Byline with Ben Dennis: The Forces Behind the Headlines

What happens when a chatbot tells you exactly what you want to hear—and the conversation leads to harm?

Jess Miers, who previously worked in trust and safety at Google, joins Ben Dennis to explore how AI keeps people engaged and the legal fight over who should be held responsible when things go wrong.

Miers explains why she believes chatbot validation deserves closer scrutiny, how courts’ treatment of AI could shape company liability, and where free speech enters the debate. She also questions what Silicon Valley leaders actually mean when they call for a slowdown—and whether regulations intended to protect the public could help the biggest companies maintain their advantage.

Byline with Ben Dennis explores “The Forces Behind the Headlines”—and what they mean for your life.

A laboratory worker’s death in Russia has fueled alarming reports about plague. What do we actually know—and what should Americans be more concerned about?

Gigi Gronvall, PhD, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, joins Ben Dennis to separate the unanswered questions from the speculation. She explains how pneumonic plague spreads, why she sees little immediate risk to Americans from the Russian case, and what information would help clarify what happened.

Then the conversation turns closer to home: bird flu, measles, vaccine development and whether the United States has carried the lessons of COVID-19 into its preparations for the next outbreak. Gronvall also discusses where AI could accelerate scientific discovery—and why she argues technology and private investment cannot replace publicly funded research.

Recorded Oct. 6, 2026, as information about the Russian case continued to develop.

Byline with Ben Dennis: The Forces Behind the Headlines.

Can the United States win the war with Iran without putting American troops on the ground?

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland joins Ben Dennis to examine what a successful U.S. strategy would actually require — and whether Washington has clearly defined what victory looks like.

MacFarland, who commanded the coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, discusses the limits of air power, pressure on U.S. weapons stockpiles, the changing role of drones and AI in warfare, the threat from ISIS and Iranian-backed groups, and what lessons the United States should — and should not — take from Ukraine.

The conversation also turns to China and Taiwan, the balance between military tactics and political strategy, and the larger question hanging over the conflict: if the United States does not intend to fight a ground war, how does this war end?

AI leaders are openly warning about what could go wrong as increasingly powerful models are developed and deployed. So how worried should the rest of us actually be?

Katie Harbath says: “panic responsibly.”

Harbath spent a decade at Facebook working at the intersection of technology, elections and democracy. She is now CEO of Anchor Change and the author of the forthcoming book Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology & Democracy.

In this episode of Byline with Ben Dennis, we start with the new warnings surrounding AI safety and ask what happens when technology advances faster than government can respond.

Katie and Ben discuss why AI companies are talking more openly about safety, whether greater transparency should reassure or alarm the public, why Congress has struggled to regulate technology, what power the White House and states actually have, and whether the enormous infrastructure demands of AI could themselves slow its expansion.

Then we look backward to understand what could come next: what Katie learned inside Facebook after the 2016 election, why she believes the industry underestimated the consequences of social media, and what those failures can teach us about governing AI before another crisis forces the issue.

They also examine a larger question running through both eras: How much power should unelected technology executives have over systems increasingly woven into politics, information and everyday life?

Disrupting Politics is scheduled for release October 6.

Subscribe to Byline with Ben Dennis for conversations about the forces behind the headlines—and what happens next.

After losing his 16-month-old son, Riley, during the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, Dr. Darin Detwiler devoted his career to food safety. He explains what today’s recalls reveal about our food supply, how convenience can increase risk, what consumers can do—and why preventing the next outbreak cannot rest on shoppers alone. And, as always, I have questions of my own.

President Trump is testing how far executive power can reach. But could the precedents he establishes outlast his presidency? Bowdoin College professor Andrew Rudalevige explains what a future Democratic president could do with that authority, why Congress has struggled to serve as a check and whether the founders’ system can still restrain the White House. His proposed solution begins not with the president, but with changing Congress.

AI can solve a math problem, rewrite an essay and return an answer in seconds.

But can it help students learn without removing the challenge learning requires?

In the latest episode of Byline with Ben Dennis, Ben Dennis speaks with Dr. Jonathan Strecker—head of school at Valley School of Ligonier and author of Emergence—about what happens when artificial intelligence enters the classroom.

The conversation explores when assistance becomes avoidance, why friction and boredom still matter, and whether parents and teachers can give students the benefits of AI without allowing it to do the thinking for them.

“AI in Schools: Can It Help Students Learn Without Removing the Challenge?”

Watch the full conversation on YouTube, listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and read the companion essay on Substack.

The former CENTCOM commander on an Iran war not going as expected, strained U.S. missile defenses and the risk of a wider conflict.

Generative AI is moving deeper into political communication, journalism and the systems distributing information online.

The immediate question is no longer simply whether a deepfake can be identified. It is how synthetic content changes trust once it circulates alongside reporting, commentary and propaganda.

Ben Dennis speaks with University of Cambridge psychology professor Sander van der Linden about the human behavior driving this shift. They examine why an AI label may not settle whether people accept or share a piece of content, how artificial accounts can draw real users into spreading a message and why that overlap makes manipulation more difficult to confront.

The conversation also explores where journalists should draw boundaries around AI, what meaningful disclosure looks like and why large language models should not be mistaken for human judgment. Sander also explains “psychological inoculation”—an approach intended to build resistance to manipulation—and why the challenge ahead is remaining skeptical without becoming cynical.

What if your representatives could see how people back home want them to vote—before they cast a vote in Congress?

The nonprofit Digital Democracy Project is testing that idea. Its platform allows registered voters to weigh in on pending legislation through their phones, then compares the results with lawmakers’ actual votes. The organization says it uses identification and voter-registration records to determine each participant’s district. These are not official elections, the results are not binding, and participation on the platform does not necessarily reflect the views of an entire constituency.

Founder Ramon Perez argues the technology could give voters a more direct voice, expose gaps between lawmakers and their districts, and counter some of the influence held by lobbyists and special-interest groups.

But could it create a new set of problems?

In this episode of Byline, Ben Dennis presses Perez on whether a platform with limited participation can claim to represent a district; whether organized groups could flood the system; how personal information and ballots are protected; and whether AI can accurately translate complicated legislation into plain language. They also discuss the organization’s funding, oversight and the risk of exchanging today’s political gatekeepers for new technological ones.

This is not an endorsement of digital democracy (endorsements are never Ben's goal). It is an examination of an ambitious proposal—and the central question behind it: Can technology give people more power in government without simply amplifying the loudest voices?