What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future

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What's What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future about?

Every Friday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.

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Does Crypto Investment Need...

06.26.2022

Fidelity made headlines when they announced you could invest your retirement savings in Bitcoin. Then the crypto market crashed. Guest: Anthony Lee Zhang Host: Sonari Glinton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future episodes:

06.26.2022 Does Crypto Investment Need to Be Regulated? Fidelity made headlines when they announced you could invest your retirement savings in Bitcoin. Then the crypto market crashed. Guest: Anthony Lee Zhang Host: Sonari Glinton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
06.24.2022 Can the Law Keep Up With the Internet? The openness of the internet is its greatest strength. Or a glaring weakness, depending on who you ask. Does something need to change? Guest: Jared Schroeder Host: Sonari Glinton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
06.19.2022 From the Vault: It's Hot. It's Flooding. Is This the New Normal? This episode originally aired in July 2021. Last year, North Americans saw record-breaking heat, droughts, wildfires, and floods. The science is clear: we are living through the effects of climate change. Now scientists are trying to answer: is this the ...
06.17.2022 The Culture War Over Electric Cars One state wants to stop people from buying one. But can electric vehicles be stopped? Guest: Ryan Cornell Host: Sonari Glinton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
06.12.2022 Sheryl Sandberg’s Complicated Legacy She wanted to be an icon for working women. What went wrong? Guest: Sheera Frenkel Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
06.10.2022 Bots! What Are They Good For? Elon Musk isn't wrong that Twitter has a bot problem. But he's kind of missing the point. Guest: Samuel Woolley Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
06.05.2022 Is Elon Musk Any Good at Business? Some call him revolutionary. Others call him a hack. Is his success warranted? Guest: Ashlee Vance Host: Lizzie O'Leary Thanks Avast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
06.03.2022 Can an Algorithm Spot a Shooter? Schools have spent millions to detect threats online. It mostly doesn’t work. Guest: Arijit Sen Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
05.29.2022 Online Privacy in a Post-Roe World What can current surveillance infrastructure tell us about online privacy after the fall of Roe? Guest: Lily Hay Newman Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
05.27.2022 Will Bitcoin Ruin El Salvador? Is El Salvador heading for default after going all in on crypto? Guest: Anna-Cat Brigida Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
05.22.2022 North Korea's Hacking Army They’ve stolen billions of dollars. Is the U.S. ready to crack down? Guest: Jason Bartlett, research associate in the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad ...
05.20.2022 How Buffalo Could Transform Social Media The shooting in Buffalo raises questions about the effectiveness of content moderation. Is the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism the answer to how social media can moderate extremist content? Guest: Emma Llansó, director of the Free Expression Project at ...
05.15.2022 Inside Trump’s Twitter Clone Trump's Truth Social network was supposed to be the right's answer to Twitter. What happens to the company if Elon takes over? Guest: Drew Harwell, reporter for the Washington Post Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
05.13.2022 Can A.I. Know What You're Feeling? Companies are developing and selling A.I. products intended to tell your boss or your teacher how you're feeling. Guest: Kate Kaye, reporter for Protocol Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
05.08.2022 Is Free Speech Online Just a Myth? A conversation with one of the smartest First Amendment lawyers in the country. Guest: Jameel Jaffer Host: Lizzie O'Leary Thanks Avast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
05.06.2022 Can the Internet Rescue Abortion Access? The pandemic changed the way abortion care could be provided online. So what happens now? Guest: Dr. Mai Fleming, family medicine physician and Fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
05.01.2022 The Fantasy of Internet for All Can Starlink ever fulfill its promise of connecting the world, especially places left behind by traditional internet? Or will it be just another toy for the rich? Guest: Meaghan Tobin, reporter at Rest of World Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more ...
