Ideas

Thanks to Dexter and Hannibal Lecter you may think you know what a psychopath is. But a critical review of the science suggests that 'psychopath' as a diagnosis is flawed. Author of Psychopathy Unmasked Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen argues it’s time to end the misuse of controversial science in our criminal justice system — and to rethink psychopathy as a whole.

"We need to separate AI from empire," says tech journalist Karen Hao who used to work in Silicon Valley as an engineer. Now she’s an outspoken critic of its AI giants. She argues AI companies run their businesses like empires and it has to stop. In her book, Empire of AI, Hao digs into the global impact of Big AI and explores how we need to rethink AI to build a better future. This podcast includes a lecture by Karen Hao and a discussion with host Nahlah Ayed. *This episode originally aired on March 25, 2026.

Hidden in the 1950 academic paper that launched the famous 'Turing Test' of machine intelligence, is a strange mystery. Cryptographer Alan Turing argued that humans might always be able to outsmart machines, because we have supernatural powers like ESP, telepathy, and telekinesis. His belief in the paranormal is just one part of the spooky side of artificial intelligence. Like hauntings or seances, AI is an exercise in self-deception; we imagine intelligence from computation and data, just like we imagine ghosts from strange lights and bumps in the night. *This episode originally aired on March 12, 2025.

Thanks to AI, it's easier than ever to avoid reading books — but that convenience may come with a cost. IDEAS explores how our digital landscape, coupled with the decline of reading, is changing the way we think. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 19, 2026.

If you like this episode, listen to our podcast with Geoffrey Hinton, the 'godfather of artificial intelligence' who says AI must develop empathy and 'maternal instincts' or we risk human extinction.

Guests in this episode:

Adriaan Van der Weel is a professor emeritus by special appointment at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. He's also the co-author of The Ljubljana Manifesto on Higher-Level Reading.

Maryanne Wolf is director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and the author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World (2018).

Naomi Baron is a professor emerita of World Languages and Cultures at American University and the author of Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters (2026).

Leah Sargeant is an author and senior policy analyst at the Niskanen Center.

Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed in Philosophy. She is the author of The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (2024).

If AI continues to develop without appropriate guardrails, a worst-case scenario could lead to human extinction, warns the 'godfather of artificial intelligence' Geoffrey Hinton. But the Nobel Prize winner has a solution: AI must foster 'maternal' instincts, empathy and kindness. Hinton tells host Nahlah Ayed that it's fairly inevitable AI will become smarter than humans, but if we could make it care more for us than it did about itself, good things could happen. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 18, 2026.

Like this episode? Listen to: How can we prevent AI from becoming a menace?

Millions of people are using AI to “talk” to the dead. The phenomenon has left cyberpsychologist Elaine Kasket asking what happens when we rely on for-profit AI companies to help us manage something as deeply human as grief? And where’s the line between comfort and self-destruction? IDEAS features two episodes from the CBC Podcasts series Artificial Intimacy, exploring the promise and peril of our emotional entanglements with AI chatbots.

Enjoyed this episode? Listen to the full series of Understood: Artificial Intimacy here.

If intractable conflicts in the 90s could end in peace agreements, is there hope for the ongoing wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond? What can we learn from the successes and failures of the past about how to create a more peaceful world? And what solutions are obstructed by lack of will? Nahlah Ayed and guests explore what peacemaking and rebuilding mean for us today, and try to chart a course for the future. *This is the last episode in our five-part series, Inventing Peace. It originally aired on Sept. 29, 2025.

The apartheid era in South Africa ended in 1991 with the National Peace Accords. The peace agreement also paved the way for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yet TRC head Desmond Tutu considered the process “scandalously unfinished.” Lawyer Prakash Diar agrees: "You don’t undo centuries of colonization just like that.”

Diar and writer Kagiso Lesego Molope were young activists in apartheid-era South Africa. They saw the toll that oppression and state violence took: on their families, communities, and themselves. In our fourth episode of our series Inventing Peace, they consider the history of the history of this pivotal peace agreement and what other countries might learn. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 22, 2025.

For almost four years, the Bosnian War in the former Yugoslavia was characterized by ethnic hatreds, atrocities, and a refugee crisis. So when leaders of the warring factions were sequestered in an American air base and forced to come up with the 1995 peace agreement known as the Dayton Accord, the world was relieved. But is a cessation of violence the same as real peace? *This episode is the third in a five-part series called Inventing Peace. It originally aired on Sept. 15, 2025.

When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat met in Washington to sign the first Oslo Accords in 1993, it was supposed to usher in a new era of peace and lay the groundwork for a more stable Middle East. Three decades later, the Accords are primarily remembered as a failure. Nahlah Ayed and guests discuss what went wrong, and what lessons the Oslo Accords hold for the future. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 8, 2025 as part of our series, Inventing Peace.