TechStuff

Latest Episodes:

Week in Tech: Are You There God? It’s Me, AI Feb 07, 2025

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Do smart fridges help business? This week in the News Roundup, Oz and producer Eliza Dennis unpack Walgreens’ refrigeration woes, the future of supersonic planes, and what the Vatican has to say about AI. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Joseph Cox, the FBI’s unique relationship to one encrypted phone company. And finally, Oz tests out Google’s virtual office assistant in When Did This Become a Thing?

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The Story: Ask Lots of Questions w/ Meredith Whittaker Feb 05, 2025

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Meredith Whittaker is the president of the Signal Foundation and serves on its board of directors. She is also the co-founder of NYU’s AI Now Institute. Whittaker got her start at Google, where she worked for 13 years until resigning in 2019 after she helped organize the Google Walkouts. She speaks with Oz about learning on the job, championing data privacy and being awarded the Helmut Schmidt Future Prize for “her commitment to the development of AI technology oriented towards the common good.”

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Week In Tech: DeepSeek Freak Out Jan 31, 2025

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Is China winning the AI race? This week in the News Roundup, the story that roiled US stock markets on Monday DeepSeek. Oz and producer Eliza Dennis unpack the hype. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, how human ingenuity continues to subvert tech. We hear how one coder has decided to entrap AI web crawlers. And finally, Oz digs into our love affair with personal data in When Did This Become a Thing?

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The Story: Mars, Asterisk w/ Nathaniel Rich Jan 29, 2025

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Nathaniel Rich is a novelist, essayist and writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. Rich sits down with Oz to talk about his essay, “Can Humans Endure the Psychological Torment of Mars?” The piece explores NASA's CHAPEA (“Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog”) mission, a simulation meant to test a major challenge of Mars missions isolation.

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Smart Talks with IBM: How Infrastructure is Powering the Age of AI Jan 28, 2025

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In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Malcolm Gladwell speaks with Ric Lewis, IBM’s Senior Vice President of Infrastructure. They discuss how hardware capability has enabled the matrix math required to run large language models. Furthermore, they delve into some creative examples of how to put AI to work: from your bank to your local coffee shop. Ric underscores the importance of infrastructure in unlocking the potential of AI, helping businesses harness their data to drive transformative outcomes.

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://ibm.com/smarttalks

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Week in Tech: Broval Office Jan 24, 2025

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Is AI charging you different prices for groceries than your roommate? This week, Oz and Karah bring you a news roundup featuring a look at surveillance pricing and the rise of AI companies eager to work with the U.S. military. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, the hosts dive into last weekend's temporary TikTok ban and why Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want it to end. And finally we get to the bottom of why so many PayPal alumni are showing up on our newsfeeds this week in When Did This Become a Thing?

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The Story: Vibe Shift in the Valley w/ Jessica Lessin Jan 22, 2025

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Jessica Lessin is the founder and CEO of The Information, a media company that’s a trusted source for tech readers and tech leaders. She’s reported on the industry for almost two decades and is deeply familiar with the culture shifts in Silicon Valley. Lessin sits down with Oz to discuss these trends, including tech titans appealing to the new Trump administration.

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Week in Tech: Dox, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels Jan 17, 2025

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Are you sharing misleading Instagram stories? This week, Oz and Karah bring you a news roundup including a ChatGPT-powered gun and a free app that’s keeping people informed about the LA wildfires. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Joseph Cox, they get to the bottom of why a group of hackers have become so fond of U-Haul user data; and a look at when the world split into digital natives and digital immigrants…and when it might split again.

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The Story: How to be a (Rational!) Techno-Enthusiast w/ Nicholas Thompson Jan 15, 2025

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Nicholas Thompson is the former editor-in-chief of Wired and current CEO of The Atlantic. There, he negotiated a controversial partnership with OpenAI that The Atlantic’s newsroom referred to as “a devil’s bargain.” In his free time, he uses AI to help himself run faster and write better. Through it all, he maintains a worldview perhaps best described as “techno-enthusiasm.”

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Week in Tech: Hungry Hungry Hippocampus Jan 10, 2025

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How scared should we be of deceptive AI? Oz and Karah take the mic from Jonathan for their first episode of TechStuff and bring you a news roundup of their favorite headlines—including using ChatGPT to plan a crime and brain benefits for those who can still navigate without Waze. On TechSupport with Jason Koebler from 404 Media they discuss a recent study showing that AI can actively deceive us to achieve its own goals; and a special segment with Emma Barker from Time with the 200 Best Inventions of 2024.

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