04.29.2022 What Elon Wants With Twitter Twitter is the platform of choice for politicians, journalists, academics, and many other agenda-setters. Twitter influences conversations that take place in newsrooms and statehouses. What happens if the company’s placed in the hands of a pugnacious, provocative plutocrat like Elon ...
04.24.2022 A New High-Tech Weapon in Ukraine The conflict between Ukraine and Russia is uncovering new wartime applications for facial recognition technology. Guest: Aric Toler, director of research and training at Bellingcat Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
04.22.2022 The COVID Data Disaster Are we facing down yet another COVID wave right now? Does it matter? Guest: Katherine Wu, staff writer for The Atlantic Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
04.17.2022 How TurboTax Tricks Taxpayers How did Intuit build its TurboTax empire? Guest: Justin Elliott, reporter for ProPublica Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
04.15.2022 Elonnnnnnnnnnnnn! Is Musk's bid to take Twitter private a genuine attempt to mold the social network in his image? Or is he just going to have some fun, make some money, and walk away? Guest: Felix Salmon, host of Slate Money ...
04.10.2022 Uber Makes Nice With Cabs The rideshare company's founder once called taxis “evil.” Now, Uber might need them to survive. Guest: Preetika Rana Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
04.08.2022 Elon Trolls the SEC With 9.1% ownership of Twitter—and a board seat—Elon Musk is the new master of Twitter's future. Why did the wealthiest man in the world just take over the world's most influential platform? Guest: Ranjan Roy, writer of the Margins newsletter ...
04.03.2022 A Conversation With Europe's Top Tech Cop For nearly a decade, Margrethe Vestager has led Europe's efforts to rein in big tech. One newspaper article described Vestager as putting the fear of God into Silicon Valley. How is she thinking about fairness in tech in 2022? Guest: ...
04.01.2022 The White House's Favorite Tech Billionaire Why did Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt spend over a decade building relationships with the most powerful Democrats in America? Guest: Alex Thompson, reporter at Politico Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
03.27.2022 The Cost of Going Off-Grid Going off-grid can seem appealing in lots of ways. But are there consequences if everyone unplugs from the system? Are there costs we haven’t considered? Guest: Ivan Penn, renewable energy correspondent for the New York Times Host: Seth Stevenson Learn ...
03.25.2022 Why the Zelensky Deepfake Failed The FBI warned that Russia would use deepfakes to support its invasion of Ukraine. Are they missing the real threat? Guest: Noah Giansiracusa, professor of math and data science at Bentley University. Host: Seth Stevenson Learn more about your ad ...
03.20.2022 The Startup Delivering Adderall In just two years, the mental-health startup Cerebral has grown to operate in 50 states, registered more than 200,000 patients, and reached a $4.8 billion valuation. Has it prioritized growth over patient care? Guest: Caleb Melby Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn ...
03.18.2022 Hong Kong’s Covid Crisis Hong Kong's zero-COVID policy got enviable results, but inadvertently set the stage for disaster. What will it take to change course? Guest: Dr. Karen Grépin, Associate Professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong Host: ...
03.13.2022 How Minnesota Spied On Protesters When Minnesota's Operation Safety Net, a coordinated effort among nine Minnesota law enforcement agencies, was announced in February 2021, its mission was to ensure the trial of Derek Chauvin would proceed peacefully. It also promised to protect people's right to ...
03.11.2022 Putin's Internet Crackdown Vladimir Putin has always regarded the internet with suspicion. Now, with western tech companies pulling out of Russia and control of the war narrative slipping, he sees an opening. Will Putin wall off Russia from the rest of the digital ...
03.06.2022 When Your Retina Needs a Software Update Second Sight restored partial vision to hundreds of patients around the world through retinal implants. Then, on the verge of bankruptcy, they abandoned the project. Now, over 300 patients with Second Sight technology in their bodies are asking: what will ...
03.04.2022 Ukraine’s Information War Up against one of the world's most effective propaganda operations, Ukraine has taken control of the online narrative. With Russian troops closing in, how important is winning the information war? Guest: Casey Newton, writer at Platformer Host: Lizzie O'Leary Learn ...
