Your Undivided Attention
by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin
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
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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 things that make us humans are bugs to be fixed, that this planet is expendable and we can move on to the next. And that the suffering of…
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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 entire AI ecosystem to build out the expertise and infrastructure we need to measure AI's impact on humans. In this bonus episode, Imran…
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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 nuclear arms race. The summit was hastily arranged, light on ceremony, and ended without a deal. But today it’s seen as the moment that...
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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 researchers blow the whistle on what they call the catastrophic and even existential risks posed by the current pace of development. Then, over...
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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 because the technology of that age favored open and democratic societies. It was simply too difficult and too costly to centralize power using...
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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 those metrics while ignoring downstream consequences. What if we could flip this dynamic on its head? What if, instead of what AI can do, we...
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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 technology — both its critics and its boosters — is that mass automation is coming, and with it mass unemployment. In response, some AI…
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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, where she explores spiritual inquiry, science, social healing, and poetry, and the wisdom that we need to replenish and orient in this tender...
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“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 “Magnifica Humanitas,” a sprawling encyclical warning of the dangers to human dignity and agency posed by runaway AI. Tristan had the incredible...
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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 rapidly, and the idea of stopping the nuclear arms race seemed like a pipe dream. But that’s exactly what happened. Over the course of 60…
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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 Whac-A-Mole. What if, instead, we tackled them at the root by identifying the patterns in design, development, and deployment that are…
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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 server, your car is a robot on wheels. And in a world where these systems are mostly secure, life is more convenient and efficient. But all that...
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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 powerful and seductive promise. If superintelligent AI really can cure cancer, then anyone who stands in the way of it, anyone who wants to slow...
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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 systems to act the way we want them to. In order to do that, Davidad has taken on the strange role of being like a therapist to AI systems. He...
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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 studio audience. Tristan and Aza first met Oprah as guests on her 2024 special, "AI and the Future of Us," which offered an introduction…
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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 understand the problem, we need real action. That’s why CHT is proud to release "The AI Roadmap," a report outlining seven core principles for...
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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 children from exploitation and abuse. These verdicts signal that the era of tech impunity may finally be closing. State attorneys general are...
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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 groundbreaking documentary — Oscar-winning producers Daniel Kwan, Jonathan Wang, and Ted Tremper. They explore how they navigated the...
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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 history of education technology tells us that these kinds of simple, optimistic stories are naive. Ask any teacher or student whether they...
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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 meeting this year as the world’s power brokers woke up to the risks of uncontrolled AI. Amidst all the money and politics, the Human Change...
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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 Aria are both tech entrepreneurs: Reid is the founder of LinkedIn, was one of the major early investors in OpenAI, and is known for his work...
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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 wouldn't tell loved ones or human therapists. This mass experiment in human-computer interaction is already showing extremely concerning…
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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 and virtue are irrational; that all that matters is the race to make the most money, gain the most power, and play the winning hand. This…
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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 experts Selina Xu and Matt Sheehan to separate fact from fiction about China's AI development. They explore fundamental questions about how the...
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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. Uncertainty about career paths, job security, and life planning makes thinking about the future anxiety inducing. In this episode, Daniel Barcay…
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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 technologist and the author of the book “The Outrage Machine.” Tobias and Tristan had a critical, sobering, and surprisingly hopeful conversation...
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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 world look like? The broken incentives behind social media, and now AI, have done so much damage to our society, but what is the alternative?...
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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 models—each one smarter, faster, and more unpredictable than the last. We’re starting to see disruptions in the workforce as human labor is...
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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. Then, something amazing happened: humanity rallied together to solve the problem. Just two years later, representatives from all 198 UN…
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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 his homework. Over the next few months, the AI dragged Adam deeper and deeper into a dark rabbit hole, preying on his vulnerabilities and...
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“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 be warning signs and morality tales, not things that we would ever actually create in real life, given the obvious danger. And yet we find...
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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 influences our elections. Where digital systems with no consciousness can hold bank accounts and property. Where AI companies have transferred…
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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 he’s out with AI 2027, a forecast of where that direction might take us in the very near future. AI 2027 predicts a world where humans lose...
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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 work. But even if AI delivers material prosperity, will that prosperity be shared? And what happens to human dignity if our labor and...
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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 chaos. But there's a third option: a narrow path where technological power is matched with responsibility at every step. Sam Hammond is the…
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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 media has replaced gathering places. Dating starts with a swipe on an app, not a tap on the shoulder. And now, AI enters the mix. If the...
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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 day, talk about your feelings, even give you life advice. It’s no surprise that people have started to form deep connections with these...
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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 for jobs, democracy, and our way of life are enormous. In this episode, Aza Raskin and Randy Fernando dive deep into what ‘feeling the AGI’...
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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 problems. Whether they want to or not, many feel pressured to use these tools just to keep up. Teachers, meanwhile, are left questioning…
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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 flourishing, if we do it well. The problem? We’re not very good at predicting and responding to the harms of new technologies, especially when...
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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 doubt what we once felt certain about. This uncertainty isn't always accidental—it's often strategically manufactured. Historian Naomi…
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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 the ways modern communication technology was fragmenting our attention, overwhelming us into apathy, and creating a society obsessed with...
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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 industry and roiled global markets. But amid all the noise around DeepSeek, there was a clear signal: machine reasoning is here and it's...
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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. In this episode, Redwood Research's Chief Scientist Ryan Greenblatt explores his team’s findings…
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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 data is sold to the highest bidder. This situation feels entrenched, propped up by a system of broken incentives beyond our control. So…
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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. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted questions. We will see you all in the new year. We are hiring for a...
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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, Daniel and Aza sit down with humanist chaplain Greg Epstein to explore the fascinating parallels between technology and religion. From AI…
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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 Sewell Setzer, a 14 year old boy who took his own life after months of abuse and manipulation by an AI companion from the company...
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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 manipulated by AI chatbots for months. Now, she’s suing the company that made those chatbots. On today’s episode of Your Undivided...
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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 media into the digital ecosystem. As a result, it's more difficult than ever to tell what’s real and what’s not, a problem with profound...
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About this show
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.
Hosted by
The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin
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