TechStuff

Do chatbots have feelings? Anthropic, Google, and Meta are hiring computer scientists, neuroscientists, and philosophers to find out. Nitasha Tiku ( The Washington Post ) explains why the search for AI consciousness has gone from fringe theory to Silicon Valley mainstream, and why the answer matters more than you think. Then, Taylor Lorenz ( User Mag ) traveled cross-country to attend an anti-big...

Do you work with machines, or for machines? Cory Doctorow, who coined the term “enshittification,” has a new book that asks exactly that. In The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It's Too Late , he challenges the belief that AI is inevitable, explains why tech boosters are pushing this message, and how it leads to companies that...

Evan pushes the experiment one step further, sending his AI voice agent to talk to his closest friends and family — his buddies, his daughters, his dad. With their alternately joyful, skeptical, and painful reactions to meeting an AI version of him, he tries to come to terms with what generative AI means in this machine-made age. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by...

What drives a man to turn down half a million pounds at 18, test Mark Zuckerberg's sincerity over dinner, and wonder aloud if he can win a second Nobel Prize? For Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, the answer is a lifelong pursuit of artificial general intelligence — and an unshakeable belief that the technology he's creating will change everything about what it means to...

How do you build a billion-dollar startup? Ask Mark Pincus. The founder of Zynga and creator of FarmVille, Mark turned a $350,000 personal investment into one of the most successful gaming companies in history — eventually selling to Take-Two Interactive for over $12 billion. Along the way, he invested early in Facebook, launched one of the first social networks, and learned more from his fa...

When Dr. Lara Jehi began treating epilepsy patients in the 2000s, critical surgical decisions were driven more by clinician intuition and expertise than data. Today, she is a leader of IBM and Cleveland Clinic’s Discovery Accelerator, using advanced AI and quantum computing to transform how researchers analyze data, simulate molecules, accelerate drug discovery, and develop more precise trea...

Will AI bots replace humans in the workforce? Could one replace Evan… right now? That’s what we tackle on this week’s Shell Game, in which Evan sees just how much of his job his voice agent can handle on his behalf. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive...

Is building data centers in space actually feasible? It may be, thanks to Ariel Ekblaw. The scientist, VC investor and co-founder and CEO of Aurelia Institute has devoted her life to democratizing space and ensuring that humans will one day be a spacefaring species. Ariel sits down with Oz to discuss self-assembling space architecture, how science-fiction influences her inventions, and why she doe...

How close are we to human extinction because of AI? Leading AI expert Professor Stuart Russell believes we’re much too close for comfort and has been raising the alarm for a few years. Ironically, Stuart himself wrote the book that laid the foundation for AI research back in the 1990s. And he was the only AI expert Elon Musk’s team called upon during their trial with OpenAI. &nbsp...

Evan looks into the depths of his AI-powered voice agent by sending it on a new mission: going to therapy. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this wit...

How much of what you see online is actually real? This week, Reed Albergotti ( Semafor ) breaks down Anthropic's latest clash with the Trump Administration. Is Anthropic’s own messaging to blame? Then, Nitasha Tiku ( The Washington Post ) talked to students that walked out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement speech at Stanford. Their protest was about much more than AI. Finally, Taylo...

Is AI happening to you — or for you? Pew Research found that 50% of Americans are more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence. Michele Jawando and John Palfrey think that's a signal that more people need to get involved.  Oz sits down with Michele, CEO of the Omidyar Network, and John, president of the MacArthur Foundation, to unpack Humanity AI: a coalition of ten major p...

Evan takes his experiment in a new direction by having his AI-powered voice agent converse with … another of his AI-powered voice agents. What can these surreal and hilarious conversations between two AI incarnations of Evan Ratliff tell us about identity, authenticity, and the best and worst of human interaction? Enter this digital hall of mirrors to find out. Shell Game is made by humans....