02.27.2022 Peter Thiel, Patron of the Populist Right Peter Thiel spent the better part of two decades molding the tech industry in his image. Now, he's leaving Facebook behind and turning his attention to politics. Is Thiel the next kingmaker for the populist right? Max Chafkin, writer for ...
02.25.2022 Russia's Other Battlefront For seven years, Ukraine has served as a virtual testing ground for a generation of cyber weaponry capable of taking down power grids, networks, and supply chains. With an invasion of Ukraine underway, will these weapons come into play? Guest: ...
02.20.2022 The COVAX Fantasy Over two years into the pandemic, much of the world remains either unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, or lacking access to mRNA vaccines entirely. How did the leading effort to vaccinate the world go so wrong? Guest: Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the ...
02.18.2022 "Rampant Racism" at Tesla Last week, California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Tesla. It accuses the electric vehicle maker of fostering a workplace rife with racism and discrimination. What's happening inside Tesla's Fremont plant? Guest: Dana Hull, reporter for Bloomberg Host: Lizzie ...
02.13.2022 The Rise of a Fast Fashion Juggernaut In just a few short years, the Chinese fast fashion company Shein upended the way countless young women shop online. It’s approach could soon shape the way everyone else shops, too. Guest: Louise Matsakis, freelance technology reporter Host: Lizzie O’Leary ...
02.11.2022 How Safe is the Metaverse? Facebook’s first crack at the metaverse has a problem: kids. Underage users seem to be flooding Horizon Worlds, potentially putting themselves at risk. Is Meta doomed to repeat Facebook’s mistakes? Guest: Will Oremus, technology news analysis writer for the Washington ...
02.06.2022 The Code That Runs Your Life Banks, healthcare providers, and retailers around the world still rely on COBOL, a programming language originally developed in the 1960s. By all accounts the code is powerful, practical, and very rarely problematic. But the small group of people who still ...
02.04.2022 Spotify’s Joe Rogan Mess For Spotify, the last month has seen a cascade of controversies around its exclusive podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Is it time for the streaming service to rethink its role as a podcast publisher? And is it even possible to ...
01.28.2022 The Downfall of One of the World's Biggest Brains Ten years ago, IBM made a gamble. Through a monumental advertising and PR campaign, it promised that its AI technology–Watson–would transform the health care industry as we know it. A decade and billions of dollars later, Watson Health is being ...
01.21.2022 Why Does Matt Damon Want Me to Buy Crypto? A recent advertisement for crypto.com, featuring Matt Damon, was met with widespread mockery online. But Damon’s ad is only the most visible example of a much broader—and more insidious—trend of celebrity cryptocurrency endorsements. Is the partnership between crypto and Hollywood ...
01.14.2022 Where Are The Little Kids' Vaccines? Today on What Next TBD: What is going on with little kids' vaccines? Why don’t they seem to be a priority for the government or the pharmaceutical companies, while parents are stressed to a breaking point? We discuss with Meg ...
01.07.2022 The Aftermath of Elizabeth Holmes Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of defrauding investors this week in federal court. The former CEO, wunderkind, and blood mogul has been the subject of intense legal interest and public fascination ever since her company, Theranos, was beset by scandal ...
12.31.2021 Best of 2021: It’s Time to Talk About U.F.O.s This episode originally aired in July 2021 Last week, the U.S. government released a new report that attempts to categorize 144 verified sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, or U.A.P. They could only definitively explain one of them. The new report ...
12.24.2021 Best of 2021: Are We Getting COVID Testing All Wrong? This episode originally aired in September. In the U.S., the PCR test is the gold standard for COVID testing. Common knowledge would have it that the test is more accurate—and therefore more effective at containing the spread of the disease—than ...
12.17.2021 The Carbon Capture Fantasy Using experimental technology to pull gigatons of carbon out of the air and bury it deep beneath the Earth sounds like a bad sci-fi plot point. If things don’t change soon, it also might be one of our only options. ...
12.10.2021 Who Online Justice Leaves Behind The U.S. civil court system doesn’t get as much attention as the criminal courts, but it would be hard to overstate its importance. In 2018, for example, 47 percent of respondents to a Pew survey said they had dealt with ...

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