88 episodes
Your Undivided Attention Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, The Center for Humane Technology
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- Technology
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4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
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In this podcast from the Center for Humane Technology, co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin explore the incredible power that technology has over our lives — and how we can use it to catalyze 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 Kate Raworth on renegade economics, Audrey Tang on digital democracy, Daniel Schmachtenberger on global coordination, and Yuval Noah Harari on the co-evolution of technology and democracy.
Your Undivided Attention is proud to be part of the TED Audio Collective. Our Senior Producer is Julia Scott, and our Associate Producer is Kirsten McMurray.
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Feed Drop: AI Doomsday with Kara Swisher
Kara Swisher challenges Tristan Harris on the so-called ‘AI Doomsday’ in a wide-ranging discussion. If you enjoy their conversation and want to hear more of Kara’s interviews with folks like Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and others, you can find episodes of ON with Kara Swisher on your favorite podcasting app.
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The Tech We Need for 21st Century Democracy with Divya Siddarth
Democracy in action has looked the same for generations. What would an upgrade look like - not just for democracy, but for all the different places that democratic decision-making happens? On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, we’re joined by political economist and social technologist Divya Siddarth, one of the world's leading experts in collective intelligence.
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Spotlight: AI Myths and Misconceptions
A few episodes back, we presented Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin’s talk The AI Dilemma. The talk resonated - over 1.6 million people have viewed it on YouTube as of this episode’s release date. However, now that so many people have watched or listened to the talk, we’ve found that there are some AI myths getting in the way of making progress. On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, we debunk five of those misconceptions.
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Talking With Animals… Using AI
Despite our serious concerns about the pace of deployment of artificial intelligence, there are use cases for the technology that can help us better understand ourselves and the world around us. Your Undivided Attention co-host Aza Raskin is also co-founder of Earth Species Project, a nonprofit dedicated to using AI to decode non-human communication. In this episode, Aza presents the machine learning breakthroughs that will soon make talking to animals a possibility - and the ethical implications that come with it.
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Can We Govern AI?
When it comes to AI, what kind of regulations might we need to address this rapidly developing new class of technologies? What makes regulating AI and runaway tech in general different from regulating airplanes, pharmaceuticals, or food?
Answers to these questions are playing out in real time. Our guest Marietje Schaake, a former EU Parliamentarian, argues that if we wait for more AI harms to emerge before proper regulations are put in place, it may be too late… and she traces the path forward for effective governance, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. -
Spotlight: The Three Rules of Humane Tech
In our previous episode, we shared a presentation Tristan and Aza recently delivered to a group of influential technologists about the race happening in AI. In that talk, they introduced the Three Rules of Humane Technology. In this Spotlight episode, we’re taking a moment to explore these three rules more deeply in order to clarify what it means to be a responsible technologist in the age of AI.
Customer Reviews
An important and interesting podcast
These two guys really know their stuff. Their credibility in the technology field is beyond question. They raise crucially important issues for anybody who believes we should be thoughtful about how we use and regulate technology, and not just let private companies unleash it upon us. Listen to it — and then share it with everyone you know.
Essential listening, but a recent turn towards hyperbole
The Center for Humane Tech is one of the most valuable projects in existence, and Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin are superb spokesmen. To my mind, this podcast is the best on the platform. The conversations are vitally important.
My only critique is about AI. To hear the way Tristan and Aza talk about AI, you’d think it was 6-12 months ahead of where it is. I think their concern and alarm is justified, but I wish they would confine their reporting to what is strictly true and stay away from exaggerations. Most recently, they represented autoGPTs as being far more capable and threatening than they currently are. I think this is misleading and not very helpful to the listener.
A note of concern regarding the psychedelics episode
I love the show, and up until this episode on psychedelics, haven’t had anything but praise. I just recently listened to the Cover Story/Power Trip podcast episodes and was saddened to hear that the abuse that goes on in the culty religious circles (that I happen to come from) seem to be going on in the world of psychedelics. If those stories and reporting are true, MAPS really needs to nip that stuff in the bud and make sure this research isn’t built on an abusive infrastructure, and people need to ask hard questions and not just get caught up in the moment of thinking psychedelics are the magic key and anyone bringing up negative stuff or questions is harming the broader picture. For example, in the Southern Baptist Convention they suppressed the stories of the abused because it would harm the church’s ability to reach people and save souls. These leaders work was more important than the abuse victims. MAPS and their work is not more important than the people being harmed by abusive therapists. I feel like there should have been some harder questions in this interview, and not just amplification and definitely a warning to accompany info on how to participate in the therapeutic research.