Here’s a recent favorite of ours from our friends at the Uncanny Valley podcast.

Actor Ben McKenzie (The O.C.) is out with a new documentary, Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, which follows his journey into becoming an anti-cryptocurrency advocate. He says we should all stop trying to unmask the presumed original developer(s) of bitcoin known as Satoshi Nakamoto because it benefits only the mysterious inventor. The actor-director talks with Katie about why he thinks crypto is a scam, and why he says people are falling for it. 

Listen and subscribe to Uncanny Valley here: https://swap.fm/l/wired-uv-drop

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Your brain is the last place companies don’t have access to… yet. But that’s changing fast. Nita Farahany, professor of law and philosophy at Duke University and author of The Battle for Your Brain, explains why the sci-fi future of mind-reading technology is here, and already sitting on the shelves at Best Buy. Dexter talks to Nita about how AI is learning to decode your mental state, how employers are using neurotechnology to monitor workers, and why this might be our last chance to protect the one thing that’s still private: what’s actually going on inside your head. 

And be sure to listen through the end of the episode for a note from Dexter.

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod on IG, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

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Discord announced it would start scanning users' account data to guess their age and if it couldn't figure out how old you were, it would ask for your government ID or a face scan. Gamers lost it, and within weeks, Discord backed down. But the fight isn't over. Dexter talks with Rin Alajaji of the Electronic Frontier Foundation about why age verification doesn't actually protect kids, how California's new Digital Age Assurance Act means your next laptop might card you before you can turn it on, and why a policy that started with gamers is quietly becoming everyone's problem.

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

Links: 

• EFF’s Age Verification and Age Gating: Resource Hub: https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification

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This week, we’re sharing a clip from another podcast we’re excited about. Two Percent with Michael Easter is a deep dive into the science of living better, balancing rigorous evidence with a healthy dose of skepticism to cut through the noise of the modern wellness industry.

In this episode, Michael takes a nuanced look at vices and whether some of them might actually enhance your life when you use them the right way. We don't have to live like monks to live a good life.

We’re sharing the first segment of the episode featuring Dean Stattmann, a GQ reporter who spent three months sober and wrote a now-viral piece titled "Why My 2026 Resolution Is to Start Drinking Again." His Whoop scores got better, but his friendships, his marriage, and his mood got worse. Dean explains what alcohol actually does for human connection, what anthropologists call "costly signaling," and why moderate drinking might not be the villain the internet has made it out to be.

Check out the rest of the episode and the show, Two Percent with Michael Easter, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

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The wellness and health tech space is more crowded and confusing than ever – influencers are selling dubious health and beauty products and tech companies are developing wearables that track everything, from your sleep to your blood. Victoria Song, senior reviewer at The Verge, calls it the “wellness wild west.” Dexter talks to Victoria about the growing wellness trends online, the gray area between medical devices and wellness devices, and the mental health consequences of it all that no one talks about.

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

Links: 

• Victoria’s newsletter, Optimizer: https://www.theverge.com/optimizer-newsletter
• kill switch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@killswitch_pod

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AI agents can do stuff for you: like organize meetings or, accidentally delete your hard drive. Is this the future Silicon Valley wants for us? To get a preview of what it might be like, Evan Ratliff launched a startup with almost exclusively AI employees and documented the whole thing in his podcast Shell Game. Dexter talks with Evan about what it feels like to have a robot apologize for interrupting your lunch, why Clawdbot and Moltbook weren’t as groundbreaking as you might think, and why he thinks fellow journalists should consider using AI agents. 

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

Links: 

• Shell Game on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shell-game/id1753117762 
• kill switch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@killswitch_pod

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Direct File promised a free and easy way for Americans to file their taxes, but after two successful tax seasons, it was shut down. Dexter talks with Merici Vinton, who helped build Direct File, about the project's development, why it was an example of a good government program, and how lobbying from private tax companies and DOGE’s involvement ultimately led to its downfall. Could Direct File make a comeback, or has the opportunity for free tax filing already passed? 

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

Links: 

• Merici’s Direct File story: https://fas.org/publication/end-of-irs-direct-file/  
• kill switch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@killswitch_pod

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wartime propaganda isn’t new – but the use of AI slop in churning out propaganda videos is. And in this proxy war, Iran is winning. Dexter talks to Matthew Gault, who recently wrote about the Iran-US slopaganda war for 404 Media, about the strategy behind Iran’s videos, why the US is losing online, and how AI has amplified an age-old war tactic.

Read Matthew’s piece for 404: https://www.404media.co/iran-is-winning-the-ai-slop-propaganda-war/

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

This episode was livestreamed on YouTube. Catch the next one live by subscribing to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@killswitch_pod

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Mostly Human is a weekly podcast that explores technology through the most important lens: the human one. Hosted by award-winning tech journalist Laurie Segall, the immersive interview and investigative show tackles some of the defining questions of our time with headline-making tech titans and the people you don't know yet, but should. Mostly Human will leave you with a sense of agency over fear, and a clearer view of how tech can actually work for you.

Listen here and subscribe to Mostly Human with Laurie Segall on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Ethan Zuckerman helped design the amateur web as we know it. In the 90s, he worked at Tripod, providing free web space for anyone to build their own site. His invention, pop-up ads, helped make that possible. The industry ran with it, and the Internet was never the same.

Since then, Ethan’s been on a mission to fix the Internet and bring it back to what he hoped it would be – he even sued Facebook over it. Dexter talks to Ethan about how to make advertising less surveillant, a “free-trade coffee” model of the web, and why ad blockers might hint at a way to make Facebook a better place.

Hit us up: [email protected], or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

Links: 

• Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci’s proposal on Forgetful Adveritising: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/center/isp/documents/zuckerman.pdf
• Ethan’s op-ed in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/05/opinion/facebook-court-internet-meta.html
• Ethan and Isaac Brickman’s proposal for middleware: https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/JMYZ3GJKPE7UTCN8ZR3K/full
• kill switch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@killswitch_pod

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.