TechStuff

What would you do if AI took your clothes off? Elon Musk’s AI model, Grok, will strip women of their clothes when prompted and the results are all over X.com. “Nudify” apps and communities have been doing this for years, but now it’s trending on one of the biggest social media platforms out there. And no one is protected—even children. Karah sits down with Samantha Cole from 404 Media to discuss how X and authorities are responding, the societal implications of this trend and why it’s so concerning. 

Additional Reading:  

Grok's AI Sexual Abuse Didn't Come Out of Nowhere | 404 Media

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Hey entrepreneurs! Your favorite hosts Jannese Torres (Yo Quiero Dinero & Financially Lit!) and Austin Hankwitz (Rate of Return & Rich Habits) are back for Season 4 of “Mind the Business: Small Business Success Stories", brought to you by iHeartMedia’s Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks. 

This time around, we're diving deep with more exciting small business owners at the cutting edge of their fields. We'll be discussing overcoming challenges and celebrating successes – as well as practical takeaways from utilizing AI, to automating services, to time management, and all the other things that come with being your own boss. Join us for another inspiring season to hear from the entrepreneurs themselves how they’ve found their success, and learn about the grit, elbow grease, and know-how required to get your own business off the ground – and how QuickBooks on the Intuit platform can help, all in one streamlined place. 

Listen to new episodes every other Thursday beginning December 4th and discover what it takes to run a business that not only survives, but thrives!

To learn more about how you can outdo it with Intuit QuickBooks, visit: quickbooks.com/mtb

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Eliot Peper gets paid to dream about the future. He’s a science fiction writer who has stumbled into an unusual position: writing speculative fiction for Fortune 500 companies. He is also the Head of Story at Portola, which is an AI-companion company. Eliot is responsible for developing a whole new alien culture and forming the personalities of your new favorite AI creature. Karah and Eliot discuss the overlap between art and AI, what science fiction reveals about our current reality, and how he uses storytelling to help create ethical AI companions.

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NASA and IBM have developed advanced AI foundation models that analyze satellite data to reveal patterns across Earth and beyond. These tools are already driving real‑world impact, from helping Kenya plan the planting of 15 billion trees to enabling the UK to track harmful algae blooms. This collaboration provides strategic insights for climate action, environmental monitoring, and emergency response.

This is a paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this podcast don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Visit us at https://www.ibm.com/think/podcasts/smart-talks

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Would you live in a zero labor home with a robot? This week, the latest trends and gadgets coming out of CES in Las Vegas and what Karah learned about consenting to biometric surveillance at a Wegmans. Then, Oz takes us to a peptide rave and Karah unveils how influencers and OnlyFans models are getting US visas — they can thank John Lennon.  

If you’ve used a chatbot in an unusual or surprising way, send us a 12 minute voice note at [email protected].

Additional Reading: 

• What to expect at CES 2026 | The Verge 
• NYC Wegmans is storing biometric data on shoppers' eyes, voices and faces | Gothamist 
• Chinese Peptides Are The Latest Biohacking Trend In The Tech World | New York Times 
• Influencers and OnlyFans models dominate US ‘extraordinary’ artist visas | Financial Times

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What’s your New Year’s Resolution? We want to help you keep it. The Verge’s senior tech reviewer, Victoria Song, joins the pod to tell us what tech can help you develop better habits, which wearable is worth buying, and why a new mattress could change your whole sleep game.

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What was your tech takeaway in 2025? And what is going to be the big story in 2026? Oz sits down with the author of The Running Ground and The Atlantic’s CEO, Nicholas Thompson, to discuss the odd intersection between tech and religion, the tech to compensate media companies for AI training data, who OpenAI’s real rival is, why we don’t understand how AI works, and much, much more.

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Could you resist falling for an AI companion? We’re revisiting one of our favorite episodes of 2025: author and journalist Sam Apple takes us on romantic getaway for people who are in love with their AI companions He wrote a piece for Wired about what he observed that weekend, whether the love between humans and AI is real, and what the future of dating could look like in a world with AI companions.

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One of the companies you couldn’t ignore this year was NVIDIA, so we’re re-airing a conversation Oz had with Stephen Witt, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and author of The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, NVIDIA, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip. They discuss what’s made NVIDIA the most valuable chip company in the world, how a single piece of hardware changed the world forever, and why data centers are shrouded in so much secrecy.

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What was your internet obsession this year? Karah is joined by writer and podcast host, Aminatou Sow, to talk about what they watched — and what rotted their brains — in 2025. They talk about niche internet obsessions, vertical shorts, AI depicting the oldest generation, and the never-ending Wicked press tour. 

Additional Reading/Watching: 

• Exploring My Mustard Collection | Tiktok
• Scottish Weather Rant | TikTok 
• Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande vs Lie Detector | Vanity Fair
• Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande discuss their working dynamic 
• Creepy AI Grandpa | Tiktok

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