What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future
461 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago - ★★★★ - 224 ratingsEvery Friday and Sunday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
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Episodes
How WhatsApp Got Hacked
November 15, 2019 10:00 - 22 minutesRecently, 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 use it more broadly, tracking the communications of activists, journalists, lawyers, and dissidents...
The Uber Drivers Who Don’t Want to Be Employees
November 08, 2019 10:00 - 18 minutesCalifornia 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Price of Automating Aviation
November 01, 2019 09:00 - 17 minutesThis 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Inside Facebook's Political Ad Mess
October 25, 2019 09:00 - 21 minutesOver 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 Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Announcement: What Next: TBD
October 24, 2019 18:15 - 54 secondsHey If Then listeners! As of now, the new Slate podcast What Next: TBD will be taking over this feed. What Next: TBD is a weekly analysis with host Lizzie O’Leary of how technology is impacting our lives, and where we’re headed. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, we’ll be examining the often hidden forces shaping our world, and we’ll talk to the people who are studying those forces, impacted by them, and creating them. What Next: TBD is a spinoff from the Slate dail...
Smash Bros Side Hustlers
October 16, 2019 17:00 - 41 minutesLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The People Who Hold The Internet Together
October 09, 2019 17:00 - 43 minutesLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What it Takes to Study Online Harassment
October 02, 2019 19:45 - 41 minutesLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Surveillance Is Coming From Inside The (Smart) House
September 25, 2019 17:00 - 38 minutesHost Shannon Palus talks to Roxanne Leitao, a UK-based designer researching ways to make the smart home gear safer for victims of domestic abuse. They’ll discuss the ways that smart thermostats can be used to gaslight victims, the security measures that can help everyone in a home have agency, and the reason why smart home tech that’s hard to understand is all the more dangerous. They also touch on her other research in designing gig economy platforms that reduce the potential for bias agains...
Breaking Away From Google
September 18, 2019 17:00 - 42 minutesHost Aaron Mak discusses with journalist Nithin Coca his attempt to abstain from using any Google products in his daily life. They discuss why he did it, the useful alternatives he found for specific apps, the quirks of using different tools abroad, and the surprising benefits he found in starting over. They also speculate on whether or not a normal consumer could sustainably do the same thing, and what that means for the state of the industry. After the interview, host Aaron Mak joins co-h...
The Case For The Vape
September 11, 2019 17:00 - 37 minutesHost Shannon Palus discusses how today’s vaping panic is connected to the rise of the cigarette with Jacob Grier, author of the new book The Rediscovery of Tobacco: Smoking, Vaping, and the Creative Destruction of the Cigarette. Grier argues for a nuanced view of tobacco and nicotine’s place in America, and just how much parents should worry if their teen comes home with a Juul. They’ll also discuss why Sweden’s solution for tobacco risk reduction serves as an enviable model. After the interv...
Inside Uber
September 04, 2019 17:00 - 36 minutesNew York Times technology reporter Mike Issac discusses his new book Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber, which traces Uber’s rapid rise and fall under co-founder Travis Kalanick. He and host Aaron Mak talk about Uber’s fraught relationship with the media, how public perception of the company enabled one of its competitors to stave off extinction, the necessary paranoia required to investigate the company, and how Kalanick’s particular style of leadership helped transform transportation around...
Cosmetic Gene Editing Gone Awry
August 28, 2019 16:30 - 40 minutesHost Shannon Palus explores a future in which high school girls stay atop the social hierarchy by editing their genes, giving themselves purple eyes, and glittery skin. That’s what fiction author E. Lily Yu imagines 2060 is like in her short story, Zero In Babel, which was published on Slate as part of the Future Tense Fiction Series. Shannon and producer Cameron Drews read and excerpt of the story, and then Shannon speaks to Yu about her creative process. After the interview Aaron Mak joins...
When Your DNA is Public Information
August 21, 2019 17:31 - 38 minutesAaron Mak learns about how law enforcement is using public genealogy websites to crack cold cases. His guest is Nila Bala, Associate Director of Criminal Justice Policy at the R Street Institute, which is a think tank whose mission is to find solutions to complex policy problems. Bala is also a former public defender. She says while it’s great that criminals are being brought to justice, there should be more rules in place to limit false positives and prevent privacy violations. After the i...
The Allure of Smart Guns
August 14, 2019 16:30 - 35 minutesIn this episode Shannon Palus learns about personalized guns, sometimes referred to as “smart” guns. Her guest is Cassandra Crifasi, Deputy Director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy & Research. More specifically, Crifasi is an epidemiologist focused on policies, procedures, and practices that prevent injury. She says personalized firearms are great for keeping kids and thieves away from guns, but they do nothing to prevent homicides and suicides by gun owners themselves. After the...
