Plain English with Derek Thompson

Latest Episodes:

The AI Revolution Could Be Bigger and Weirder Than We Can Imagine Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

Derek unpacks his thoughts about GPT-4 and what it means to be, possibly, at the dawn of a sea change in technology. Then, he talks to Charlie Warzel, staff writer at The Atlantic, about what GPT-4 is capable of, the most interesting ways people are using it, how it could change the way we work, and why some people think it will bring about the apocalypse.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Charlie Warzel

Producer: Devon Manze

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

MAILBAG: Why Does the Internet Make Us Depressed? Where Does Good Writing Come From? Is College Worth It Anymore? Mar 17, 2023

Show notes

Derek answers your burning questions in a special mailbag episode!

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Producer: Devon Manze

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

The SVB Debacle: The Biggest Myths, the Out-of-Control Blame Game, and the Worst Takes Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

Derek welcomes back the economic roundtable of Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson, cohosts of the 'Animal Spirits' podcast, to debate who killed Silicon Valley Bank, how much we should blame the Fed, how much we should blame Silicon Valley venture capital firms, whether this will change the direction of monetary policy, and whether the U.S. has too many banks in the first place.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson

Producer: Devon Manze

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

Silicon Valley Bank Collapse FAQ: Whose Fault Is It? How Can We Stop a Bank Panic? What Comes Next? Mar 13, 2023

Show notes

RIP, SVB. America's 16th-largest bank was just destroyed by the largest bank run in U.S. history. To talk about what happened and what happens next, we have Liz Hoffman, business and finance editor at Semafor and the author of the book 'Crash Landing,' on the Fed’s response to the pandemic.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Liz Hoffman

Producer: Devon Manze

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

"Industrial Policy" Is the Hottest Idea in Economics. What Could Go Wrong? Mar 10, 2023

Show notes

Under President Biden, the U.S. is pivoting toward what some people call “industrial policy”—that is, using the government to support key industries, like green energy manufacturing and the manufacture of advanced computer chips. There is a strong case against industrial policy in economics: It’s the idea that governments do not know better than markets when it comes to picking winners, and industrial policy just wastes money and distorts the economy. But there’s another view, which is that industrial policy is utterly necessary to help the U.S. build an abundance of computer chips and green energy infrastructure. Greg Ip, the chief economics commentator at the Wall Street Journal, helps us separate fear from fact as we talk about industrial policy.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Greg Ip

Producer: Devon Manze

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

How the Media Failed Its COVID Test: The Truth Behind the Lab Leak and Masking Debates Mar 07, 2023

Show notes

Today’s episode is a long one: It’s about the debate over media coverage of COVID. Three years after the fateful March of 2020, when it feels like the world shut down for COVID, we are revisiting two of the most contentious debates in this space. No. 1: The lab leak hypothesis; which is the debate over the possibility that COVID originated at a laboratory in China and not, as the official story went, at a wet market in Wuhan. And no. 2: the mask debate. And why a seemingly simple question—do masks work—is so hard to answer. Today’s guests are Dan Engber, a science writer and editor at The Atlantic who has chronicled the ups and downs of the media’s relationship to the lab leak. And Jason Abaluck, a Yale economist who has conducted masking research in Bangladesh.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guests: Dan Engber & Jason Abaluck

Producer: Devon Manze

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

Why Are American Teens So Unhappy? How Do We Solve This Crisis? Mar 03, 2023

Show notes

This is our second installment of happiness week on the Plain English podcast. On Tuesday, I spoke with the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development about what makes a good life, based on their 80-year longitudinal study.

Today’s episode is about the phenomenon of rising teenage unhappiness. What's actually happening? Why is it happening? What theories make sense, and what theories don't? How can we fix this problem? Today's guest is Matthew Biel, the chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center, and chief medical officer at Fort Health.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Matthew Biel

Producer: Devon Manze

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

Happiness in America, Part 1: The Secret to a 'Good Life,' According to an 80-Year Study Feb 28, 2023

Show notes

Americans have never had more access to social technology. It’s easier to talk to friends and family members hundreds of miles away; easier to see their faces; and easier to find single people to date. But if you ask them, Americans today will say they are as lonely as or lonelier than any time on record. The amount of time all Americans spend alone has increased every year for about a decade.

What's going on?

Today’s episode is about the longest study on happiness in U.S. history — the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Our guests are the study's director and associate director, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz. They are the authors of a new book, 'The Good Life,' about what their study should teach all of us about the secret to a long and fulfilling life.

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

The Science of How Music Hits Have Changed in the Last 60 Years Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

How does technology shape art? Why has songwriting become more of a visual skill in the 21st century? Why are today's hit songs shorter than songs from any period since the Beatles? What happened to the guitar solo intro—and the classic rock genre in general? How did rap and hip-hop take over the charts? Derek welcomes the musician, writer, and data analyst Chris Dalla Riva to discuss the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that music hits have changed since the 1960s.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Chris Dalla Riva

Producer: Devon Manze

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

Bing Chatbot Gone Wild and Why AI Could Be the Story of the Decade Feb 21, 2023

Show notes

Large language models like ChatGPT and Bing’s chatbot can tell stories. They can analyze the effects of agricultural AI on American and Chinese farms. They can pass medical licensing exams, summarize 1,000-page documents, and score a 147 on an IQ test. That’s the 99.9th percentile. They’re also liars. They don't know what year it is. They recommend books that don’t exist. They write nonsense on request. Today's guest, New York Times journalist Kevin Roose, spent a few hours last week talking to Bing. The conversation quickly went off the rails in the strangest of ways.

I am convinced that AI is going to be one of the most important stories of the decade. We are looking at something almost like the discovery of an alien intelligence. Except, because these technologies are trained on us, they aren’t extraterrestrial at all. If anything, they’re intra-terrestrial. We’ve taken the entire history of human culture—all our texts, all our images, maybe all of our music and art too—and fed it to a machine that we’ve built. Now it’s talking back to us. Isn't that fascinating? Isn't it kind of scary?

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Kevin Roose

Producer: Devon Manze

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

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Plain English with Derek Thompson

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected