Your Undivided Attention

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In our podcast, Your Undivided Attention, co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin explore the unprecedented power of emerging technologies: how they fit into our lives, and how they fit into a humane future.

Join us every other Thursday as we confront challenges and explore solutions with a wide range of thought leaders and change-makers — like Audrey Tang on digital democracy, neurotechnology with Nita Farahany, getting beyond dystopia with Yuval Noah Harari, and Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy: the other AI.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by Executive Producer Sasha Fegan and Senior Producer Julia Scott. Our Researcher/Producer is Josh Lash.

The views expressed by guests appearing on Center for Humane Technology’s podcast, Your Undivided Attention, are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CHT. CHT does not support or oppose any candidate or party for election to public office.

Do you have a question for Tristan and Aza to answer on the podcast? Click here to fill out this form.

RECENT EPISODES

Episode 107

Forever Chemicals, Forever Consequences: What PFAS Teaches Us About AI

AI could unlock vast technological potential—if we do it right. Rob Bilott, who fought chemical giants over toxic PFAS, shares a cautionary tale: how the harms of new tech can go unchecked, and why we must align innovation with safety before it’s too late.

April 3, 2025

Episode 106

Weaponizing Uncertainty: How Tech is Recycling Big Tobacco’s Playbook

From Big Tobacco to Big Tech, powerful industries have perfected the art of manufacturing doubt about their harms. In this episode, historian Naomi Oreskes reveals the playbook corporations have used throughout history to weaponize uncertainty, fund fake experts, and shift blame to individuals—and what it all means for AI.

March 20, 2025

Episode 105

The Man Who Predicted the Downfall of Thinking

Forty years ago, Neil Postman warned that “we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.” He was writing about TV, but his insights feel eerily prophetic in our age of smartphones, social media, and AI. In this episode, we explore Postman’s ideas and what they can teach us.

March 6, 2025

Episode 104

Behind the DeepSeek Hype, AI is Learning to Reason

DeepSeek's breakthrough in AI sent markets reeling. But behind the headlines lies a crucial shift: AI that can actually reason and think. As labs race toward self-improving AI, the real question isn't how fast we can go, but how to steer this power for the benefit of us all.

February 20, 2025

Episode 103

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 humans ask them to do? Sometimes, they lie. AI researcher Ryan Greenblatt comes on the show to explore why.

January 30, 2025

Episodes 102

Laughing at Power: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Changing Tech

The broken status quo of tech may feel immovable, but Srdja Popovic knows something about challenging power. A leader of the Serbian resistance, he's spent his life studying how to transform entrenched systems. In this episode, he shares insights that can help address our challenges with tech.

January 16, 2025

Episode 101

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 most burning questions.

December 19, 2024

Episode 100

The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics

Religious thinking is shaping the future of technology: AI is talked about as a godlike force and tech leaders promise us digital salvation. Greg Epstein argues that we need to see tech as our era's most influential religion - can he help us understand where this is all headed?

November 21, 2024

Episode 99

What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille Carlton

Sewell Setzer’s mom, Megan, is suing Character.ai for the role it played in her son’s death. The outcome could force the company–and potentially the entire AI industry–to change its ways. Today on the show, one of Megan’s lawyers, Meetali Jain, breaks down how the case could lead to systemic change.

November 7, 2024

Episode 98

When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell Setzer

Megan Garcia lost her son Sewell to suicide after he was abused and manipulated by AI chatbots for months. Now, she’s suing the company that made those chatbots. On today’s episode of Your Undivided Attention: journalist Laurie Segall’s interview with Megan for her new show Dear Tomorrow.

October 24, 2024

Bonus

Is It AI? One Tool to Tell What’s Real with Truemedia.org CEO Oren Etzioni

AI has unleashed a flood of synthetic media onto the web, making it more difficult than ever to tell what’s real. So Oren Etzioni made a free, non-partisan, non-profit tool to detect AI-generated content. Oren talks to Tristan about the fight to restore a sense of reality online.

October 10, 2024

Episode 96

’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 the shapers of history. History will still go on, but will it be the story of people or, as he calls them, ‘alien AI agents’?

October 7, 2024

Episode 96

We Have to Get It Right’: Gary Marcus On Untamed AI

Computer scientist Gary Marcus has been called AI’s loudest critic, and he predicts AI’s exponential curve will soon flatten out. He also thinks we’re unprepared to handle the AI we already have. In this episode, Gary discusses his AI skepticism and what we need to do to get this rollout right.

September 26, 2024

Episode 95

AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

As companies race to roll out more capable AI models–with little regard for safety–the downstream risks become harder to counter. On Your Undivided Attention this week, our policy director Casey Mock outlines a new legal framework to incentivize better AI development through product liability law.

September 13, 2024

Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy

[This episode originally aired on August 17, 2023] AI is harming our relationships, warns acclaimed psychotherapist Esther Perel. What would it look like for technology to strengthen our social bonds, rather than depriving us of the nuance that allows us to connect?

September 6, 2024

Episode 94

Tech's Big Money Campaign is Getting Pushback with Margaret O'Mara and Brody Mullins

Today, the tech industry is the second-biggest lobbying force in Washington, but that wasn’t true even ten years ago. How did we get here? And where are we headed next? Tristan and Daniel discuss how big tech has changed American lobbying with historian Margaret O’Mara and journalist Brody Mullins.

August 26, 2024

SPOTLIGHT

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 episode, the guys discuss what’s happened since then and where we could be headed next.

August 12, 2024

Episode 93

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 easier for bad actors to manufacture new biological threats. In this episode, Tristan and Daniel sit down with biologist Kevin Esvelt to discuss why AI has been such a boon for biologists and how we can safeguard society against the threats that AIxBio poses.

July 18, 2024

Episode 92

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, Professor of Neuroscience Anil Seth and Aza discuss the science, ethics, and incentives of artificial consciousness.

July 4, 2024

Episode 91

Why Are Migrants Becoming AI Test Subjects? With Petra Molnar

In response to the growing global refugee crisis, governments are employing novel AI and surveillance technologies to slow the influx of migrants. But will this rollout stop at the border? Tristan and Aza sit down with immigration lawyer Petra Molnar to discuss how borderlands have become a proving ground for high-risk AI technology.

June 20, 2024