China’s Cyber War Against Hong Kong
August 07, 2019 16:30 - 32 minutesIn this episode Aaron Mak learns about all the ways China is using cyber warfare to disrupt the efforts of protesters in Hong Kong. His guest is Nick Frisch, a fellow at Yale’s Information Society Project and a scholar of media and technology in the Chinese speaking world. Frisch was recently in Hong Kong as a fellow at the Journalism and Media Studies Center at Hong Kong University. After the interview, Shannon Palus joins the show for this week’s edition of Don’t Close My Tabs. Learn more...
Chemists Spill the Science of Skincare
July 31, 2019 18:45 - 35 minutesIn this episode Shannon Palus talks to Victoria Fu and Gloria Lu, co-founders of Chemist Confessions. Their goal is to help us all cut through the marketing buzzwords of the skincare industry, and understand some of the actual chemistry behind the products we use. After the interview, Aaron Mak joins the show for this week’s edition of Don’t Close My Tabs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why Facebook Can’t Just Create a Currency
July 24, 2019 17:00 - 36 minutesIn this episode Aaron Mak looks into Facebook’s plan to create a global cryptocurrency called Libra. For an expert opinion, he turns to Chris Brummer, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center and the host of the podcast Fintech Beat. Brummer testified before the U.S. House of Representatives last week to explain why Facebook is jumping the gun with its proposal. After the interview, Shannon Palus joins the show for this week’s edition of Don’t Close My Tabs. Slate Plus member...
Prime Day Comes but Once a Year
July 17, 2019 17:30 - 28 minutesIn this episode, Shannon Palus talks about the journalistic ethics of Amazon affiliate links with Jacqui Cheng, former Editor-in-Chief of Wirecutter and current Editor-in-Chief of Music at WQXR in New York. As Cheng explains, it’s possible for news organizations to make money from Amazon links without turning into a shill for a giant company. After the interview, Shannon talks to Aaron Mak for this week’s edition of Don’t Close My tabs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/...
ICE’s Reckless Use of Facial Recognition Tech
July 10, 2019 17:30 - 34 minutesIn this episode, Aaron Mak talks about federal law enforcement's use of facial recognition technology with Jake Laperruque. He’s Senior Counsel at The Constitution Project, which is part of the Project on Government Oversight. According to The Washington Post, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and FBI officials have been partnering with state DMVs to scan through millions of drivers license photos. Jake explains the civil liberties implications of the practice and suggests regulations...
Healthcare via Video Chat
July 03, 2019 16:30 - 37 minutesIn this episode, Shannon Palus explores the growing telehealth industry, where doctors and patients connect via video chat or sometimes just a secure message system. To figure out the benefits and potential drawbacks of telehealth, Shannon talks to Roy Schoenberg, president and CEO of American Well, one of the first big players in the space. Then Shannon talks to Slate writer Aaron Mak in this week’s edition of Don’t Close My Tabs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When Tech Journalism Took A Critical Turn
June 26, 2019 17:30 - 44 minutesIn this episode, April Glaser catches up with her former co-host Will Oremus. Then the two of them are joined by Future Tense editor Torie Bosch and New York Times opinion writer Farhad Manjoo to discuss why tech journalism has become far more critical in recent years. Plus, April and Will discuss futuristic science fiction scenarios on this week’s edition of Don’t Close My Tabs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When a Scooter Makes More Sense Than a Car
June 19, 2019 16:00 - 34 minutesIn this episode, guest host Henry Grabar looks at how Zillow is trying to disrupt the real estate business—and why it might work in some cities but not others. Then Horace Dediu answers Henry’s questions about bikes, scooters, and other miniature contraptions that might replace the automobile in cities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How Driverless Cars Will Actually Work
June 13, 2019 04:00 - 27 minutesIn this episode April Glaser talks to Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora, a company that builds the technology for self-driving cars. Urmson offers a timeline for when we might see autonomous vehicles on the road and lists the different hurdles the industry still needs to overcome. According to Urmson, driverless cars shouldn’t require a lot of extra infrastructure or government funding. Instead, they should work within our existing system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...
Re-Up: Senator Mark Warner
June 05, 2019 15:23 - 27 minutesIn this episode, April Glaser revisits an interview with Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who released a policy paper proposing possible regulations for U.S. social media and technology companies. In the interview, April and her former co-host Will Oremus talk to Senator Warner about what worries him most about the largely unregulated tech industry, which can’t seem to keep our data private and stop muddying our elections. They also ask him what he th...
