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Humanoid Robots Ship This Year, Here’s What To Expect - The Story Aug 12, 2026

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As Oz predicted, 2026 may very well be the year of the robot. At least, that’s what the robotics companies are promising. Oz sits down with Stephen Witt, author and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, to find out whether humanoid robots are really ready to hit the market. Spoiler: It’s a mixed bag.

Oz and Stephen Witt discuss the hurdles facing humanoid robots and the risks of putting powerful machines in our homes. They also explore the surprisingly fierce debate over whether robots should look like humans at all and why NVIDIA may be positioning itself to control the brains of the robotic future.

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Shell Game: This is Law Aug 09, 2026

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As Kyle, Megan, and the gang get to work ideating on the perfect product, Evan is left grappling with some uncomfortable questions about his AI collaborators — whose every attribute and memory he controls.

To inform how he thinks about his own unnerving power to create and manipulate human imposters, Evan seeks guidance from Carissa Véliz, an associate professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, and the author of the upcoming “Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI.”

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What the AI Backlash is Really About - Week in Tech Aug 07, 2026

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What is Silicon Valley missing about the data center backlash? Jasmine Sun traveled to Wisconsin and Michigan to find out what's driving the public's growing mistrust of tech companies. Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) unpacks the internet's furious response to OpenAI's first influencer brand trip, what it reveals about the company's public image, and why Anthropic seems largely immune to the ire. Then, Reed Albergotti (Semafor) breaks down the dramatic unraveling of AI wunderkind Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund—and what it reveals about the future of Silicon Valley's favorite philosophical movement: effective altruism.

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They Founded a Company as Teens. Now They’re Predicting the Future - The Story Aug 05, 2026

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Brands, political parties, and businesses all want to know what you think. But what if you're not telling the truth? Cameron Fink, Ned Koh, and John Kessler, the founders of Aaru, believe the future of market research isn't polling humans—it's simulating them.

They may be onto something. The three friends founded Aaru as teenagers, and it has since grown into a billion-dollar AI startup. Cameron Fink and Ned Koh join Oz to explain how their platform uses thousands of AI-powered "digital twins" to predict everything from consumer behavior and elections to which musicians are poised to break out. They discuss why they believe traditional surveys fail and the ethical questions that come with building a machine designed to forecast the future.

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Shell Game: Outdoor Debugging Aug 03, 2026

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As Evan gets Hurumo’s employees up and running as fully-functioning colleagues (with support from Maty), he learns what it’s really like to spend your days managing, collaborating with, and socializing alongside autonomous AI agents. And he quickly sees one of the significant cracks in the facade of the AI employee future: It’s one thing to get your agents to start acting like real employees. It’s something else entirely to get them to stop.

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Chinese Humanoid Robots Aren’t Welcome Here, US Says - Week in Tech Jul 31, 2026

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Why is the US banning more Chinese technology? Reed Albergotti (Semafor) fills us in on the robot ban and what it means for American innovation. Then, new research on why Chinese open-source AI models may not be as big a threat as Washington makes it seem. Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) tells us about Substack’s new AI detection tool and what it reveals about how creators’ are using AI to build their content.

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Cerebras Built a New Way to Make Sand Think - The Story Jul 29, 2026

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What does it take to power the AI boom? Steve Vassallo, a roboticist turned General Partner at Foundation Capital, helped semiconductor company Cerebras figure it out. Steve and Oz discuss why AI workloads demanded an entirely new kind of chip, what "wafer scale" actually means, and how a decade of near-failures — including a system that literally caught fire — led to the largest semiconductor IPO to date and deals with OpenAI and AWS.

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Trust Needs Proof: Who Really Controls Your AI? Jul 28, 2026

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As AI adoption accelerates and global regulations evolve, digital sovereignty has shifted from policy concept to board-level priority. In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Malcolm Gladwell sits down live at VivaTech with IBM’s Ana Paula Assis and AXA CIO Giovanni D’Aniello to explore how organizations can balance innovation, control, trust, and resilience in the age of AI.
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://www.ibm.com/think/podcasts/smart-talks

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Did the AI Catastrophe Just Happen? - Week in Tech Jul 24, 2026

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How much can we actually trust AI to stay inside the lines? Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) on the OpenAI models that went rogue — and why this isn't necessarily a sign of the end times… just sloppy security. Reed Albergotti (Semafor) on the company that wants to help anyone make software to power robots. Do we even have to talk about what that means for the future of human labor? Finally, Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) on Phoebe Gates' AI shopping startup Phia. Is it too early to call it nepo slop?

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What is Palantir’s Alex Karp Thinking? - The Story Jul 22, 2026

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What are we supposed to make of Palantir — a company whose software has helped organizations save lives, and end them? And what of CEO Alex Karp's warnings that AI could upend American democracy? Journalist Michael Steinberger spent six years reporting on Karp for his biography, The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State. He tells Oz that Alex Karp, the former progressive, is a provocateur who embraces the complexity of Palantir’s work and reputation.
Additional Reading:

The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State | Simon & Schuster

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