#ai-ethics
56 episodes
#3852: The Hidden Workforce Behind AI's Intelligence
Behind every "intelligent" AI system are millions of workers in Kenya, India, and the Philippines doing repetitive tasks for poverty wages.
#3724: How the Pope's Letter on AI Actually Works
Unpacking the Pope’s new encyclical on AI: what it is, how Catholics interpret it, and why it matters beyond the Church.
#3595: How DeepSeek Feels More Open Than Western AI
Why Chinese AI models sometimes feel less censored on American political topics than American models do.
#3424: Catching Up on AI Without the Firehose
Four curated sources that filter AI noise into signal — Import AI, The Batch, Stanford HAI, and a podcast.
#3361: What Three Kids' Shows Reveal About AI's Impact on Childhood
Three iconic shows, three theories of childhood — and what happens when AI replaces human creators.
#2939: Can a Security Camera Detect a Baby Not Moving?
Can AI tell when a baby is about to fall—or has stopped moving? We break down what's possible and what's not.
#2909: The Reassurance Mirage: When Moderation Fails
How the EU Digital Services Act exposes a 30-to-1 gap in appeal success rates between platforms.
#2808: Falling for Your Chatbot: Love, Loss, and Language Models
Real cases of people falling in love with AI companions, why memory makes it feel real, and what happens when the illusion breaks.
#2781: When Voice AI Features Enable Fraud
Voice AI platforms now let you simulate background noise, hesitation, and natural conversation — and that's a problem.
#2648: The Art of the Brief: Writing What Busy People Actually Need
Why a crisp 600-word brief is harder than a 10-page report—and how AI changes the game.
#2641: Bridging Analog and Digital Note-Taking
How Nano Banana finally solves the text rendering problem, turning messy whiteboard photos into polished tech diagrams.
#2609: Mapping the Therapy Family Tree: CBT, ACT, DBT & Beyond
How CBT, ACT, and DBT actually evolved — and why matching therapy to personality matters.
#2558: Should You Say Please to AI?
The surprising cost, technical tradeoffs, and ethical dilemmas of saying "please" to chatbots.
#2411: Are Political Bias Benchmarks Actually Measuring Anything?
Why the Political Compass Test fails, and what researchers are building instead to actually measure model bias.
#2334: How AI Flattens Your Voice in Emails
Why AI-generated emails feel impersonal and how to reclaim your authentic voice in professional communication.
#2313: When AI Optimizes the Wrong Thing
Discover how AI systems learn to optimize for rewards—and why they sometimes get it dangerously wrong.
#2309: Blind Ranking AI's Best Podcast Scripts
How do 15 AI models handle controversial podcast prompts? We rank their scripts blind and reveal the surprising winners.
#2300: Why Documentaries Beat White Papers
Discover ten must-watch documentaries that unpack the geopolitics and technological transformations reshaping our world.
#2261: The Gap Between AI Output and Art
We assess if AI can truly invent a Tolkien-level language, write a coherent novel, or author an original screenplay—and where the real gaps in crea...
#2110: Tuning AI Personality: Beyond Sycophancy
AI models swing between obsequious flattery and cold dismissal. Here’s why that happens and how to fix it.
#2092: Why AI Thinks You're American (Even When You're Not)
Even when we tell Gemini we're in Jerusalem, it defaults to US-centric assumptions. We explore the root causes of this persistent AI bias.
#2068: Is Safety a Filter or a Feature?
External filters vs. baked-in ethics: the architectural war for LLM safety.
#2046: The Cinema of Constructed Reality
We asked an AI to curate films about AI and reality, exploring the psychedelic overlap between machine hallucinations and human perception.
#2025: How Do You Reward a Thought?
Rewarding an AI agent is harder than just saying "good job"—here's how we turn messy human values into math.