Your Undivided Attention

Imran Khan sits down with Mathilde Collin, founder of Kora, the world’s leading benchmark for how AI models interact with children, about how and why she built this tool and what she learned in the process. At a time when two-thirds of US teenagers already use AI chatbots, tools like Kora are vital to making AI truly safer.

In 1986, Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik for an informal conversation that made nuclear coordination imaginable. 40 years later, world leaders gathered in the same room to discuss how we can do the same for AI. Tristan and Aza were there. Listen to their dispatch from Iceland and a conversation with its president.

It’s been a whirlwind week in AI news. In this episode, Tristan shares how he’s feeling in this critical moment, breaks down the headlines from an insider's perspective, and points to tangible steps we can take right now to avoid the worst-case scenario.

Right now, across all levels of government, from small-town sheriffs to massive federal agencies, police are adopting AI technology at a staggering rate – and they're using it to build out an efficient, centralized surveillance-state apparatus. This week, we speak with two experts about how police are using AI today, what we can expect in the near future, and what protections we need to create now, before it's too late.

With AI, what gets measured gets optimized. Right now, that's AI capability, not human wellbeing. In this episode, Aza Raskin talks with researchers Imran Khan & Jared Moore about Humane Evals: CHT's push to measure what AI does to us, not just what it can do.

It feels like we're stuck in an endless debate about what AI will mean for jobs and the economy. Caught in the middle of this debate are actual workers trying to figure out what this means for their livelihoods. Rather than continuing to referee this debate, economist Molly Kinder joins Tristan to follow the incentives and show you where they're actually taking us in the very near future.

This week, we're bringing you a conversation that Tristan had with Krista Tippett, the Peabody Award-winning host of the On Being podcast. In it, they explore critical questions: what does it mean to build AI in service of life? How can we hold a collective problem this big as individuals? And what does it take to resist the spell of inevitability?

In this episode, Tristan and Aza discuss what it was like for Tristan to be at the Vatican ahead of the Pope’s encyclical on AI, why this is such a critical step toward a pro-human future, and how we can build on the momentum of the Vatican’s call to action.

To agree to international AI red lines, we need to build the technology that makes it possible to adhere to them. In this episode, Tristan sits down with two experts in this field to discuss the kinds of verification technology we need for AI, the challenges of building it, and the world it could unlock if we do.

In this episode, Aza Raskin and fellow CHT co-founder Randy Fernando walk through CHT's Seven Principles of Humane Technology. For each one, they bring in real-world examples from the podcast and beyond to clearly illustrate how these principles (and their absence) show up in the world.

The critical infrastructure of our world is digital. So what happens when an AI company creates a skeleton key for the internet? In this episode, we speak with cybersecurity experts to explore the significance and stakes of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos — and what it means for all of us.

"AI will cure cancer" is the promise driving the race to superintelligence. But what if it's a false promise being used to justify an unfettered race for profit? That's what Dr. Emilia Javorsky argues on this week's episode. She makes the case that AI can revolutionize medicine, but not in the way we're being sold.

Davidad is a leading AI alignment researcher who's taken on a strange role: therapist to AI systems. He probes them, analyzing their answers to understand what's going on inside. His findings are unconventional, sometimes controversial — and worth grappling with as AI reshapes our world.

Tristan and Aza recently joined Oprah Winfrey on The Oprah Podcast to discuss the anti-human future we’re headed toward with AI — and what we need to do to get on a better path.

In this episode, Camille Carlton and Pete Furlong from CHT’s policy team explore the concrete steps we can take today to get off the default path and forge a better AI future.

Meta and Google have been found liable for addictive design and failing to protect children and Aza took the stand as a witness. Is this the Big Tobacco moment for social media? Tristan and Aza discuss the verdicts, what the companies knew and when, and why the critical phase is still to come.

"The AI Doc" hits theaters March 27. We talk with the Oscar-winning team behind the film about navigating AI's overwhelming complexity and making it accessible to all. At CHT, we believe clarity creates agency. This film delivers that clarity. Go see it — and don't go alone.

AI is already transforming education faster than schools can keep up. Rebecca Winthrop of Brookings' Center for Universal Education joins us to share findings from their new report and the concrete steps parents, teachers, and administrators can take right now.

