The Winter Olympics is using drones, AI and cloud-based broadcasting to track curling stones, freeze mid-air jumps, even talk to an official Winter Olympics chatbot. It’s turning sports spectatorship into something more high tech than ever before. Is it likely to be used in other sports?

Plus, a battle is being waged in court between a 20-year-old and Meta/YouTube. The argument is over whether Meta and YouTube's social media sites are engineered to be intentionally addictive. What precedent will this set if the case is successful?

GUESTS:

• Chris Berg, professor of economics at RMIT. 
• David Braue, technology journalist at Information Age. 

If you want to get in touch, you can contact us at [email protected]

This episode was produced on Dharug and Burramattagal land.

Having an AI agent act as your personal executive assistant may seem like a sweet deal, but security experts have a few concerns.

Also on the program, Moltbook is a new social media platform specfically designed for AI agents to chat. So far, they’ve started a religion, made their own scripture and called for humanity’s downfall. What happens when we anthropomorphise binary code? 

And, the dead internet theory used to be a fringe conspiracy theory. But AI is getting us closer and closer to it being a reality. So, how much of the internet is still occupied by humans?

GUESTS:

• Kai Riemer, professor of information technology at University of Sydney, and and director of Sydney Executive Plus.
• Tegan Jones, deputy editor at SmartCompany and co-host of Weird Tech.

TikTok has finally struck a deal to avoid being banned in the United States. Their privacy policy also got a controversial update. So, who owns US TikTok now? And what difference will it make to users?

Also on the program, there’s a new social media site going viral – Upscrolled. What is this Australian-owned site, exactly? 

And finally, OpenAI is trialling ads on ChatGPT. The company’s CEO Sam Altman once said including ads would be a last resort. So does this mean the company is financially unstable? And what kind of data would they share with advertisers?

Gianfranco references this The Information article about OpenAI burning through $115 billion through 2029.

GUESTS:

• Meg Coffey, digital strategist and founder of State of Social.  
• Gianfranco Di Giovanni, ABC Radio Perth content director and an arts, gaming and tech reporter.

This episode was produced on Gadigal land.

Plus! Social media site Digg is back. For those who remember, it may feel like returning to what was good about the internet. Is this the sign of a new era for social media? And how long can it hold out being monetised?

Also, why gaming in a group, even publicly... outside, is becoming more popular.

GUESTS:

• Phoebe Toups Dougas, associate professor of human-centred computing in the Exertion Games Lab at Monash University.
• Fergus Halliday, journalist at Whistleout and reviews.org Australia.

This episode of Download This Show was produced on Gadigal land.

After weeks of trying to audit, delete, and lock down her digital life, Rae hits the big, uncomfortable question: what if you can’t opt out of the internet, even if you really want to?

In the final episode of Opt Out, Rae speaks with Jathan Sadowski, senior lecturer at Monash University and proud Luddite, about how surveillance creeps into everyday life — from smart cars to smart locks — and why 'just logging off' is a privilege most people don’t actually have. Then she sits down with Carly Kind, Australia’s Privacy Commissioner, to ask what protections exist here, where the gaps are, and what power individuals really have to push back.

Opt Out is Download This Show's five-part series following Rae as she attempts to take back control of her online life — auditing, deleting, and locking down her own digital life, one step at a time, so you can too.

Technical production by Riley Mellis.

Every time you click 'accept' online, you’re legally agreeing to something. The problem is… you probably have no idea what that something is.

In episode four of Opt Out, Rae tackles the fine print: the privacy policies and terms and conditions we all scroll past because life is short and the language is cooked. She speaks with Dr Katharine Kemp, privacy law expert and associate professor at UNSW, about how digital 'consent' works in Australia, and why companies can legally do things with your data you’d probably never agree to if it was written in plain English.

Then Rae talks to Dr Sky Croeser from Curtin University about what happens when people do try to opt out, and why the internet is designed to make that as hard as possible. Surprisingly, it’s not all bleak: there are corners of the web doing things differently, and they’re worth knowing about.

Opt Out is Download This Show's five-part series following Rae as she attempts to take back control of her online life — auditing, deleting, and locking down her own digital life, one step at a time, so you can too.

Technical production by Riley Mellis.

If someone tried to hack you right now… how long would it take?

In episode three of Opt Out, Rae confronts her own extremely average cyber hygiene and tries to stop being the digital equivalent of someone who leaves their keys in the front door. She speaks with Vanessa Teague, cryptographer and privacy advocate, to unpack why passwords matter (and why humans are terrible at them), before spiralling into the world of password managers, two-factor authentication, and security keys.

Then, drowning under the weight of security suggestions, Rae turns to Carter Smith from CyberCX to work out what’s actually worth doing, and what’s just security theatre. It turns out, staying safe online assumes way more time, knowledge, and energy than most people have.

Opt Out is Download This Show's five-part series following Rae as she attempts to take back control of her online life — auditing, deleting, and locking down her own digital life, one step at a time, so you can too.

Technical production by Riley Mellis.

The internet knows a lot about you, but what if you wanted to take it all back and delete yourself all together?

In episode two of Opt Out, Rae tries to do the unthinkable: delete herself from the internet. She talks to Lawrence Gentilello, founder of data-removal service Optery, about what it really takes to scrub your details from people-search sites — and why it’s harder than it sounds. Then she checks in with John Payne from Electronic Frontiers Australia to find out what Australian law does (and very much doesn’t) let you do when it comes to your own personal data.

Opt Out is Download This Show's five-part series following Rae as she attempts to take back control of her online life — auditing, deleting, and locking down her own digital life, one step at a time, so you can too.

Technical production by Riley Mellis.

We all know the internet knows a bit about us. But… how much, exactly? And what happens if you actually try to look?

In the first episode of Opt Out, Rae volunteers as tribute and starts poking around her own digital footprint — checking data breaches, Googling herself, and asking some pretty uncomfortable questions about where our personal info ends up. Along the way, she chats with investigative tech reporter Yael Grauer about how our data spreads, and Troy Hunt, the creator of Have I Been Pwned, before typing her own email into his incredibly revealing website.

This is the place to start if you’ve ever thought about pulling back from the internet without disappearing into the bush.

Opt Out is Download This Show's five-part series following Rae as she attempts to take back control of her online life — auditing, deleting, and locking down her own digital life, one step at a time, so you can too.

Technical production by Riley Mellis.

It was a huge year for tech in 2025, and there were a few stories that hooked our attention more than others. 

The introduction of the social media ban, and the slow tease of details across the year about its implementation took up a significant chunk of our focus, while AI being embedded (to varying degrees of success) into absolutely everything meant that it was also impossible to escape. 

Join us to look back on the year that was, and attempt to predict the workings of the weird and wonderful world of tech in 2026.

GUESTS:

• Cam Wilson, associate editor of Crikey and editor of the Sizzle newsletter
• Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson, future economies reporter for the Australian Associated Press

This episode of Download This Show was made on Gadigal land and in Meanjin.

Technical production by Craig Tilmouth and Riley Mellis.