Podcast
The Rip Current
Hosted by Jacob Ward · EN
We're in the invisible grip of technology, politics, and our own weirdness. We gotta get better at seeing it.
Hosted by veteran journalist Jacob Ward (correspondent for Al Jazeera, PBS, NBC News, and CNN), The Rip Current is your guide to spotting the hidden forces at work in our lives and getting across them safely.
Each week we speak to experts in the stuff you didn't know was having an impact on your life, from venture capital to racism to the tried-and-true tactics of bullies, and teach you how to see The Rip Current before it sweeps you out to sea.
Read more at TheRipCurrent.com!
www.theripcurrent.com
www.theripcurrent.com
44episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Comparing Notes with Jacob Ward
1w ago00:44:36Tap to summarizeThis is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe
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The Pope Slams Silicon Valley
1w ago00:11:18Tap to summarizeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comYesterday the Vatican published Magnifica Humanitas — Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical and the Catholic Church’s official moral teaching on AI. I woke up at 5am to read it, and it’s remarkable.It names algorithmic systems making decisions about credit, jobs, and welfare benefits. It names data extraction from poor countries as a new form of colonialism. …
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Musk Lost in Court. But Who Won, Exactly?
2w ago00:05:37Tap to summarizeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comA jury in Oakland took ninety minutes Monday morning to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. The verdict didn’t touch the substantive questions — whether Altman lied to co-founders, whether the nonprofit-to-profit conversion was a betrayal, whether the company “stole a charity,” as Musk alleged. The jury found Musk filed too late. …
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The CEOs Who Flew to China and Got Nothing
3w ago00:19:05Tap to summarizeTrump brought a dozen of America's most powerful CEOs to Beijing this week — Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and others — to meet with Xi Jinping. The optics were big. The results were not. And the whole experience was presumably a nightmare for Trump's emotional-support CEOs.Here's why: these companies aren't trying to expand into China. They're trying to hold onto what they already have — and in most cases, they're losing it anyway. Tim Cook has built Apple's entire supply chain around China. Nvidia has gone from 95% AI chip market share in China to nearly zero. Musk is trying to sell Teslas in a country that views Starlink as a military threat.The world that made Silicon Valley possible — the open-market, borderless-money era that began when China joined the WTO in 2001 — is over. And no amount of diplomatic face time with Xi Jinping, or plane rides with Trump, is going to bring it back.Paid subscribers get early access to this and all my analysis, as well as written reports, including all the source documents.The Rip Current with Jacob Ward is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe
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Sam Altman Under Oath
3w ago00:06:34Tap to summarizeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comI watched Sam Altman testified yesterday in the Musk v. OpenAI trial in Oakland — his first and possibly only day on the stand. Within two minutes of cross-examination, Musk’s attorney Stephen Molo was asking him point-blank whether he tells lies to advance his business interests. Altman’s answers were careful to the point of being revealing: “I believe…
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Sam Altman's Own Hero Calls Him a Liar. Now He Faces a Jury.
3w ago00:14:54Tap to summarizeRead what Altman’s colleagues and cofounders say about his pattern of dishonesty in this morning’s piece, free for everyone.Ilya Sutskever — the AI researcher who helped build OpenAI and is widely credited with turning the transformer model into ChatGPT — took the stand on Monday and confirmed under oath that he spent a year assembling a 52-page dossier on Sam Altman’s conduct, concluding that Altman “exhibits a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs, and pitting his execs against one another.”That testimony follows sworn statements from former CTO Mira Murati, former board member Helen Toner, and former board member Tasha McCauley — all describing the same pattern. Altman is expected to take the stand today with all of that hanging over him.But here’s the thing: none of that may actually matter for the outcome of this case. I break down what the jury is actually being asked to decide, why Musk’s legal hill is steeper than it looks, and what Sutskever’s extraordinary testimony reveals about the people building the most consequential technology in the world. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe
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Jake on CNN: The White House Reverses Course on A.I. Regulation
May 600:04:39Tap to summarizeThe end of David Sacks’s time as White House AI Czar seems to be the end of the administration’s hands-off policies when it comes to the technology. As Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles take Sacks’s place, suddenly the administration is talking about a “first-look” review process for new models from the big companies. I spoke with CNN’s Jim Sciutto about it from New York. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe
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Musk vs Altman: What I've Seen So Far
May 100:20:27Tap to summarizeI believe the Musk vs Altman case tells us all something important about the goals and tactics of tech billionaires, and especially those pushing A.I. at the moment, so I’m giving this one out for free. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to get this kind of analysis throughout the week.I’ve been covering AI accountability since before most people knew they needed to. The Rip Current is where I do the reporting that doesn’t fit on television — the founding documents, the diary entries, the patterns behind what everyone else treats as a one-day story.I spent two days inside the federal courthouse in Oakland, California, watching Elon Musk get examined and cross-examined in his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. The case turns on a founding betrayal — Musk put in $38 million on the understanding that OpenAI would stay a nonprofit, and discovery documents suggest the conversion to for-profit was already being planned while he was still writing checks.But this trial is about more than one lawsuit. Congress investigated AI and passed no regulations. The FTC looked at AI market concentration and retreated. The California AG signed off on OpenAI’s nonprofit conversion without a fight. The fastest-growing company in corporate history is now having its fate decided by nine jurors drawn from Oakland’s voter rolls — and that jury may be the only formal accountability mechanism the AI industry has ever faced.In this video: what it was like to be in the room, what the Brockman diary entries actually show, what Musk’s attorneys are really arguing, and why this trial matters far beyond the $38 million at stake.Further Reading* Musk v. Altman, Case Filing Documents — Primary court filings including founding emails and Brockman diary entries entered into evidence* Karim Nader’s reconsolidation research, McGill University — Original science on memory malleability and the reconsolidation process* Elizabeth Loftus, “Creating False Memories,” Scientific American — Foundational work on memory distortion and false recall* California AG’s approval of OpenAI’s nonprofit conversion — The regulatory moment that left no footprint* OpenAI’s corporate restructuring announcement, 2024 — The company’s own characterization of the for-profit shift This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe
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Juicy A.I. Billionaire Drama Exposed
Apr 2800:07:12Tap to summarizeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comJury selection began on Monday in Oakland in Musk v. Altman — the trial that could determine the future of OpenAI, one of the most powerful companies ever built. But the most important story so far isn’t the legal arguments. It’s the emails, texts, and diary entries that the founders of the AI industry wrote — and wrote about one another — when they tho…
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Nine People in Oakland Hold More Power Over A.I. Than Congress
Apr 2700:04:47Tap to summarizeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comCongress has held hearings on AI. No legislation. The FTC has investigated AI companies. No binding rules. The California AG reviewed OpenAI’s conversion from nonprofit to for-profit and signed off.The only accountability mechanism that has actually gotten the people running the AI industry into a room, under oath — is a civil lawsuit, Musk v Altman. St…
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