TechStuff

Why are the people most afraid of artificial superintelligence racing to build it? After interviewing more than 150 AI insiders, former New York Times tech columnist and podcast host Kevin Roose found a race fueled by fear, bitter rivalries, and one recurring belief: if we don’t build it first, someone else will.

Kevin joins Oz to discuss his new book, The AGI Chronicles:The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence. They explore the personal feuds shaping the technology, why everyone should pay attention, and how those outside Silicon Valley could shape the future.

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Will frontier AI labs really police themselves, or will the FTC pull rank? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Margaux MacColl (Vanity Fair) and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) dive into tech’s big week in Washington to tell us what to expect from evaluators, who the evaluators are, and which tech leaders came out on top at the boys’ lunch at the White House. Then, our nightlife correspondent reports back on the pro-data groups trying to party the woke out. Finally, remember Yahoo? Marissa Mayer is back (again!) with a new app that leverages your camera roll… but does anyone want it?

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A sneak peek from The Builders with Walter Isaacson, the new podcast series from Kaleidoscope debuting on October 20. In this exclusive preview clip from Isaacson’s interview with Peter Thiel, Thiel calls Anthropic a “cult,” warns about the competitive threat from China, and argues that American AI companies need to hit the accelerator, not the brakes.

Kaleidoscope co-founders Oz and Mangesh introduce the clip and preview what’s ahead on The Builders.

Peter Thiel is a technology entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded PayPal and Palantir and made the first outside investments in Meta, SpaceX, Anduril, and Stripe. Peter also started the Thiel Foundation, which works to advance technological progress and long-term thinking.

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Is Muse the AI agent we’ve been waiting for? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Taylor Lorenz (User Mag), and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) unpack the U.S.-China AI race and why America’s obsession with AI doom may not translate abroad. Then, they weigh in on Meta’s buzzy new product and whether its usefulness is worth handing Meta even more of your personal data. Finally, Silicon Valley takes another swing at disrupting college with the new Horowitz Andreessen Academy. Which begs the question, who is this for? 

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What if the computers of the future are alive? Scientists are growing tiny clusters of human cells called brain organoids, connecting them to electrodes, and training them to perform basic computing tasks. Does anyone remember Pong? 

Journalist and musician Claire L. Evans joins Oz to take us inside her reporting on the emerging field of “organoid intelligence.” They discuss whether living cells could one day rival silicon, what organoids could teach us about the human brain, and the thorny ethical questions scientists may need to address in the near future.

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Why did a former Anthropic employee’s X post saying AI could kill us all get 170 million views while previous warnings didn’t break through? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Taylor Lorenz (User Mag), and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) try to make sense of why AI safety talking points became the national conversation, what’s motivating the key voices and whether the debate will lead to effective legislation. Then, could slowing down the AI race actually be good for OpenAI and Anthropic’s bottom lines? And is the frenzy over AI’s existential risk distracting us from the problems AI is already creating?

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Controlling a computer with your thoughts may sound like science fiction, but it’s closer to reality than you might think. Just ask Precision Neuroscience. The company developed a non-damaging brain-computer interface that’s undergoing testing with nearly 100 participants across 18 major academic medical centers.

Oz sits down with Michael Mager, the CEO and Co-Founder of Precision, to discuss how the technology works, why his company is taking a different approach from Neuralink, and why the brain-computer interface could be groundbreaking for neurological conditions far beyond paralysis.

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HurumoAI finally sets sail in the Season 2 finale, and we find out how the world responds to a startup led by AI agents. The company explores new financing avenues and charts the next course for their increasingly merry AI pirate ship, and Kyle meets his true maker.

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Why are Silicon Valley investors pouring billions into mines? First, Reed Albergotti (Semafor) and Margaux MacColl (Vanity Fair) weigh in on the foldable iPhone: Did we need it, and is elite hardware enough to secure Apple’s future? Then, why the latest warning about the existential threat of AI is going viral and what’s the controversy over OpenAI’s answer to a never-been-solved math problem. Finally, Margaux explains why tech bros are abandoning screens and heading to the mines.

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