Rethinking Tech

President Trump traveled to China to meet President Xi. But instead of a major breakthrough, the summit revealed something more important: the balance of power between the US and China may be shifting. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack what the Trump-Xi summit means for AI, Taiwan, Nvidia chips, rare earth minerals, trade, tariffs, global markets, and the future of US-...

The NHS is working with companies like Palantir on its Federated Data Platform. But the concern is bigger than software. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why Palantir’s role in NHS data infrastructure has raised serious questions about UK patient privacy, health data sovereignty, US tech power, and whether sensitive medical records could become part of a much larger A...

Instagram has removed end-to-end encryption for direct messages. Meta says the reason is low adoption — and that users who want encrypted messaging can use WhatsApp instead. But in this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why this is about much more than a product setting. It is about privacy defaults, government pressure, child safety laws, platform strategy, and the future of...

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI was dismissed. But the bigger story is not who won this round in court. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack what the Musk vs OpenAI lawsuit reveals about AI power, corporate structure, billionaire rivalries, and the uncomfortable question at the center of the industry: who really controls the future of artificial intellig...

Ford has filed patents for technology that could let vehicles decide whether a driver is fit to be behind the wheel. On paper, this sounds like road safety. But in this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why AI-powered driver monitoring raises much bigger questions about privacy, control, monetization, and whether our cars are becoming surveillance devices. At the center of thi...

For 150 years, oil helped define global power. Now, the UAE is betting that the next great resource is AI. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack the UAE’s attempt to shift from a petrostate economy toward an AI-driven future — through education, data centers, sovereign wealth, energy infrastructure, and major partnerships with US tech companies. At the center of this conve...

Kindergarteners in the UAE are learning AI before they learn cursive. But this story is about much more than technology in classrooms. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why the UAE is introducing AI education at such a young age — and how this fits into a much bigger national strategy to build a post-oil future. At the center of this conversation is a deeper question:...

Nigeria dropped a $32 million fine against Meta. But the bigger story is not just about one company, one country, or one privacy case. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why many developing countries struggle to regulate Big Tech — not because the issues are unclear, but because the power imbalance is so difficult to overcome. At the center of this conversation is a dee...

US tech companies helped build some of the most sophisticated surveillance systems in the world. And they did it for profit. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack how American companies reportedly pitched technology to Chinese police as tools for population control — and why this story is not only about China. At the center of this conversation is a deeper question: when s...

President Trump and President Xi are preparing to meet. But this is not just another diplomatic summit. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack what may really be on the table: AI, Taiwan, Iran, rare earth minerals, oil flows, nuclear weapons, tech supply chains, and the future of US-China competition. At the center of this conversation is a deeper question: when the United...

RT Deep Dives Anthropic has become one of the most powerful companies in artificial intelligence — but is its “AI safety first” image reality, or one of the greatest PR strategies in tech history? In this episode of the Rethinking Tech podcast, we break down how Anthropic evolved from an AI safety-focused startup into a geopolitical AI powerhouse competing directly against , Gemini, and China’s ra...

South Africa withdrew its AI policy after several academic citations were found to be fake. The irony was obvious: an AI policy appeared to have been undermined by AI-generated hallucinations. But in this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda argue that this is about much more than one embarrassing policy mistake. It is about what happens when governments urgently need AI governance, but...

Europe wants to stay competitive in AI. But what happens when that ambition collides with its climate commitments? In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack how Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google successfully pushed EU legislators to classify key data center emissions metrics as confidential commercial information — and why this story is about much more than lobbying. At the...

WhatsApp has long marketed itself around end-to-end encryption . But what if that promise is only true up to a point? In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why the dropped investigation into WhatsApp matters, what it suggests about privacy on one of the world’s most widely used platforms, and why this is ultimately a story about data access, AI training, platform lock-in,...

RT Deep Dives The news didn’t disappear. It got replaced. What started as a conversation about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner quickly exposed something much bigger: the rise of a new PR machine shaping what we see, believe, and react to. In this episode, we break down how PR has evolved from reacting to events… to controlling them. From “news deserts” and media consolidation to AI influenc...

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI may look like another billionaire feud. But beneath the ego, the PR, and the spectacle is a much bigger issue: AI governance . In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why this case could shape how we think about nonprofit structures, public-benefit organizations, investor influence, and the future legal architecture around AI...

China has moved to block Meta’s acquisition of Manus. At first glance, this looks like a corporate deal gone sideways. But the deeper story is about sovereignty, jurisdiction, and the growing reality that advanced technology is no longer being treated like ordinary software. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack why China can still assert control over a company no longer f...

What happens when a major political incident occurs — and a huge number of people immediately wonder whether it was real, staged, manipulated, or optimized for narrative effect? In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack the White House Correspondents’ Dinner scare and use it to explore a much deeper issue: the breakdown of trust in an age shaped by social media algorithms, pol...

The EU says its new age verification app is designed to protect children online. But once governments build infrastructure that can verify identity and age at scale, the real question is not only what it does today — but what it could become tomorrow. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack the EU’s age verification system, why governments are stepping in on child safety, an...

RT Deep Dives Palantir CEO Alex Karp did not just post a viral thread. He laid out a worldview. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack Karp’s 22-point manifesto and what it reveals about the values now shaping one of the most important defense technology companies in the world. This is a conversation about far more than Palantir alone. It is about the relationship between t...

Looksmaxxing is often framed as self-improvement. But for a growing number of young men, it is becoming something darker: a digital ecosystem where insecurity is amplified, monetized, and pushed to extremes. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda unpack the rise of looksmaxxing, the pressure young men face online, and how platforms can turn vulnerability into engagement, community...

SpaceX reportedly wants to put 1 million satellites into orbit. That may sound like a story about connectivity, scale, or ambition. But it could be something much bigger. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda explore what happens when orbital infrastructure starts to look less like innovation and more like power projection. If one company fills the skies first, does it gain more...

Ford once calculated the cost of human lives — and decided it was cheaper to let people die. That story should feel like history. It doesn’t. In this x10 episode of Rethinking Tech , Aparna and Harinda break down the Ford Pinto case and why its logic still shows up across the modern tech industry — from social media platforms that knowingly maximize harm to AI systems being deployed before society...

RT Deep Dives Four humans orbit the moon for the first time in 54 years—but that’s not the real story. Behind the headlines, a far bigger shift is happening: SpaceX has quietly filed to launch 1 million satellites into orbit —a move that could redefine power, ownership, and control beyond Earth. In this episode of Rethinking Tech , we break down the tech, geopolitics, and ethics of the new space r...

What does the future of AI really look like - outside of Silicon Valley? In this episode, we sit down with Kinling Lo ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/kinling-lo-03555213a/ ), a reporter from the Rest of World, covering China’s tech ecosystem from the ground. From the rise of DeepSeek to China’s dominance in humanoid robots and AI adoption , this conversation challenges the Western narrative around i...