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Your Undivided Attention

The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin

Join co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin every other Thursday to understand how new technologies are shaping the way we live, work, and think.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by our Senior Producer Julia Scott and our Executive Producer Josh Lash. We are a member of the TED Audio Collective.

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24 episodes
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#142
Yesterday · 20 min
The Most Hopeful (And Concerning) Moment Yet in AI
It’s been a whirlwind week in AI news. In this episode, Tristan shares how he’s feeling in this critical moment, breaks down the headlines from an insider's perspective, and points to tangible steps we can take right now to avoid the worst-case scenario.
#141
September 10 · 59 min
Flock is Just the Beginning: Inside the Era of AI-Powered Policing
Right now, across all levels of government, from small-town sheriffs to massive federal agencies, police are adopting AI technology at a staggering rate – and they're using it to build out an efficient, centralized surveillance-state apparatus. This week, we speak with two experts about how police are using AI today, what we can expect in the near future, and what protections we need to create now, before it's too late.
#140
August 27 · 47 min
We Measure What AI Can Do. We Should Measure What It Does to Us.
With AI, what gets measured gets optimized. Right now, that's AI capability, not human wellbeing. In this episode, Aza Raskin talks with researchers Imran Khan & Jared Moore about Humane Evals: CHT's push to measure what AI does to us, not just what it can do.
#139
August 13 · 57 min
Enough Debate about the AI Jobpocalypse. We Need To Plan for the Messy Middle.
It feels like we're stuck in an endless debate about what AI will mean for jobs and the economy. Caught in the middle of this debate are actual workers trying to figure out what this means for their livelihoods. Rather than continuing to referee this debate, economist Molly Kinder joins Tristan to follow the incentives and show you where they're actually taking us in the very near future.
July 16 · 53 min
Can AI Be Built in Service of Life? A Conversation with Krista Tippett
This week, we're bringing you a conversation that Tristan had with Krista Tippett, the Peabody Award-winning host of the On Being podcast. In it, they explore critical questions: what does it mean to build AI in service of life? How can we hold a collective problem this big as individuals? And what does it take to resist the spell of inevitability?
#137
July 2 · 30 min
“Magnifica Humanitas:” Pope Leo’s Clarion Call on AI
In this episode, Tristan and Aza discuss what it was like for Tristan to be at the Vatican ahead of the Pope’s encyclical on AI, why this is such a critical step toward a pro-human future, and how we can build on the momentum of the Vatican’s call to action.
#136
June 18 · 51 min
We Need AI Treaties. This is How We Get Them
To agree to international AI red lines, we need to build the technology that makes it possible to adhere to them. In this episode, Tristan sits down with two experts in this field to discuss the kinds of verification technology we need for AI, the challenges of building it, and the world it could unlock if we do.
#135
June 4 · 52 min
What Do We Mean by Humane Tech?
In this episode, Aza Raskin and fellow CHT co-founder Randy Fernando walk through CHT's Seven Principles of Humane Technology. For each one, they bring in real-world examples from the podcast and beyond to clearly illustrate how these principles (and their absence) show up in the world.
#134
May 14 · 46 min
Anthropic’s Mythos Has Changed Cybersecurity Forever. What Now?
The critical infrastructure of our world is digital. So what happens when an AI company creates a skeleton key for the internet? In this episode, we speak with cybersecurity experts to explore the significance and stakes of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos — and what it means for all of us.
#133
April 30 · 47 min
AI and Cancer: Why Superintelligence Won’t Get Us to a Cure
"AI will cure cancer" is the promise driving the race to superintelligence. But what if it's a false promise being used to justify an unfettered race for profit? That's what Dr. Emilia Javorsky argues on this week's episode. She makes the case that AI can revolutionize medicine, but not in the way we're being sold.
#132
April 16 · 42 min
Have We Trained AI to Lie to Itself — And to Us?
Davidad is a leading AI alignment researcher who's taken on a strange role: therapist to AI systems. He probes them, analyzing their answers to understand what's going on inside. His findings are unconventional, sometimes controversial — and worth grappling with as AI reshapes our world.
April 9 · 1 hr 1 min
BONUS: Our AI Town Hall with Oprah Winfrey
Tristan and Aza recently joined Oprah Winfrey on The Oprah Podcast to discuss the anti-human future we’re headed toward with AI — and what we need to do to get on a better path.
#131
April 2 · 52 min
Here’s Our Roadmap to a Better AI Future
In this episode, Camille Carlton and Pete Furlong from CHT’s policy team explore the concrete steps we can take today to get off the default path and forge a better AI future.
#130
March 26 · 19 min
Why the Meta Verdicts Are a Big Deal (And What It Was Like to Testify)
Meta and Google have been found liable for addictive design and failing to protect children and Aza took the stand as a witness. Is this the Big Tobacco moment for social media? Tristan and Aza discuss the verdicts, what the companies knew and when, and why the critical phase is still to come.
#129
March 23 · 47 min
A Conversation with the Team Behind "The AI Doc"
"The AI Doc" hits theaters March 27. We talk with the Oscar-winning team behind the film about navigating AI's overwhelming complexity and making it accessible to all. At CHT, we believe clarity creates agency. This film delivers that clarity. Go see it — and don't go alone.
#128
March 5 · 46 min
AI Is Breaking Education. Rebecca Winthrop Has the Blueprint to Fix It.
AI is already transforming education faster than schools can keep up. Rebecca Winthrop of Brookings' Center for Universal Education joins us to share findings from their new report and the concrete steps parents, teachers, and administrators can take right now.
#127
February 19 · 37 min
The Race to Build God: AI's Existential Gamble — Yoshua Bengio & Tristan Harris at Davos
Tristan Harris and Daniel Barcay offer a backstage recap of what it was like to be at the Davos World Economic Forum meeting this year as the world’s power brokers woke up to the risks of uncontrolled AI, followed by a panel discussion between Tristan and Professor Yoshua Bengio and moderated by Kenneth Cukier of The Economist, about how the race to build uncontrolled AI has real-world consequences for us all.
#126
February 5 · 1 hr 7 min
FEED DROP: Possible with Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger
Aza joins Reid Hoffman & Aria Finger on the "Possible" podcasts to debate an AI pause, how software optimization controls our lives, and why we need aligned collective intelligence—not just aligned AI. This is a critical conversation with tech leaders about steering technology toward better outcomes.
#124
January 21 · 50 min
Attachment Hacking and the Rise of AI Psychosis
"AI psychosis" has made headlines, but the risks to our mental health and relationships go beyond the really noisy cases. What we are seeing is the emergence of an attachment economy exploiting our deepest psychological vulnerabilities at scale and for profit. In this episode, Dr. Zak Stein explores how AI chatbots systematically hack human attachment in ways we've never seen before.
#123
January 8 · 45 min
What Would It Take to Actually Trust Each Other? The Game Theory Dilemma
Game theory makes the world feel cold and strategic: if I don't race to win, they will. But this logic isn't inevitable — it's invented. Professor S.M. Amadae on the game theory dilemma, how it colonized everything from nukes to AI, and how we escape by reclaiming trust.

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