Slate Technology

Out of the smoky backrooms, Vegas and clandestine dens, and straight to your phone—how did gambling on sports go from forbidden to inescapable seemingly overnight? 

Guest: John Holden, associate professor at Oklahoma State’s Spears school of business 

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On today’s episode, Rachelle is joined again by Nadira Goffe for a sequel to their August 2022 episode “What is A Clean Girl?” The two dive deep into TikTok’s latest favorite fashion trend: quiet luxury, or stealth wealth. The aesthetic’s adherents posits that rich people don’t dress in ostentatious labels, but instead communicate their wealth through brands like Brunello Cucinell, Loro Piana and The Row. Quiet luxurists point to figures like the Roy family from HBO’s Succession and Gwyneth Paltrow at her recent trial as examples of stealth wealth. But the trend, like it’s “old money” predecessor, is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of fashion, classism and racism.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Rachelle Hampton and Daisy Rosario.

Make an impact this Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month by helping Macy’s on their mission to fund APIA Scholars. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.

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On this show we explore three different AI and machine-generated music technologies; vocal emulators that allow you to deep fake a singer or rapper’s voice, AI-generated compositions and text-to-music generators like Google Music LM and Open AI’s Jukebox, and musical improvisation technologies. We listen to the variety of music these technologies generate, and two guitarists face off against an AI in improvised guitar solos. 

Along the way, we talk to philosophers of music Robin James and Theodore Gracyk about what musical creativity is and whether machines are more or less creative than human musicians, and Barry gives his take on each of the technologies and what they mean for the future of musical creativity.

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Space might seem to be heading from the domain of big government programs to a playground for billionaires. But just below the surface, a world of start-ups are getting ready to launch. 

Guest: 

Ashlee Vance, business columnist and author of When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach. 

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On today’s show, Rachelle is joined by ICYMI favorite, Nadira Goffe to talk about the makeup meltdown that’s taken over TikTok. The two dissect a Miami F1 brand trip sponsored by Tarte Cosmetics that ended in multiple apology videos and a promise by Tarte CEO Maureen Kelly to make her brand’s creator program more equitable. They dive deep into Tarte’s less than inclusive history and explain how exactly Pyrex got involved.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Rachelle Hampton and Daisy Rosario.

Make an impact this Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month by helping Macy’s on their mission to fund APIA Scholars. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.

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Artificial intelligence—as it already exists today—is drawing from huge troves of surveillance data and is rife with the biases built into the algorithm, in service of the huge corporations that develop and maintain the systems. The fight for the future doesn’t look like war with Skynet; it’s happening right now on the lines of the Writer’s Guild strike. 

Guests: 

Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, co-founder of the AI Now Institute at NYU

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On today’s episode, Rachelle is joined by the co-host of NPR’s Throughline podcast, Ramtin Arablouei, who recently did an episode about the history of public contrition from the Salem witch trials to the infamous notes app apology. The two discuss how the internet turbo-charged the commodification of apologies, the cynicism it’s led to and where we go from here.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Rachelle Hampton and Daisy Rosario.

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Curtis is setting aside a large chunk of money to donate to charity, and it is up to us to persuade him where he should donate it. Luckily, philosophers, economists, and the nonprofit world has been thinking a lot about this issue in recent years. On this episode, effective altruism’s defenders and critics try to persuade Curtis of where he should donate. Who is the most effective in persuading an ordinary person as to the right way to donate to charity? And do the recent scandals involving effective altruism’s biggest donor implicate its philosophical foundations?

 We start with arguments that you should always try to save the most lives possible, no matter where they are on the planet. We then hear a critic of that view, who argues that local giving can also be a good. We then turn to the view that we should save humans from extinction from threats like pandemics, nuclear war, and AI takeover. And finally, we hear from a critic of that view, who says we should not blow future risks out of proportion.

 Guests include philosophers Richard Yetter-Chappell (Miami), Savannah Pearlman (Indiana), Shakeel Hashim (Center for Effective Altruism), and Seth Lazar (Australia National University).

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Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are joined this week by a star-studded lineup to discuss episode seven of HBO’s Succession. Author Taffy Brodesser-Akner, plus Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (the directors of this episode) join the gang to talk about the Roys’ election tailgate party. 

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Podcast production by Patrick Fort.

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Meta’s reached a sort of mid-life crisis. Between the layoffs, the stagnant metaverse and Facebook’s dwindling profile, does Zuckerberg have a plan here?

Guests: 

Naomi Nix, Washington Post reporter

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