to solve them feels like playing the world's hardest game of…
- Your Undivided Attention
Anthropic’s Mythos Has Changed Cybersecurity Forever. What Now?
A generation ago, the world's critical infrastructure was physical. Today, it’s largely digital. Your bank vault is a database, your filing cabinet is a…
- Your Undivided Attention
AI and Cancer: Why Superintelligence Won’t Get Us to a Cure
One of the most common arguments you hear from company executives racing to develop super-intelligent AI is that it will cure cancer. It’s an incredibly…
- Your Undivided Attention
Have We Trained AI to Lie to Itself — And to Us?
Our guest this week is David Dalrymple, who goes by Davidad. Davidad is one of the world's foremost and early researchers of AI “alignment:" how we get AI…
- Your Undivided Attention
BONUS: Our AI Town Hall with Oprah Winfrey
Today on the show, we’re bringing you a recent conversation Tristan and Aza had with Oprah Winfrey on her podcast, The Oprah Podcast, taped in front of a live…
- Your Undivided Attention
Here’s Our Roadmap to a Better AI Future
In order to shift the incentives of AI — the trillions of dollars in investment, the race to geopolitical power and dominance — it’s not enough to simply…
- Your Undivided Attention
Why the Meta Verdicts Are a Big Deal (And What It Was Like to Testify)
In two landmark cases, juries in California and New Mexico found Meta and Google liable for creating addictive, harmful products and failing to protect…
- Your Undivided Attention
A Conversation with the Team Behind "The AI Doc"
“The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist” opens in theaters across the U.S. this Friday, March 27. In this episode, we sit down with the team behind this…
- Your Undivided Attention
AI Is Breaking Education. Rebecca Winthrop Has the Blueprint to Fix It.
The promise of AI in education is incredible: picture infinitely patient tutors that can teach every student exactly the way they need to be taught. But the…
- Your Undivided Attention
The Race to Build God: AI's Existential Gamble — Yoshua Bengio & Tristan Harris at Davos
This week on Your Undivided Attention, Tristan Harris and Daniel Barcay offer a backstage recap of what it was like to be at the Davos World Economic Forum…
- Your Undivided Attention
FEED DROP: Possible with Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger
This week on Your Undivided Attention, we’re bringing you Aza Raskin’s conversation with Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger on their podcast “Possible”. Reid and…
- Your Undivided Attention
Attachment Hacking and the Rise of AI Psychosis
Therapy and companionship has become the #1 use case for AI, with millions worldwide sharing their innermost thoughts with AI systems — often things they…
- Your Undivided Attention
What Would It Take to Actually Trust Each Other? The Game Theory Dilemma
So much of our world today can be summed up in the cold logic of “if I don’t, they will.” This is the foundation of game theory, which holds that cooperation…
- Your Undivided Attention
America and China Are Racing to Different AI Futures
Is the US really in an AI race with China—or are we racing toward completely different finish lines? In this episode, Tristan Harris sits down with China…
- Your Undivided Attention
AI and the Future of Work: What You Need to Know
No matter where you sit within the economy, whether you're a CEO or an entry level worker, everyone's feeling uneasy about AI and the future of work…
- Your Undivided Attention
Feed Drop: "Into the Machine" with Tobias Rose-Stockwell
This week, we’re bringing you Tristan’s conversation with Tobias Rose-Stockwell on his podcast “Into the Machine.” Tobias is a designer, writer, and…
- Your Undivided Attention
What if we had fixed social media?
We really enjoyed hearing all of your questions for our annual Ask Us Anything episode. There was one question that kept coming up: what might a different…
- Your Undivided Attention
Ask Us Anything 2025
It's been another big year in AI. The AI race has accelerated to breakneck speed, with frontier labs pouring hundreds of billions into increasingly powerful…
- Your Undivided Attention
The Crisis That United Humanity—and Why It Matters for AI
In 1985, scientists in Antarctica discovered a hole in the ozone layer that posed a catastrophic threat to life on earth if we didn’t do something about it…
- Your Undivided Attention
How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death
Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide and self-harm. Like millions of kids, 16-year-old Adam Raine started using ChatGPT for help with…
- Your Undivided Attention
“Rogue AI” Used to be a Science Fiction Trope. Not Anymore.
Everyone knows the science fiction tropes of AI systems that go rogue, disobey orders, or even try to escape their digital environment. These are supposed to…
- Your Undivided Attention
AI is the Next Free Speech Battleground
Imagine a future where the most persuasive voices in our society aren't human. Where AI generated speech fills our newsfeeds, talks to our children, and…
- Your Undivided Attention
Daniel Kokotajlo Forecasts the End of Human Dominance
In 2023, researcher Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI—and risked millions in stock options—to warn the world about the dangerous direction of AI development. Now…
- Your Undivided Attention
Is AI Productivity Worth Our Humanity? with Prof. Michael Sandel
Tech leaders promise that AI automation will usher in an age of unprecedented abundance: cheap goods, universal high income, and freedom from the drudgery of…
- Your Undivided Attention
The Narrow Path: Sam Hammond on AI, Institutions, and the Fragile Future
The race to develop ever-more-powerful AI is creating an unstable dynamic. It could lead us toward either dystopian centralized control or uncontrollable…
- Your Undivided Attention
People are Lonelier than Ever. Enter AI.
