TechStuff

Latest Episodes:

Week in Tech: Duping Big Tech’s Tech Test Mar 14, 2025

Show notes

Could AI help you land an internship? This week in the News Roundup, Oz and producer Eliza Dennis explore the rise of vibecoding, what it means for the future of software development and how one college programmer hopes to reform the Big Tech hiring process. On TechSupport, Oz chats with the founder and researcher of the Exponential View newsletter, Azeem Azhar, about the latest AI innovation and its significance in the battle for technological supremacy.

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The Story: What is AI Love? w/ David Eagleman Mar 12, 2025

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David Eagleman is a neuroscientist, author, entrepreneur and host of the podcast Inner Cosmos. In his podcast, he explores how our brains interpret the world and construct reality. Eagleman sits down with Oz to discuss AI relationships, the human urge to anthropomorphize chatbots and the benefits of living on the exponential curve.

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Week in Tech: Can a Woolly Mouse Make a Mammoth? Mar 07, 2025

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What if AI could read your mind? This week in the News Roundup, Oz and producer Eliza Dennis explore the latest tech investment in the US, Meta’s brain-to-text breakthrough and the creation of the woolly mouse. On TechSupport, 404 Media’s Jason Koebler takes us to an AI-generated film festival… spoiler: the tech isn’t there yet.

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The Story: A Spymaster Sheikh’s AI Ambitions w/ Bradley Hope Mar 05, 2025

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Bradley Hope is a journalist, author and co-founder of Project Brazen, a narrative non-fiction production studio. His piece in Wired, ‘A Spymaster Sheikh Controls a $1.5 Trillion Fortune. He Wants to Use It to Dominate AI,’ outlines how one Gulf royal Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al Nahyan came to control vast sums of sovereign wealth. Hope sits down with Oz to discuss Sheikh Tahnoun’s early obsession with AI, his path to becoming the UAE’s national security advisor and the country's role in the global AI race.

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What the Tech? w/ Jonathan Strickland in Doha Feb 28, 2025

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This week, Oz is on the road, at the Web Summit Qatar, and he’s not alone. Joining him from the iHeart pop-up studio in Doha is a very familiar figure, Jonathan Strickland. Oz and Jonathan sit down to discuss some of the highlights of the Web Summit, including the future of the AI chip race, advances in augmented reality and how news organizations are grappling with AI.

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The Story: Russia’s Espionage ‘Laboratory’ w/ Ben Taub Feb 26, 2025

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Ben Taub is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker. His piece, “Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic,”covers tensions at the Russian border with Norway, an area Russia uses as a testing ground for future intelligence operations. Taub sits down with Oz to discuss the technology being used for survival and for espionage, as the war in Ukraine has escalated tensions with NATO.

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TechStuff x Part-Time Genius: Redefining ‘Luddite’ w/ Brian Merchant Feb 21, 2025

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This week, TechStuff teams up with Part-Time Genius for a special crossover episode. Oz and Mangesh Hattikudur, host of Part-Time Genius,discuss a largely misunderstood group of machine destroyers. The Luddites. Joining them is tech journalist Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, to dig into the history of humans fighting against job automation, why we equate Luddites with technophobes and what we can learn from these 19th century rebels in the age of AI.

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The Story: Liar, Liar, Deepfakes on Fire w/ Hany Farid Feb 19, 2025

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Hany Farid is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He's been a leading voice on digital forensics for over two decades—pioneering ways to identify if an image, audio or video has been digitally altered. Since the rise of social media, Farid has kept busy helping news organizations, government agencies and law enforcement determine what is real and what is fake online. Farid sits down with Oz to talk about his initial interest in digital forensics, the effects of misinformation on society, and whether he wants an AI likeness of himself to live on after he dies.

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Week in Tech: Musk and Federal Money–A Love Story Feb 14, 2025

Show notes

What do the Brits want from Apple? This week in the News Roundup, Oz and producer Eliza Dennis explore how lithium-ion batteries and wildfires don’t mix, the UK government’s demand for a backdoor to iPhones and the James Webb Space Telescopeit rocks! On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Emanuel Maiberg, a new study finds that AI might affect our critical thinking skills. And finally, Oz digs into Elon Musk’s government contracts.

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The Story: Denial Isn’t the Answer w/ Geoffrey Hinton Feb 12, 2025

Show notes

Geoffrey Hinton is a computer scientist, cognitive psychologist, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. His work on artificial neural networks earned him the title, ‘Godfather of AI,’ but in recent years, he’s warned that without adequate safeguards and regulation, there is an “existential threat that will arise when we create digital beings that are more intelligent than ourselves.” Hinton sits down with Oz to discuss his upbringing, research, time at Google and how his experience with grief informs how he thinks about the future of AI.

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