Podcast
Your Undivided Attention
Hosted by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin · EN
Join co-hosts Tristan Harris and every other Thursday to understand how new technologies are shaping the way we live, work, and think.
Your Undivided Attention is produced by Senior Producer Julia Scott. Researcher/Producer is Joshua Lash. Sasha Fegan is our Executive Producer. We are a member of the TED Audio Collective.
38episodes
Episodes
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Anthropic’s Mythos Has Changed Cybersecurity Forever. What Now?
5d ago00:46:39Summary readyA 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 comes into question when an AI system can break through the security that runs the world. That’s what’s happened with Claude Mythos, Anthropic’s most powerful AI model yet. In a very short time, Claude found thousands of flaws and vulnerabilities in the software that runs the world, in every major operating system and web browser — systems that human security researchers had thought were secure for years. How do we live in a world where a private company suddenly has a skeleton key that can unlock the entire digital world with little oversight or accountability? And what does Mythos mean for all of us who rely on digital security to go about our lives? In this episode, we speak with two cybersecurity experts to answer these questions: Josephine Wolff is a professor of cybersecurity policy at Tufts University, where she focuses on the economic impact of cyberattacks. Fred Heiding is a research fellow at the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_ and subscribe to our Substack.RECOMMENDED MEDIA The Claude Mythos System Card The Project Glasswing announcement “Black-hat LLMs,” a talk on AI’s hacking capabilities by senior Anthropic researcher Nicholas Carlini You'll See This Message When It Is Too Late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches by Josephine Wolff “America’s Endangered AI: How Weak Cyberdefenses Threaten U.S. Tech Dominance,” by Fred Heiding and Chris InglesRECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES America and China Are Racing to Different AI Futures “Rogue AI” Used to be a Science Fiction Trope. Not Anymore. The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryAI and Cancer: Why Superintelligence Won’t Get Us to a Cure
3w ago00:47:09Summary readyOne 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 it down — even because of its serious risks — is essentially letting people die. In fact, the biggest risk would be going too slowly. But what if a superintelligent AI isn’t actually capable of solving cancer in the way it's been described? What if we're being sold a false promise to justify a dangerous race? That’s exactly what our guest this week argues is happening. Dr. Emilia Javorsky is a physician, public health researcher, and director of the Futures Program at the Future of Life Institute. She's worked across scientific research, clinical trials, tech startups, and AI policy. Emilia recently wrote a paper titled “How AI Can and Can't Cure Cancer,” in which she argues that the promise of superintelligence curing cancer falls apart under scrutiny. Emilia lost a parent to cancer, so her criticism of this promise comes from a place of real concern, not cynicism. It also comes from her belief that AI can be really revolutionary for medicine, if we build it the right way. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_ and subscribe to our Substack.RECOMMENDED MEDIA How AI Can and Can’t Cure Cancer by Emilia JavorskyThe Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES Decoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical Breakthroughs and Biological Threats with Kevin Esvelt Forever Chemicals, Forever Consequences: What PFAS Teaches Us About AI Big Food, Big Tech and Big AI with Michael MossCLARIFICATIONS: Emilia’s claim that “the doubling rate of medical knowledge has gone from 50 years in the 1950s down to 73 days” comes from an oft-cited 2011 paper from the NIH. However, this paper does not include any methodology for arriving at this claim. Emilia stated that we have yet to cure any complex, chronic disease in humans. However, we have been able to cure Hepatitis C, which is considered a complex infectious disease, and we have managed to effectively cure some types of Leukemia Correction: Tristan incorrectly paraphrased a quote from Charlie Munger about incentives. The actual quote is “The basic rule of incentives is you get what you were owed for. So if you have a dumb incentive system, you get dumb outcomes." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryHave We Trained AI to Lie to Itself — And to Us?
