What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future

Before the U.S. can start opening back up, states will need to put systems in place for “contact tracing,” or meticulous tracking of the disease within communities. South Korea’s extensive tracing program has all but eliminated the spread of the virus within its borders. What will it take for the U.S. to do the same? Guests: Raphael Rashid , a freelance journalist, and Dr. Mike Reid , professor at...

As governments around the world try to predict the toll and duration of the coronavirus, they’re turning increasingly to a handful of forecasting models for answers. But many of the leading models differ drastically in their approach and methods. What do we need to know about these forecasts? And what are their limitations? Guest: Jordan Ellenberg , mathematics professor at the University of Wisco...

This week, workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, and Instacart have announced mass strikes across the country. Though demand for these services is high, pay and protection is low. What exactly do we owe to the delivery workers at the front lines of the pandemic? And with these companies hiring in record numbers, can the strikes succeed? Guests: Heidi Carrico, founding member of the  Gig Workers Collecti...

Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence.  Sign up now  to listen and support our work. The United States failed to roll out widespread testing in the early days of the pandemic. Now it faces critical shortages of supplies as it scrambles to track the disease around the country. Until testing is available at scale, Americans won’t be able...

Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence.  Sign up now  to listen and support our work. Google has spent the last decade trying to find a foothold in the health care industry. Now they’re partnering with the federal government to build a website that will seek to address the crisis. Can Google be trusted with our medical data? Guest: Maso...

Last week, the superintendent of the Northshore school district near Seattle made a difficult decision. With the coronavirus spreading rapidly in the area, she closed all 34 schools in her district and moved all classes online. But for many schools, remote learning at this scale simply isn’t an option.  With new cases appearing around the country, how will schools respond? And what happens when yo...

Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence.  Sign up now  to listen and support our work. For pregnant women in the U.S., there are plenty of reasons to mistrust the medical establishment. Mortality rates are high compared to other western countries, and one-third of women in the U.S. give birth by C-section. It’s no wonder that many women...

OpenAI was founded in 2015 with a billion dollars and an idealistic mission: Create artificial intelligence that could address humanity’s biggest problems, and do it out in the open. Then came the money problems. Guest: Karen Hao , senior A.I. reporter at MIT Tech Review   Host Lizzie O’Leary Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/p...

After years of controversial content moderation decisions, from deepfakes to deplatforming, Facebook is trying something new. In January, the social network announced that its new Oversight Board, which will act as a sort of supreme court for controversial content, will begin hearing cases this summer. Could this independent board change the way we govern speech online? Guest: Kate Klonick, assist...

Over the last month, as coronavirus spread across China, Xi Jinping’s vast surveillance and censorship infrastructure went into high gear. But with outrage growing over the death of a beloved doctor, and surveillance technology under strain, the virus is exposing the limits of the Chinese Communist Party’s techno-authoritarian network. Guest: Josh Chin , Wall Street Journal reporter covering Chine...

On Monday, the Iowa caucuses went off the rails. As the hours stretched into days, and still the results remained unclear, a new piece of election technology was identified as a central cause of the delay. An app designed to make the election process speedier and more secure had the opposite effect. And its failure is symptomatic of deep-rooted issues in the way the Democratic Party develops and d...

Recently a special delegation of senior Trump administration officials arrived in the U.K. Their mission? To convince prime minister Boris Johnson to bar Huawei from their new 5G network. Why is the U.S. so keen to influence Britain’s decision on 5G? And now that the U.K is officially withdrawing from the European Union, how will they manage competing pressures from the U.S. and China? Guest: Dan...

Last week, Slate published The Evil List , an expansive attempt to document the most concerning tech companies around the world, according to the experts. Some you’ve heard of, some you probably haven’t, and some you almost certainly use every day. Which of these deserve our attention? And why? Guests: Mutale Nkonde , public interest technologist and fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet...

In 2013, Anna Wiener moved from New York to San Francisco to join the city’s booming tech scene. Over the course of four years, she worked at three companies: an e-book startup, a data analytics company, and an open-source software platform. Then, her infatuation with the tech industry took a turn. On this week’s show, an insider’s perspective on the intoxicating promise and disappointment of Sili...

In 2019, for the first time, more advertising money went toward targeted digital ads in the U.S. than on radio, television, cable, magazine, and newspaper ads combined. The moment was the culmination of a decadeslong journey that has completely transformed media, politics, and privacy. How did the targeted ad come to hold so much power? And what did we lose along the way? Guest: Siva Vaidhyanathan...

Around the country, states are employing algorithms to help reduce prison populations and predict recidivism. This week, we hear from a Wisconsin judge with serious reservations about the algorithm used in his state. Also: a deep dive into Virginia's risk-assessment algorithm and the surprising results of its implementation. Guests: Nicholas McNamara , judge on the circuit court of Dane County, Wi...

On January 1st, a new law will grant Californians the right to see, delete, and stop the sale of personal information collected by tech companies. But the impact of the bill may reach far beyond California. How does this landmark law affect the rest of the country? And will it set the stage for national privacy legislation?   Guest: Hayley Tsukayama , Legislative Activist at the Electronic Frontie...

Back in 2013, an entrepreneur named Jamie Siminoff appeared on  Shark Tank . He was seeking an investment in a new product he was calling Doorbot, a smart doorbell that would make answering the door more convenient and users’ lives “more connected.” Six years later, Doorbot is now Ring, an Amazon-owned home-security system that partners with more than 600 police departments around the country. How...

Over the past decade, the world of influencers has grown from a fringe marketing movement to a multibillion-dollar industry. Now, tactics and strategies originally developed by influencers can be found across industries, from health care to politics to higher ed.    What’s behind this meteoric rise? And why do we misunderstand a movement that Taylor Lorenz calls “a fundamental shift in society”?  ...

On Tuesday, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page announced that they are stepping down from their respective roles as president and CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The move will leave Sundar Pichai in charge of both Google and Alphabet.    With pressure mounting from unhappy employees, antitrust regulators in Europe, and the Trump administration, Pichai takes the helm at a crucial...

TikTok now has over 1.5 billion downloads, putting it in the company of social media giants like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. While all of these companies have faced scrutiny from lawmakers in one form or another, TikTok is getting attention for its Chinese ownership as some fear that Beijing could use data uploaded to the platform for counterintelligence purposes. Is there a real reason to b...

Recently, Facebook filed a lawsuit against a little-known Israeli spyware firm called NSO Group. Facebook is accusing NSO of supplying technology that enabled a hack of 1,400 WhatsApp accounts.    But NSO’s reach goes far beyond a few thousand phones. Governments around the world purchase its powerful technology. Some use it to “lawfully hack” the devices of criminals and terrorists. But others us...

California recently passed a law that would classify rideshare drivers across the state as employees, rather than contractors. Among many other benefits, they’d be allowed to unionize, collect overtime pay, and take sick leave.   So why are so many drivers against it?   Guest: Harry Campbell , former Uber driver and founder of The Rideshare Guy Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribe...

This week, Boeing’s CEO Dennis Muilenburg appeared in front of Congress. He was there to answer questions about what his company knew, and when, before two 737 Max airplanes crashed and claimed the lives of 346 people.  But beyond the planes’ technological failures is another key issue: the way pilots react when automated systems go wrong.    Guest: Jon Ostrower, Editor in Chief of The Air Current...

Over the last week, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have been under fire for declining to fact-check political ads. But a former insider says this is the wrong debate to be having—and it misses a more fundamental problem: Facebook’s business model itself.   Guests: Yael Eisenstat, former head of global elections integrity operations at Facebook and Charlie Warzel, an opinion writer at the New York Ti...