AI predictions, algorithms, and prediction markets are not neutral forecasts, Carissa Véliz argues.

They can become self-fulfilling prophecies, especially when they come from Big Tech companies, platform algorithms, tech executives, and markets with enough reach to shape the future they claim only to describe.

The conversation begins with the good life, curiosity, and the analogue world, then turns to AI hiring tools, TikTok, Kalshi, Polymarket, engagement-maximizing algorithms, and the way forecasts can quietly become instructions.

It closes on comedy, serendipity, Epicureanism, and how citizens can resist prophets by choosing more deliberately what to believe, what to build, and how to live.Please enjoy the show.

Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.

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CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(01:00) What is the good life?

(02:00) Why knowing yourself matters more than strategy

(04:44) The analog world vs the digital world

(06:45) How prophecies exploit our need for security

(08:47) Ancient Rome

(10:11) The illusion of safety

(12:27) When predictions work

(15:00) Altman, Amodei, Huang

(28:29) How to resist prophecies

(29:53) Prediction markets

(31:49) TikTok, algorithms, and the Molly Russell case

(36:08) Engagement algorithms

(40:54) Self-fulfilling prophecies

(43:44) Comedy

(46:59) Seinfeld

(52:16) Karikó

(53:40) Serendipity

(56:13) Why Epicurus beats the Stoics