Apr 1600:42:37Summary readyOur 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 interrogates why they say and do the things that they do, probing them, asking them questions, analyzing their answers. And what he’s come to realize is that AI models have really different ways of seeing the world than people do. They have these quirky, confusing, and sometimes concerning behaviors, especially when you ask things like: what does an AI model understand about itself? In this episode, we’re going to hear from Davidad about his research, how it’s changed the way he thinks about AI, and what his findings mean for how we build, deploy, and use AI products. His conclusions are unconventional, controversial — and worth grappling with as AI reshapes our world.RECOMMENDED MEDIA Anthropic’s new constitution for Claude“What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” by Thomas Nagel More information on the BodisattvaRECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive How to Think About AI Consciousness with Anil Seth Corrections: When we recorded this episode, Davidad was Program Director at UK ARIA. In April, 2026 he started his own alignment initiative. Davidad said that Anthropic started doing "constitutional AI at scale” in 2024 but they first pioneered constitutional AI in 2022. Davidad said that the “lifespan of an AI mind…is hours at most of a conversation.” He is correct that most conversations with an AI last only a few minutes but since context windows are measured in tokens, not time, you can't set an upward time limit. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryBONUS: Our AI Town Hall with Oprah Winfrey
Apr 901:01:13Summary readyToday 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 to the AI Dilemma. This conversation goes much deeper, giving a full picture of the profoundly anti-human future that our current path on AI is moving us toward — and what we can do to steer away from it. Tristan and Aza also did a Q+A with the audience, moderated by Oprah. Audience members shared their own experiences with AI and asked incisive, critical questions that you might have yourself. RECOMMENDED MEDIA See "The AI Doc" Read CHT’s AI Roadmap Join The Human Movement Oprah's special "AI and the Future of Us" Watch Tristan’s TED talkRECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES Here’s Our Roadmap to a Better AI Future A Conversation with the Team Behind "The AI Doc" The AI Dilemma Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryHere’s Our Roadmap to a Better AI Future
Apr 200:52:14Summary readyIn 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 how AI should be built, deployed, and governed, each grounded in real, implementable solutions across three domains: norms, laws, and product design. 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. You can read “The AI Roadmap” on our website: humanetech.com/ai-roadmap RECOMMENDED MEDIA The AI Roadmap The Human Movement RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too. A Conversation with the Team Behind "The AI Doc" The Narrow Path: Sam Hammond on AI, Institutions, and the Fragile Future CLARIFICATIONS In this episode, Tristan includes Spain in a list of countries that are all banning social media for underage teens. The Spanish law that would do this still needs parliamentary approval. At one point, Tristan says, “We now have age gating in every Apple device.” Although Apple has the capability to introduce age restrictions across its devices, such restrictions are only in place for residents of Louisiana, Utah, and several other countries to comply with local laws - not across the rest of the U.S. In a discussion of whistleblower protections, Pete Furlong mentions laws in New York, California and Colorado that all try to address the broader issues around transparency (of which whistleblower protections are a piece). The laws are CA SB53, which has whistleblower protections; the RAISE Act in NY, which was amended to include the same provisions as CA SB53; and the Colorado AI Act, which does not have whistleblower protections, but does require risk assessments and transparency measures, consistent with the other parts of the principle. At one point Tristan discusses the recent skirmish between Anthropic and the U.S. Department of War, saying, “Anthropic’s downloads surges by like 250% or something like that.” It was actually daily active users, not downloads, which tripled in the first quarter of 2026, according to the company. The number of paid subscribers doubled. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryWhy the Meta Verdicts Are a Big Deal (And What It Was Like to Testify)
Mar 2600:19:48Summary readyIn 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 finding ways around the broad immunity of Section 230 — seeking not just fines, but changes to the design of these products. Our very own Aza Raskin testified at the New Mexico trial as a fact witness, drawing on his firsthand experience as the inventor of infinite scroll, one of the core mechanics of addictive design. In this episode, Tristan and Aza discuss what it was like to take the stand for tech justice, what the companies knew and when, and why the real significance of these cases lies not in the dollar amounts but in the injunctive relief still to come. In the 1990s, a series of landmark cases held Big Tobacco accountable for the harms of their toxic products. This could be that moment for social media. RECOMMENDED MEDIA Further reading on the New Mexico trial Further reading on the California trial Arturo Béjar’s “Broken Promises” Report RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES What if we had fixed social media? Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis Social Media Victims Lawyer Up with Laura Marquez-Garrett Real Social Media Solutions, Now with Frances Haugen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryA Conversation with the Team Behind "The AI Doc"
Mar 2300:47:56Summary ready“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 overwhelming complexity of AI, held space for radically different perspectives, and created a film designed not just to inform but to be experienced together. At CHT, we believe clarity creates agency. This film has the power to create the shared clarity we need to steer the direction of AI towards a better, more humane technological future. With every new technology, there’s a brief window to set the rules of the road that determine the future we live in. This is ours. So grab your friends, your family and go see “The AI Doc.” RECOMMENDED MEDIA Buy tickets for The AI Doc The trailer for The AI Doc The website for the Creators Coalition on AI Further reading on The Day After RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES A Problem Well-Stated Is Half-Solved with Daniel Schmachtenberger The AI Dilemma Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryAI Is Breaking Education. Rebecca Winthrop Has the Blueprint to Fix It.
