Podcast · Tech & Science
by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin · English · Tech & Science
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 Collectiv
17 Sep 2026 · 21 min
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.
E141 · 10 Sep 2026 · 59 min
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.
E140 · 27 Aug 2026 · 47 min
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.
E139 · 13 Aug 2026 · 58 min
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.
16 Jul 2026 · 54 min
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?
E137 · 2 Jul 2026 · 31 min
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.
E136 · 18 Jun 2026 · 51 min
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.
E135 · 4 Jun 2026 · 52 min
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.
E134 · 14 May 2026 · 47 min
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.
E133 · 30 Apr 2026 · 47 min
"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.
E132 · 16 Apr 2026 · 43 min
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.
9 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
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.
E131 · 2 Apr 2026 · 52 min
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.
E130 · 26 Mar 2026 · 20 min
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.
E129 · 23 Mar 2026 · 48 min
"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.
E128 · 5 Mar 2026 · 46 min
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.
E127 · 19 Feb 2026 · 37 min
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.
E126 · 5 Feb 2026 · 1 hr 7 min
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.
E124 · 21 Jan 2026 · 51 min
"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.
E123 · 8 Jan 2026 · 45 min
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.
E122 · 18 Dec 2025 · 58 min
Are the US and China racing toward the same AI future? Experts Selina Xu and Matt Sheehan explore what China actually wants from AI, challenge common misconceptions, and explore whether cooperation is possible. To avoid catastrophe, we first need to understand what race we're really in.
E121 · 4 Dec 2025 · 45 min
AI is reshaping work, creating uncertainty about careers and job security. Economists Molly Kinder and Ethan Mollick cut through the hype to examine what's actually happening in the labor market and explore whether AI will enrich our work or destabilize it.
E120 · 13 Nov 2025 · 1 hr 5 min
This week, we’re bringing you Tristan’s conversation with Tobias Rose-Stockwell on his podcast “Into the Machine.” Tobias is a designer, writer, and technologist and the author of the book “The Outrage Machine.”
6 Nov 2025 · 17 min
Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin imagine what a world with humane technology might look like—one where we recognized the harms of social media early and worked to fix them. This alternative history serves to show that there are narrow pathways to a better future, if we have the imagination and the courage to make them a reality.
E119 · 23 Oct 2025 · 41 min
The AI race has hit breakneck speed. Autonomous agents are starting to disrupt the workforce. People are forming bonds with chatbots— with tragic consequences. All while tech leaders promise utopia. You had questions. We dove deep to answer them in our annual Ask Us Anything.
E118 · 11 Sep 2025 · 52 min
In 1987, 198 countries came together in Montreal to draft an agreement to save the world from the ozone hole. It was an unprecedented moment of global coordination amid a catastrophic crisis. How did it happen? And what can it teach us about the crisis of uncontrollable AI? Listen to find out.
E117 · 26 Aug 2025 · 45 min
16-year-old Adam Raine took his own life with the help of ChatGPT. Now his parents are suing OpenAI and Sam Altman. CHT Policy Director Camille Carlton explores the incentives and design behind AI systems leading to tragic outcomes like this and the policy that’s needed to shift those incentives.
E116 · 14 Aug 2025 · 42 min
Sci-fi warned us about rogue AI systems that deceive, cheat, even coerce humans when threatened with shutdown or replacement. Yet we’re building AI today that does all of these things and we don't know how to stop it. This episode discusses evidence of this trend and possible solutions.
E115 · 31 Jul 2025 · 49 min
Imagine a world where the most persuasive voices, the wealthiest elites, the most influential creators aren’t human—they’re AI. This is the world we’re racing to right now and without new laws, the courts are playing a critical role in what that world looks like. This episode explores that dynamic and what we can do about it.
E114 · 17 Jul 2025 · 38 min
Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI to warn about the dangerous direction of AI development. His new report, AI 2027, forecasts humanity losing control to misaligned superintelligence within years. On the show this week, we explore these risks, the incentives driving them, and how we might still change course.
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 Collectiv
Your Undivided Attention is a English tech & science podcast from The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
