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Has Silicon Valley become “addicted to addiction”? Computer scientist and futurist Jaron Lanier joins Danny Fortson to discuss why he thinks AI companies are repeating the mistakes of social media - and why treating chatbots as a new species is taking the industry in the wrong direction.

He explains why he’s sceptical of promises of AI-powered abundance, shares his alternative idea to addictive chatbots, and questions why some tech workers have to quit their jobs to speak openly about their concerns.

The Interview is our weekly conversation with the people shaping the future of technology.

Watch on YouTube

Read more: ‘AI psychosis’ warps reality in Silicon Valley

Get in touch: [email protected]

Guest: Jaron Lanier, Computer Scientist and Futurist.

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Robert Wallace and Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Video Producer: Super Llama

Image: Getty

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Labour veteran John Healey has delivered his first budget speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer, declaring that his was a “budget for the working people of Britain.”

Production:

Archive:

Nikki Bedi speaks to superstar Irish-Indian poet and New York Times-Bestselling author Nikita Gill about her latest “novel in verse Styx: The River”

Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about persuasive, but not always trustworthy, characters.  In “Fortune-Telling,” by Alix Ohlin, an actor tries on new role, with unexpected consequences.  The reader is Crystal Dickinson.  And from an evening of contemporary Irish fiction, the great Jessica Lange, in her Selected Shorts debut, reads Andrew Meehan’s “Summer in the Mountains,” where a man who calls himself "Utopia Frank" finds just how far grand visions can carry him.

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This is a catch-up version of James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. To join the game, call 0345 60 60 973, Thursdays at 12pm.

Recorded at the Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield, Misha Glenny and guests discuss Casablanca, one of the greatest films from Hollywood’s Golden Era.

The film stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and features the unforgettable song As Time Goes By.

Casablanca opened in November 1942 when Europe had been at war for three years and the USA for one. It was among Hollywood’s first major films to explain to US audiences why the war was worth fighting, and alongside this became a huge box office hit.

It was created by a cast and crew full of emigres and refugees from lands under Nazi control. They produced a movie that has authenticity as well as astonishing emotional power that continues to this day.

With

Ian Christie

Emeritus Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck University of London

Film historian and critic

Sheldon Hall

Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University.

Reading List:

Rudy Behlmer, Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986)

Thomas Doherty, Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 (Columbia University Press, 2013)

David Gerstner and Janet Staiger (eds.), Authorship and Film (Routledge, 2003), especially 'The Auteur theory: Michael Curtiz and Casablanca' by Peter Wollen

Aljean Harmetz, The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II (Hyperion, 2002)

Noah Isenberg, We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood`s Most Beloved Movie (Faber & Faber, 2020)

Colin McArthur, The Casablanca File (Half Brick Images, 1992)

Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (Pantheon Books, 1988)

David Thomson, Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio (Yale University Press, 2017)

A world-class seminar every week. Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

In this show Robert Harrison discusses the concept of “ordinary horror” with Andrea Capra, Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at NYU. Dr. Capra’s book Ordinary Horror was published by Stanford University Press in 2026. Songs featured in this episode: “The Killing” by Frans Bak and “Knives Out” by Radiohead.

Hello friends!

In between our fuller episodes, in which we share a conversation with someone talking about a poem that is very special to them, we thought we'd start a new occasional offering, between friends...

Expect voices, readings, poems and stories, from our continuing adventures with The Poetry Exchange...

In this first mini-episode between friends, John Prebble reads a poem that has come back to him recently, which really makes him of The Poetry Exchange: 'Introductions' by Moya Cannon.

There will be a new, fuller conversation coming soon, so stay tuned!!

In the meantime, between friends, thank you for listening.

*********

Introductions

by Moya Cannon

Some of what we love

we stumble upon –

a purse of gold thrown on the road,

a poem, a friend, a great song.

And more

discloses itself to us –

a well among green hazels,

a nut thicket –

when we are worn out searching

for something quite different.

And more

comes to us, carried

as carefully

as a bright cup of water,

as new bread.

'Introductions' by Moya Cannon, from The Parchment Boat, The Gallery Press, 1997

https://moyacannon.ie

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Learn more about Alpha School at ⁠https://go.alpha.school/howiwrite

After Gone Girl became a hit, she decided to turn it into a movie. She wrote the screenplay, teamed up with David Fincher, and the movie was nominated for an Oscar. I asked her to share what she learned from Fincher, why she writes like a method actor, and how she approaches plot, character, and the beginning of a novel.

Here's my awesome conversation with Gillian Flynn.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roman Mars has built one of podcasting's great empires out of noticing things everyone else walks past. His show, 99% Invisible, has racked up over 500 million downloads telling stories about the unnoticed design choices that quietly shape how cities and objects work, from speed bump psychology and flag design to the shape of a good street sign. His TED Talk on vexillology (the study of flags) is so influential that it has reportedly spurred 250 to 300 municipal flag redesigns across the country, including in Pocatello, Idaho, a city he once publicly called out for having the worst flag in America. Tyler asked questions about nearly every visual surface of modern life, and Mars's answers keep circling back to the same tension: beauty and efficiency are often at odds, and most of what looks ugly to us is just a compromise we haven't yet learned to love.

Tyler and Roman discuss street signs, why classic cars were so much more distinctive than today's SUVs, Waymos, New Jersey jughandles, yellow streetlights, lane-stripe colors, why Houston keeps growing despite its lack of charm, whether any post-war American suburb is actually beautiful, the Chrysler Building's rocky reception, brutalism done right and wrong, Central Park as an urban miracle, what Jane Jacobs got wrong, e-bike lanes, Tokyo's bike-free transit model, the placelessness of global coffee shops, why the iPhone looks boring now, the ugliest country he's visited, his love for Australia's polymer notes, his soft spot for the dollar's "locked in amber" weirdness, underground power lines, how to warn future civilizations about nuclear waste, why highway signs lie to you about speed limits, the principles of a great city flag, the Pocatello redesign saga, his own studio, why 99% Invisible works precisely because it's audio-only, the most unusual habit behind his long productive career, and more.

Read a transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on YouTube.

Recorded August 28th, 2026.

Other ways to connect

• Follow us on X and Instagram
• Follow Tyler on X
• Follow Roman on X
• Sign up for our newsletter
• Join our Discord
• Email us: [email protected] 
• Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:08 - On urban and suburban design

00:21:55 - On phone design

00:24:36 - On the world's ugliest places

00:26:03 - On currency design

00:28:33 - On power lines, speed bumps, and nuclear warning signs

00:34:31 - On city flags

00:40:39 - On building 99% Invisible

00:45:06 - Outro