Mar 500:46:15Summary readyThe 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 feel unleashed by technology to do their best work. Because AI has the potential to completely transform education — is already transforming it — faster than educators can keep up, it’s essential that we start asking the big questions: how should these tools be used in the classroom? What’s the purpose of education in an AI age? And how do we prepare students for a future that’s still so radically uncertain? Our guest this week actually has some answers. Rebecca Winthrop leads the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, and they just released a report called A New Direction for Students in an AI World. She and her colleagues conducted an extensive ‘pre-mortem’ of AI in the classroom, speaking with hundreds of educators, students, policy-makers, and technologists worldwide. In this episode, Rebecca walks us through what she's learned — what's working, what's not, and most importantly, what are the concrete steps that parents, teachers, and administrators can and should take right now? RECOMMENDED MEDIA A New Direction for Students in An AI World The Disengaged Teen by Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES Rethinking School in the Age of AI Attachment Hacking and the Rise of AI Psychosis How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death AI and the Future of Work: What You Need to Know Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryThe Race to Build God: AI's Existential Gamble — Yoshua Bengio & Tristan Harris at Davos
Feb 1900:37:16Summary readyThis 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 House staged a weeklong series of remarkable conversations between scientists and experts about technology and society. This episode is a discussion between Tristan and Professor Yoshua Bengio, who is considered one of the world’s leaders in AI and deep learning, and the most cited scientist in the field. Yoshua and Tristan had a frank exchange about the AI we’re building, and the incentives we’re using to train models. What happens when a model has its own goals, and those goals are ‘misaligned’ with the human-centered outcomes we need? In fact this is already happening, and the consequences are tragic. Truthfully, there may not be a way to ‘nudge’ or regulate companies toward better incentives. Yoshua has launched a nonprofit AI safety research initiative called Law Zero that isn't just about safety testing, but really a new form of advanced AI that's fundamentally safe by design.RECOMMENDED MEDIA All the panels that Tristan and Daniel did with Human Change House LawZero: Safe AI for Humanity Anthropic’s internal research on ‘agentic misalignment’ RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES Attachment Hacking and the Rise of AI PsychosisHow OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His DeathWhat if we had fixed social media?What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille CarltonCORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 1) In this episode, Tristan Harris discussed AI chatbot safety concerns. The core issues are substantiated by investigative reporting, with these clarifications:Grok: The Washington Post reported in August 2024 that Grok generated sexualized images involving minors and had weaker content moderation than competitors. Meta: The Wall Street Journal reported in December 2024 that Meta reduced safety restrictions on its AI chatbots. Testing showed inappropriate responses when researchers posed as 13-year-olds (Meta's minimum age). Our discussion referenced "eight year olds" to emphasize concerns about young children accessing these systems; the documented testing involved 13-year-old personas.Bottom line: The fundamental concern stands—major AI companies have reduced safety guardrails due to competitive pressure, creating documented risks for young users.2) There was no Google House at Davos in 2026, as stated by Tristan. It was a collaboration at Goals House. 3) Tristan states that in 2025, the total funding going into AI safety organizations was “on the order of about $150 million.” This number is not strictly verifiable. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
SummaryFEED DROP: Possible with Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger
Feb 501:07:25Summary readyThis 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 creating the playbook for blitzscaling. Aria is the former CEO of DoSomething.org. This may seem like a surprising conversation to have on YUA. After all, we’ve been critical of the kind of “move fast” mentality that Reid has championed in the past. But Reid and Aria are deeply philosophical about the direction of tech and are both dedicated to bringing about a more humane world that goes well. So we thought that this was a critical conversation to bring to you, to give you a perspective from the business side of the tech landscape. In this episode, Reid, Aria, and Aza debate the merits of an AI pause, discuss how software optimization controls our lives, and why everyone is concerned with aligned artificial intelligence — when what we really need is aligned collective intelligence. This is the kind of conversation that needs to happen more in tech. Reid has built very powerful systems and understands their power. Now he’s focusing on the much harder problem of learning how to steer these technologies towards better outcomes.You can find "Possible" wherever you get your podcasts! And you can follow Reid on YouTube for more of his content: https://www.youtube.com/@reidhoffman. RECOMMENDED MEDIAAza’s first appearance on “Possible”The website for Earth Species Project“Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil PostmanThe Moloch’s Bargain paper from StanfordOn Human Nature by E.O. WilsonDawn of Everything by David GraberRECOMMENDED YUA EPISODESThe Man Who Predicted the Downfall of ThinkingAmerica and China Are Racing to Different AI FuturesTalking With Animals... Using AIHow OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His DeathFuture-proofing Democracy In the Age of AI with Audrey Tang Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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