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, followed by a panel discussion between Tristan and Professor Yoshua Bengio and moderated by Kenneth Cukier of The Economist, about how the race to build uncontrolled AI has real-world consequences for us all.

Aza joins Reid Hoffman & Aria Finger on the "Possible" podcasts to debate an AI pause, how software optimization controls our lives, and why we need aligned collective intelligence—not just aligned AI. This is a critical conversation with tech leaders about steering technology toward better outcomes.

"AI psychosis" has made headlines, but the risks to our mental health and relationships go beyond the really noisy cases. What we are seeing is the emergence of an attachment economy exploiting our deepest psychological vulnerabilities at scale and for profit. In this episode, Dr. Zak Stein explores how AI chatbots systematically hack human attachment in ways we've never seen before.

Game theory makes the world feel cold and strategic: if I don't race to win, they will. But this logic isn't inevitable — it's invented. Professor S.M. Amadae on the game theory dilemma, how it colonized everything from nukes to AI, and how we escape by reclaiming trust.

Are the US and China racing toward the same AI future? Experts Selina Xu and Matt Sheehan explore what China actually wants from AI, challenge common misconceptions, and explore whether cooperation is possible. To avoid catastrophe, we first need to understand what race we're really in.

AI is reshaping work, creating uncertainty about careers and job security. Economists Molly Kinder and Ethan Mollick cut through the hype to examine what's actually happening in the labor market and explore whether AI will enrich our work or destabilize it.

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.”

Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin imagine what a world with humane technology might look like—one where we recognized the harms of social media early and worked to fix them. This alternative history serves to show that there are narrow pathways to a better future, if we have the imagination and the courage to make them a reality.

The AI race has hit breakneck speed. Autonomous agents are starting to disrupt the workforce. People are forming bonds with chatbots— with tragic consequences. All while tech leaders promise utopia. You had questions. We dove deep to answer them in our annual Ask Us Anything.

In 1987, 198 countries came together in Montreal to draft an agreement to save the world from the ozone hole. It was an unprecedented moment of global coordination amid a catastrophic crisis. How did it happen? And what can it teach us about the crisis of uncontrollable AI? Listen to find out.

16-year-old Adam Raine took his own life with the help of ChatGPT. Now his parents are suing OpenAI and Sam Altman. CHT Policy Director Camille Carlton explores the incentives and design behind AI systems leading to tragic outcomes like this and the policy that’s needed to shift those incentives.

Sci-fi warned us about rogue AI systems that deceive, cheat, even coerce humans when threatened with shutdown or replacement. Yet we’re building AI today that does all of these things and we don't know how to stop it. This episode discusses evidence of this trend and possible solutions.

Imagine a world where the most persuasive voices, the wealthiest elites, the most influential creators aren’t human—they’re AI. This is the world we’re racing to right now and without new laws, the courts are playing a critical role in what that world looks like. This episode explores that dynamic and what we can do about it.

Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI to warn about the dangerous direction of AI development. His new report, AI 2027, forecasts humanity losing control to misaligned superintelligence within years. On the show this week, we explore these risks, the incentives driving them, and how we might still change course.

Tech leaders promise AI will bring unprecedented abundance. But what happens to human dignity when our labor becomes obsolete? In this episode, Michael Sandel explores why AI-driven prosperity could leave society hollow — and the lessons we can learn from the recent past.

AI development is racing ahead without guardrails, creating an unstable dynamic that could end in dystopia or chaos. Sam Hammond joins to explore how we can find the narrow path between these extremes—before it's too late.

We’ve long connected through our machines—now we’re connecting to them. On this episode, Daniel Barcay, MIT’s Sherry Turkle, and Hinge’s Justin McLeod discuss AI’s growing role in love, therapy, and connection. And what the rules of engagement should be.

AI companion chatbots feel human but they're not. They're platforms designed to maximize engagement, risking artificial intimacy and addictive intelligence. MIT’s Pattie Maes & Pat Pataranutaporn join the show to discuss better paths forward.

What does it mean to ‘feel the AGI?’ In this episode, Aza and Randy unpack why debates on intelligence distract us from urgently needed conversations about governance, incentives, and readiness—before the AGI wave crashes ashore.

AI has upended school as we know it. In this episode, Daniel and Tristan talk with Maryanne Wolf and Rebecca Winthrop about how tech has broken the old model of education—and how we might build something better.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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’?