Stay ConnectedEvery Friday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
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Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater inherited the government’s antitrust case against Google and is eager to follow it through—but likely not for the same reasons as her predecessors.
Guest: Nancy Scola, reporter and contributing writer at POLITICO.
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One of the goals of DOGE was to get rid of the “silos” that keep government agencies from sharing freely amongst themselves efficiently and instead organize data using tools offered by companies like Palantir. The thing is, a lot of those silos are there by design, and removing them could be a nightmare for privacy advocates.
Guest: Sheera Frenkel, tech reporter for the New York Times.
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His time in Washington was brief, but we’ll be picking up the pieces for a long time. What Elon’s exit signals for the future of DOGE, and Musk’s political career.
Guest: Kate Conger, reporter for the New York Times covering X and other technology companies.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
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The war between Ukraine and Russia is being fought increasingly via drone —and NATO and US military leadership is training troops for future conflicts that will pit man against machine.
Guest: Jake Epstein, senior defense reporter for Business Insider.
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Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort.
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The crypto industry poured tons of money into the last election cycle. Is the GENIUS Act, which has bipartisan support, their big payoff?
Guest: Hilary Allen, professor at American University’s Washington College of Law.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
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OpenAI started as a non-profit dedicated to building safe A.I. Now, they’re obsessed with building artificial general intelligence by any means necessary - even if they don’t quite know what that is.
Guest: Karen Hao, reporter and author of “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI”
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
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What do you do when your likeness has been turned into A.I.-generated pornography?—it’s a problem people are already facing. But legislation moving through Congress may cause more problems than it would solve.
Guests:
Joanne Chew, actress and visual artist based in LA.
Samantha Cole, cofounder of 404 media and author of “How Sex Changed the Internet and How the Internet Changed Sex.”
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort.
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Aging equipment and chronically understaffed air traffic control have made flying in and out of Newark’s Liberty International Airport a delay-snarled mess. And the problems there aren’t entirely unique. Will Congress and the Trump administration be the ones to fix it?
Guest: Will Guisbond, staff reporter covering air traffic control for The Air Current
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort.
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The intimate and extremely personal experience of bringing a child into this world? There’s an app for that…and forums…and so much advice…that contradicts other advice…and a surprising amount of eugenics.
Guest: Amanda Hess, critic at the New York Times and author of the book “Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age.”
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
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Why artificial intelligence isn’t waiting for consumer demand.
Guest: Gerrit De Vynck, tech reporter for The Washington Post.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort.
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
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