Last week, more than 1,000 experts in science and technology signed an open letter to labs developing advanced artificial intelligence, asking them to pause the “out of control race” to train ever more powerful systems. The letter warns that these “non-human minds” might eventually outsmart us, risking the “loss of control of our civilization.” But such framing misses the mark, according to Emily M. Bender, a computational linguist at the University of Washington who is skeptical of “AI hype.” Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Bender about what she sees as the real dangers in these models, starting with the way they use language itself.

We’re so used to it by now — people sharing every little detail of their lives online. And when it comes to content about parenting, it’s basically a whole industry. You can find “momfluencers” and family channels for any style of parenting or worldview you can think of, to the point that there’s now a generation of kids who have grown up in the social media eye. And, as you might imagine. not all of them are thrilled about it. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Fortesa Latifi, features reporter for Teen Vogue, who recently dove into this culture and its effects on the children involved.

First to leave was Sheryl Sandberg, the longtime chief operating officer at Facebook and Meta known for her bestselling book about women in leadership “Lean In.” Last summer, she stepped down after 14 years. Then, last month, Susan Wojcicki, the only woman CEO in Big Tech, announced her departure from YouTube, a role she’d served in for nine years after joining Google in its earliest days. They’ve left a void of visible women at the pinnacle of the tech world. It’s a trend columnist Beth Kowitt recently wrote about for Bloomberg News. And she tells Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino the way women leaders in tech are often described gives us a clue about what they face as they rise to the top.

Earlier this month, OpenAI released its newest and most powerful chatbot, GPT-4, along with a technical paper summarizing the testing the company did to ensure its product is safe. The testing involved asking the chatbot how to build weapons of mass destruction or to engage in antisemitic attacks. In the cybersecurity world, this testing process is known as red teaming. In it, experts look for vulnerabilities, security gaps and anything that could go wrong before the product launches. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Aviv Ovadya, a researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center who was on the red team for GPT-4. He said this kind of testing needs to go further.

Digital tools like virtual therapy and meditation apps have made mental health care more accessible. But they’ve made data about the people using them more accessible too. That’s what Joanne Kim found while conducting research as an undergraduate student at Duke University. Kim identified 11 data broker firms willing and able to sell highly sensitive mental health data to her. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Justin Sherman, a senior fellow at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy who helped oversee the study, about how this data ends up on the market.

The artificial intelligence wars are in full swing, with companies like Microsoft and Google battling it out. Now Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, is entering the fray. Last week, the company announced a new startup focused on developing what it calls “trustworthy” and independent AI, built on open-source software that’s free to the public. As with its other products, which are more focused on transparency and privacy, Mozilla aims to distinguish itself in a crowded AI field as a brand committed to the public interest. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Imo Udom, senior vice president of innovation ecosystems at Mozilla, to learn more.

The Federal Trade Commission is tasked with protecting U.S. consumers from unfair business practices, and in recent years it has set its sights on regulating Big Tech. The new Office of Technology will be at the forefront of such efforts. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Stephanie Nguyen, the FTC’s chief technology officer, who will also be leading the new office. She says the office’s work will be critical when you consider how tech has seeped into every corner of the economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of us to stay at home without the chance to socialize in person. But technology allowed us to stay in touch. Social media platforms helped connect us with the outside world — there was Zoom and Houseparty, and remember Clubhouse? But many Americans still struggle with loneliness, even now as life has somewhat returned to normal. Younger Americans are twice as likely to feel lonely than seniors, according to research from Cigna. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Kimberly Adams, senior correspondent at Marketplace and host of American Public Media’s series “Call to Mind.” In a recent episode of that show, she explored what role technology plays in people’s lives when they’re struggling with loneliness. And Adams says loneliness is something researchers have been looking into for decades, way before the pandemic.

TikTok’s CEO heads to Congress Thursday to defend the app against concerns it poses a national security threat. Pressure has been building from both the White House and Congress to force the Chinese-owned company to sell TikTok to an American company or face a nationwide ban. And while TikTok has never been in more political hot water, over on the app it’s still all viral pasta recipes, dogs demanding a “cheese tax” and not a whole lot of paranoia about data privacy. Researchers and TikTok creators alike are taking note of the disconnect.

Every week it seems the world is stunned by another advance in artificial intelligence, including text-to-image generators like DALL-E and the latest chatbot, GPT-4. What makes these tools impressive is the enormous amount of data they’re trained on, specifically the millions of images and words on the internet. But the process of machine learning relies on a lot of human data labelers. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Sarah Roberts, a professor of information studies and director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA, about how this work is often overlooked.