Future Perfect

Latest Episodes:

Good Robot #4: Who, me? Mar 22, 2025

Show notes

What can we actually do as our world gets populated with more and more robots? How can we take control? Can we take control?

This is the final episode of our four-part series, Good Robot.

Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team.

For more, go to vox.com/goodrobot

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Good Robot #3: Let's fix everything Mar 19, 2025

Show notes

A simple parable about a drowning child sparks a moral revolution. Can AI help us do the most good in the world?

Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team. Episodes will be released on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

For more, go to vox.com/goodrobot

Support Future Perfect by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members

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Good Robot #2: Everything is not awesome Mar 15, 2025

Show notes

When a robot does bad things, who is responsible? A group of technologists sounds the alarm about the ways AI is already harming us today. Are their concerns being taken seriously?

This is the second episode of our new four-part series about the stories shaping the future of AI.

Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team. Episodes will be released on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

For more, go to vox.com/goodrobot

Support Future Perfect by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members

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Good Robot #1: The Magic Intelligence in the Sky Mar 12, 2025

Show notes

Before AI became a mainstream obsession, one thinker sounded the alarm about its catastrophic potential. So why are so many billionaires and tech leaders worried about… paper clips?

Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team. Episodes will be released on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

For more, go to vox.com/goodrobot

Support Future Perfect by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members

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Introducing: Good Robot Mar 05, 2025

Show notes

A new series about AI from Unexplainable and Future Perfect

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Sucking the carbon out of the sky Apr 28, 2021

Show notes

Most of our efforts to fight climate change, from electric cars to wind turbines, are about pumping fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But what if we could pull out the gases that are already there? Akshat Rathi, a reporter at Bloomberg with a doctorate in chemistry, knows more about this technology, called “direct air capture,” than just about anyone. He follows companies like Carbon Engineering and Climeworks that are trying to figure out how to take regular air and pull carbon dioxide out of it.

If their plans work, they could mean a world with net negative emissions: less carbon in the sky than there is right now, and a cooler planet. But his reporting has also highlighted how elusive carbon capture can be, and how tricky it can be to make the tech work at an affordable price. Rathi and Vox’s Dylan Matthews discuss how direct air capture works, how it’s different from capturing carbon at a fossil fuel plant, and the struggles of one direct air capture company in particular.

Read more of Akshat’s work here:

Host:

Dylan Matthews (@DylanMatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Producer:

Sofi LaLonde (@sofilalonde)

More to explore:

Subscribe to Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter, which breaks down big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them.

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to futureperfect@vox.com.

Subscribe to Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

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Should I still have kids if I’m worried about climate change? Apr 21, 2021

Show notes

Climate scientist Kimberly Nicholas co-led a study that showed the single most effective thing an individual can do to decrease their carbon footprint is have fewer kids. Despite that finding, she still says that people who really want to have kids should go ahead with their plans. She explains how she squares that circle to Vox’s Sigal Samuel, and the two discuss how to think about the decision to have kids or not and how to make meaning in a warming world.

Read more of Sigal’s climate reporting:

More information about Dr. Kimberly Nicholas

Find her new book here
Read more of her writing on her website
The podcast she recommended called So Over Population

Host:

Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), staff writer, Vox

Producer:

Sofi LaLonde (@sofilalonde)

More to explore:

Subscribe to Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter, which breaks down big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them.

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to futureperfect@vox.com.

Subscribe to Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Follow Us:

Vox.com

Support Future Perfect by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Engineering our way out of the climate crisis Apr 14, 2021

Show notes

In an ideal world, cutting carbon emissions would be enough to stop global warming. But after dithering for decades, the world needs a back-up plan. Kelly Wanser is the leader of a group called SilverLining that works to promote research into what it calls “solar climate intervention.” Also called “solar geoengineering,” this approach involves putting particles into clouds that reflect back the sun, directly cooling the earth. It’s a novel and potentially hazardous policy — but one that Wanser and other experts argue could hold a lot of promise as the world braces for catastrophic climate impacts. Wanser and Vox’s Dylan Matthews discuss how solar climate intervention works, how it could be implemented, and where it fits in with the goal of cutting emissions.

References:

Kelly Wanser is the executive director of SilverLining. You can find more information at Silverlining.ngo, including its 2019 report on climate intervention research. You can also hear more from Wanser in her 2019 TED Talk.

Host:

Dylan Matthews (@DylanMatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Producer:

Sofi LaLonde (@sofilalonde)

Special thanks to Efim Shaprio (@efimthedream)

More to explore:

Subscribe to Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter, which breaks down big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them.

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to futureperfect@vox.com.

Subscribe to Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Follow Us:

Vox.com

Support Future Perfect by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Unexplainable Mar 16, 2021

Show notes

Unexplainable is a new podcast from Vox about everything we don’t know. Each week, the team looks at the most fascinating unanswered questions in science and the mind-bending ways scientists are trying to answer them. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

This episode: Scientists still don't know how the sense of smell works. But they're looking at how powerful it is — dogs can actually sniff out cancer and many other diseases — and they're trying to figure out how to reverse-engineer it. In fact, one MIT scientist may have built a robot nose ... without completely understanding how his invention works.

Learn more:

vox.com/unexplainable

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unexplainable/id1554578197

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0PhoePNItwrXBnmAEZgYmt?si=Y3-2TFfDT8qHkfxMjrJL2g

http://vox.com/unexplainable-newsletter

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Rethinking meat Nov 04, 2020

Show notes

How can we convince people to change their relationship with meat?

Melanie Joy has been grappling with this question for a long time. To answer it, she takes us back to other points in history when new technology helped make social change palatable. She digs into how the invention of the washing machine and other household appliances, for example, helped make feminism easier to imagine.

Then, she looks to the future, at our latest meat technologies — plant-based meat and lab grown meat — and asks: Could they make it easier for us to move away from meat altogether?

Further listening and reading:

Joy’s books, Powerarchy: Understanding the Psychology of Oppression for Social Transformation and Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.
Vox’s Ezra Klein interviewed Joy for an episode of The Ezra Klein Show in 2018. Hear that interview and read her book recommendations here.

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to futureperfect@vox.com.

Subscribe to Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

This podcast is made possible thanks to support from Animal Charity Evaluators. They research and promote the most effective ways to help animals.

Featuring:

Melanie Joy (@DrMelanieJoy)

Host:

Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), staff writer, Vox

More to explore:

Follow all of Future Perfect’s reporting on the Future of Meat.

Subscribe to Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter, which breaks down big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them.

Follow Us:

Vox.com

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