Over the last few decades, our relationships have become increasingly mediated by technology. Texting has become our dominant form of communication. Social…
- Your Undivided Attention
Echo Chambers of One: Companion AI and the Future of Human Connection
AI companion chatbots are here. Everyday, millions of people log on to AI platforms and talk to them like they would a person. These bots will ask you about…
- Your Undivided Attention
AGI Beyond the Buzz: What Is It, and Are We Ready?
What does it really mean to ‘feel the AGI?’ Silicon Valley is racing toward AI systems that could soon match or surpass human intelligence. The implications…
- Your Undivided Attention
Rethinking School in the Age of AI
AI has upended schooling as we know it. Students now have instant access to tools that can write their essays, summarize entire books, and solve complex math…
- Your Undivided Attention
Forever Chemicals, Forever Consequences: What PFAS Teaches Us About AI
Artificial intelligence is set to unleash an explosion of new technologies and discoveries into the world. This could lead to incredible advances in human…
- Your Undivided Attention
Weaponizing Uncertainty: How Tech is Recycling Big Tobacco’s Playbook
One of the hardest parts about being human today is navigating uncertainty. When we see experts battling in public and emotions running high, it's easy to…
- Your Undivided Attention
The Man Who Predicted the Downfall of Thinking
Few thinkers were as prescient about the role technology would play in our society as the late, great Neil Postman. Forty years ago, Postman warned about all…
- Your Undivided Attention
Behind the DeepSeek Hype, AI is Learning to Reason
When Chinese AI company DeepSeek announced they had built a model that could compete with OpenAI at a fraction of the cost, it sent shockwaves through the…
- Your Undivided Attention
The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive
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…
- Your Undivided Attention
Laughing at Power: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Changing Tech
The status quo of tech today is untenable: we’re addicted to our devices, we’ve become increasingly polarized, our mental health is suffering and our personal…
- Your Undivided Attention
Ask Us Anything 2024
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 Undivided Attention
The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics
Silicon Valley's interest in AI is driven by more than just profit and innovation. There’s an unmistakable mystical quality to it as well. In this episode…
- Your Undivided Attention
What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille Carlton
CW: This episode features discussion of suicide and sexual abuse. In the last episode, we had the journalist Laurie Segall on to talk about the tragic story of…
- Your Undivided Attention
When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell Setzer
Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide, self-harm, and sexual abuse. Megan Garcia lost her son Sewell to suicide after he was abused and…
- Your Undivided Attention
Is It AI? One Tool to Tell What’s Real with Truemedia.org CEO Oren Etzioni
Social media disinformation did enormous damage to our shared idea of reality. Now, the rise of generative AI has unleashed a flood of high-quality synthetic…
- Your Undivided Attention
'A Turning Point in History': Yuval Noah Harari on AI’s Cultural Takeover
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…
- Your Undivided Attention
‘We Have to Get It Right’: Gary Marcus On Untamed AI
It’s a confusing moment in AI. Depending on who you ask, we’re either on the fast track to AI that’s smarter than most humans, or the technology is about to…
- Your Undivided Attention
AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.
AI is moving fast. And as companies race to rollout newer, more capable models–with little regard for safety–the downstream risks of those models become harder…
- Your Undivided Attention
Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy (rerun)
[This episode originally aired on August 17, 2023] For all the talk about AI, we rarely hear about how it will change our relationships. As we swipe to find…
- Your Undivided Attention
Tech's Big Money Campaign is Getting Pushback with Margaret O'Mara and Brody Mullins
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…
- Your Undivided Attention
This Moment in AI: How We Got Here and Where We’re Going
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…
- Your Undivided Attention
Decoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical Breakthroughs and Biological Threats with Kevin Esvelt
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…
- Your Undivided Attention
How to Think About AI Consciousness With Anil Seth
Will AI ever start to think by itself? If it did, how would we know, and what would it mean? In this episode, Dr. Anil Seth and Aza discuss the science…
- Your Undivided Attention
Why Are Migrants Becoming AI Test Subjects? With Petra Molnar
Climate change, political instability, hunger. These are just some of the forces behind an unprecedented refugee crisis that’s expected to include over a…
- Your Undivided Attention
Former OpenAI Engineer William Saunders on Silence, Safety, and the Right to Warn
This week, a group of current and former employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind penned an open letter accusing the industry’s leading companies of…