In this episode of Superintelligent, hosts Mike Elgan and Emily Forlini get philosophical. They debunk the myth of the screenless revolution and argue that upcoming AI devices from OpenAI, Google, Apple and others are mere peripheral devices to screens. They applaud the bipartisan movement to ban smartphones in schools, but society is far from saved. Case in point: Daters now have to worry about getting recorded on smart glasses. The episode ends with an exploration of what it means to observe our world, and what our methods of doing so say about us.

Links

Jony Ive and OpenAI’s wedding announcement

OpenAI and Jony Ive’s Screenless AI Device Could Release in the Next Two Years

Why There’s No ‘Screenless’ Revolution

Parents and Teens Support School Cellphone Bans

Can a Dumb Phone Improve Your Life? I Talked to 6 People Who Made the Switch

New Philosopher magazine

Lapham’s Quarterly

Follow Us

Website: superintelligentpodcast.com

Email: superintelligentpodcast@gmail.com

Mike Elgan - About | Machine Society | Bluesky | Mastodon | Notes

Emily Forlini - Website | PC Mag | Bluesky | X | TikTok

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Recap of Previous Episode

01:32 The Impact of Opinion Columns

03:11 The Future of Screenless Devices

06:40 Banning Phones in Schools

09:34 Bipartisan Support for Phone Bans

13:21 The Irony of Intergenerational Phone Use

17:23 The Role of Screenless Wearables

20:10 The Rise of AI Glasses and Privacy Concerns

26:57 Creepy Technology and Privacy Concerns

28:31 The Impact of Observation on Behavior

31:25 The Observer Effect and Its Implications

34:03 Media Consumption and the Quest for Knowledge

37:07 The Challenge of Information Overload

40:03 The Importance of Critical Thinking

47:34 Wisdom in Observation vs. Immediate Reaction

Disclosures

We used Gemini Pro 3 via Kagi (my son and our producer, Kevin, works at Kagi) to 1) generate keywords from the transcript (most of which we used); 2) suggest topics to link to (some of which we used); and 3) write a first draft of the show summary paragraph (which we heavily edited). We recorded and edited the episode using Riverside and used Riverside’s “Magic Audio” (which boosts and normalizes the audio).

Keywords

Superintelligent podcast, Mike Elgan, Emily Forlini, Jony Ive, OpenAI, AI hardware, screenless devices, smart glasses, Ray-Ban Meta, smartphone bans in schools, tech addiction, ambient computing, smart rings, digital privacy, observer effect, media consumption, RSS feeds, tech news, haptic technology, educational technology, wearable tech

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