Have A Nice Future | WIRED

Misinformation lives everywhere. False accounts of events, doctored photos, and purposely misleading news stories are quickly shared and passed around on social media, usually by well-meaning people who don’t know they’re sharing incorrect information. It's a big problem in the best of times, but the stakes become much higher during a heated crisis like the current Israel-Hamas war. As the violenc...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to the Chief Intelligence Officer of Estonia, Luukas Ilves, about the country’s completely online government. In Estonia, citizens can access any government service, including voting, online. What would it take to create that kind of digital infrastructure in the United States? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Michael Casey, Chief Content Officer of the cryptocurrency news site, CoinDesk. Almost a year after a CoinDesk report kicked off a series of events that led to the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, is there anyone who still believes in crypto?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to journalist Taylor Lorenz about her new book Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, And Power on the Internet. They talk about the rise of the modern influencer and how all of us have to make our peace with our online lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elon Musk’s presence in our lives is inescapable: his cars roam our streets, his satellites orbit our skies, and his purchase of X—formerly known as Twitter—has reshaped the social-media landscape. The staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss a recent biography of Musk, by Walter Isaacson, tracing the familiar archetype of the genius tech founder from the nineteen...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to education journalist and author of The Inequality Machine, Paul Tough about the future of higher education. Even as many Americans return to college campuses this month, rising costs and a lower return on investment has raised uncomfortable questions about just what those classes are all leading towards. Can college be saved? Learn more about your ad choic...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Cory Doctorow, a writer, internet activist and the author of The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation. As the US government takes Google to court in an anti-trust case this week, Doctorow explains why he believes monopoly power has made the internet a miserable place and what we can do to get our digital lives back. Learn more about your ad...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Chris Urmson, CEO of the self-driving truck company Aurora. They discuss new legislation in California that could help or hinder a driverless future, whether or not self-driving vehicles are actually safer and the consequences for the transportation industry if (human) truck drivers become unnecessary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices...

Gideon and Lauren talk to Noah Raford, a futurist. Raford spent nearly 15 years working as the UAE’s chief futurist where Noah’s job was to predict what was coming down the pike and offer suggestions on how to prepare for it. His advice? Get comfortable with discomfort. This episode originally aired on April 26, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Kristen Ghodsee, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Everyday Utopia: What 2000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life. Ghodsee outlines why the traditional nuclear family is failing us and how we can restructure care to build a better future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind and InflectionAI. They discuss his new book, The Coming Wave, which outlines why our systems are not set up to deal with the next great leap in tech. Suleyman explains why it's not crazy to suggest that chatbots could topple governments and he argues for a better way to assess artificial intelligence (hint: it h...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode are joined by c, or as she is more widely known, Grimes. Earlier this year, she launched elf.tech, a website where her fans can use AI to build their very own Grimes songs based on her vocals and stems. They talk about why c wants to push the boundaries of AI art, and why, despite being a techno-optimist at heart, she’s worried about our AI future. Check out the B...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Aaron Perzanowski, a University of Michigan Law Professor and author of two books on our shifting definitions of ownership, The End of Ownership and The Right to Repair. They dive into why “buying” something means less than it used to and if consumers have any hope of clawing back some semblance of ownership rights from big corporations. Learn more about y...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Andrew Hessel, a scientist, writer and entrepreneur who is working to push forward the field of synthetic biology — the science of genetically modifying organisms for everything from vaccines to food production. They discuss how modified viruses can be used to treat a range of cancers, and the wide ranging, science-fiction-like implications of the field. L...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to author Stephen Markley about his book The Deluge, a 900 page epic that attempts to lay out the next couple of decades of the climate crisis. They discuss what our climate future may entail and how future histories like Markley's help us all process and imagine a way through the coming catastrophes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins whose most famous work centers on how psychedelics affect octopus brains. Recently, her lab’s research has shown promising results regarding how psychedelics could help humans recover from everything from PTSD to a stroke. You can find Rachel Nuwer's profile on Gül Dölen in WIRED. Learn more about your ad choice...

Have a Nice Future is off this week, so instead we're sharing an episode of WIRED's other podcast, Gadget Lab. Its hosted by Have a Nice Future cohost Lauren Goode and WIRED senior editor Michael Calore. Each week they unpack new developments in consumer technology and talk about how they will affect our lives. On this episode, Lauren and Micheal are joined by Alden Wicker whose new book is called...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Celine Halioua, the founder and CEO of Loyal — a company that researches drugs to extend the lifespan of dogs. They talk about the real meaning of longevity and when these drugs might be given to humans in the future. You can find Tom Simonite’s profile on Celine Halioua and Loyal in WIRED. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoic...

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Jamie Beard, the founder of the Project Innerspace, about why geothermal energy could help solve the climate crisis -- but only if environmentalists and the oil and gas industry cooperate. You can find Maria Streshinsky's profile on Jamie Beard online at Wired.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode discuss how parking has shaped the American city with writer Henry Grabar. His new book Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World explores how the abundance of free parking in our urban centers may be holding them back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode are joined by WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani to talk about how we should think about diet culture and weight management when sophisticated appetite suppressing drugs like Ozempic are on the rise. You can read Lauren's Big Interview online at Wired.com and in the July issue of the magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode are joined by Ethan Zuckerman, a leading scholar of how people form communities online and the founder of the Institute for Digital Public Infrastructure at UMass Amherst. Zuckerman talks about why Twitter isn't dead just yet, and what the future of the "digital public square" might look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's our first-ever crossover episode! This week Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode sit down with Puja Patel, co-host of The Pitchfork Review podcast, to discuss how AI is changing music. But first, they start with a pop quiz -- can our hosts differentiate between artists and their AI imposters? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to MIT institute professor Daron Acemoglu about his new book Power and Progress, why we’re not necessarily destined for an AI takeover and why the writers' strike could be a harbinger for the rest of us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Meredith Whittaker, the president of the Signal Foundation, about whether we’re really doomed to give up all of our private information to tech companies. Whittaker, who saw what she calls the “surveillance business model” from the inside while working at Google, says we don’t need to go down without a fight and outlines strategies for getting our privacy...