How much would it take for you to tattoo a memecoin's name on your forehead? Taylor Lorenz ( User Mag ) tells us about the platform where crypto speculators pay strangers to do almost anything in service of pumping their coin's value: Pump.fun Go. But Taylor argues this is bigger than a weird internet rabbit hole — it’s a burgeoning ‘bounty economy,’ that’s quietly wa...

Did your college have a secret society? Well, Stanford has a secret off-campus class training the next generation of Silicon Valley billionaires. And it's literally called "How to Rule the World." Theo Baker arrived at Stanford as an aspiring coder with dreams of building the future. Instead, he stumbled into the "Stanford-within-Stanford" — a hidden pipeline connecting a select few students...

Evan turns his AI-powered voice agent loose on the people who are always at the forefront of technological adoption: the fraudsters and the rip-off artists. How will the scammers and spammers react when they face Evan’s voice agent in a battle of wits? And what happens when they deploy the same kind of AI voice agents on Evan that he’s using on them? Shell Game is made by humans. More...

Blue Origin's latest rocket test ended in what the company called "an anomaly" — and what everyone else would call an explosion. Reed Albergotti ( Semafor ) explains why blowing things up is just part of the process and why the US Space Program is probably going to be fine. Then, Kyle Chayka ( The New Yorker ) pulls back the curtain on the shadow market for pre-IPO equity in OpenAI, Anthropi...

What if the fastest path to superintelligence is AI that builds itself? That's the bet Richard Socher is making — and he has the track record to back it up. A double unicorn founder and early investor in eight unicorn companies (including Perplexity and Hugging Face), Richard has spent 15 years building the foundational research that powers modern AI. Now he’s co-founded Recursive with...

Most of what happens inside the UFC Octagon is too fast for the human eye to follow. Enter Alon Cohen, Executive Vice President of Innovation for TKO, who has spent 15 years building the data and AI systems that expose the hidden moments that help decide a match. Malcolm Gladwell sits down with Alon to uncover how UFC’s partnership with IBM turns chaos into clarity, giving fans and commentat...

This is the story of what happens when Evan Ratliff, a longtime tech journalist, makes a digital copy of himself, powered by AI, in order to understand how amazing and scary and utterly ridiculous the world is about to get. In Episode 1, Evan clones his voice, hooks it up to a chat bot and his phone line, and sends it off to tangle with customer service representatives. Shell Game is made by human...

The Pope called for AI to be "disarmed" — then gave Anthropic a seat on the dais. Nitasha Tiku ( The Washington Post ) unpacks what the Vatican's landmark intervention means for Silicon Valley. Then, get off Nextdoor, Kyle Chayka ( The New Yorker ) says hyperlocal publications are in vogue and a respite from algorithmic feeds. And finally, an update on last weekend’s Enhanced Games in...

What happens when you let technology take over your life? Joanna Stern ( Fmr. Wall Street Journal / New Things ) found out. She spent all of 2025 letting the robots in: Waymos, AI therapists, robot massagers, assistant researcher agents… During that yearlong experiment, Joanna Stern chronicled her findings in a new book, I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything . She spe...

What does it mean to be at the “foothills of the singularity”? That’s how DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis ended his speech at Google I/O, prompting questions and scratched heads. Oz and Reed Albergotti (Semafor) attempt to dissect the meaning behind Hassabis’s confounding statement. They also discuss why so many commencement speakers are getting booed by college graduates after...

What if Olympic athletes could use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, legally? They can now, at the Enhanced Games. The Enhanced Games take place on May 24th and it’s anyone’s guess what will happen. Unless you’re Chris Gayomali, host of the new podcast SuperHuman , which is an inside look at the ‘steroid Olympics.’ Chris Gayomali joins Oz to break down h...

This week has it all: geopolitical FOMO, major AI deals, more courtroom drama, and a hacker group that just won't quit. Reed Albergotti ( Semafor ) breaks down why AI tokens are the new oil, and why Anthropic is buying compute straight from SpaceX. Nitasha Tiku ( The Washington Post ) takes us inside the Elon Musk-OpenAI trial, where Shivon Zilis, aka the “Elon Whisperer” and the mothe...