Luxury Bunkers for the End of the World
May 29, 2019 19:16 - 41 minutesIn this episode April Glaser is joined by Max Read, an editor and writer at New York Magazine who writes the column Life in Pixels. First, April and Max talk to Patri Friedman, founder of the Seasteading Institute, which he started in 2008 with seed funding from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Seasteading is the process of forming new societies on the open ocean, and it’s getting a lot of attention from Silicon Valley. Then Robert Vicino joins the show to talk about his company, Vivos, which ...
Why It’s So Hard to Live in California
May 22, 2019 18:53 - 47 minutesIn this episode April Glaser is joined by co-host Kim-Mai Cutler, a partner at Initialized Capital, an early-stage venture firm. She’s also a former full-time journalist at TechCrunch. First, April and Kim-Mai discuss the lack of affordable housing in California and the political battles that are hindering progress. Then they talk about the upcoming wildfire season with Faith Kearns from the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Lizzie Johnson from the S...
Designing a Better Facebook
May 15, 2019 18:00 - 36 minutesIn this episode, April Glaser is joined by guest co-host Max Read, an editor at New York magazine who covers technology and the internet. First, April and Max talk about Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’ apostasy. Last week, Hughes wrote a long op-ed in the New York Times about why he thinks the company that made him so wealthy should be broken up. Then Katherine Lo joins the hosts to discuss how Facebook’s redesign will change how we communicate on the platform. These days she leads the cont...
Cyberspace Didn’t Stay Free
May 08, 2019 17:36 - 42 minutesIn this episode April Glaser is joined once again by guest co-host Meredith Broussard, a data journalism professor at NYU and author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. First, historian Mar Hicks joins the show to talk about the tech industry’s long-time aversion to organized labor and how that’s clashing with recent worker actions at major tech companies like Google and Uber. Then Alexis Madrigal joins the hosts to talk about his recent piece in the Atlanti...
Public Education, Facebook-Style
May 01, 2019 18:17 - 35 minutesIn this episode April Glaser is joined by co-host Meredith Broussard, a data journalism professor at NYU and author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. First they talk about the history of Silicon Valley’s decades-long quest to replace teachers with computers. Then the hosts have a conversation with Nellie Bowles, tech reporter for the New York Times, about a Kansas town that’s struggling with the implementation of Summit Learning, a personalized web-based e...
Unmasking The Russians Who Hacked The DNC
April 24, 2019 17:42 - 34 minutesIn this episode April Glaser is joined once again by co-host Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. They start by talking about the Sri Lankan government’s shutdown of Facebook and WhatsApp after the Easter attacks on churches and hotels. Then they talk to Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a staff writer for Motherboard and producer for CYBER, a Motherboard podcast about hacking. In their conversation Franceschi-Bicchierai talks about...
What Happened To WikiLeaks
April 17, 2019 19:08 - 42 minutesIn this episode April Glaser is joined by guest host Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia and author of several books about social media and the internet, including a recent one on Facebook, “Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy.” First they talk about the ongoing elections in India and how fake news and propaganda on Facebook and WhatsApp is wreaking havoc on an electoral process that’s otherwise...
Fake Meat Designed for Carnivores
April 10, 2019 16:38 - 41 minutesApril Glaser is joined by Gizmodo investigative reporter, Kashmir Hill, to talk about an ambitious British proposal to regulate content on social media sites. Then they discuss Airbnb’s efforts to kick White Nationalists off its platform ahead of a national summit in Tennessee. After that they talk to Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, about his company’s eerily realistic fake meat products and his vision for a more environmentally sustainable food system. Learn more about your...
Local News Brought to You by Big Tech
April 03, 2019 18:04 - 41 minutesApril Glaser and Will Oremus discuss a recent report in Bloomberg that says executives at YouTube ignored employees who raised concerns about the spread of harmful videos. The company’s algorithm often recommends conspiracy videos, which lead viewers down rabbit holes they might not otherwise explore. Then journalism professor Emily Bell talks about Google and Facebook’s recent efforts to revive the local news industry. Since the tech giants are partially complicit in harming local news in t...
Uber and Lyft Drivers Strike
March 27, 2019 19:18 - 45 minutesAprill Glaser and Will Oremus kick off the episode by talking about Apple’s plan to be the ultimate middleman--with new offerings announced this week of streaming video, games, and more. Then April offers an update on efforts in Congress to restore net neutrality. After that Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Hastings, talks about worker strikes at Uber and Lyft and then sheds light on a California case that reclassifies most gig workers as employees instead of contractors. Learn more about...
Livestreaming A Massacre
March 20, 2019 19:20 - 34 minutesOn today’s show, April Glaser and Will Oremus first talk to two researchers who’ve uncovered new information about the way the U.S. government trains its facial recognition software. According to their findings, the government uses photos of immigrants, children, and even deceased prisoners to train their programs. Then NBC News reporter Ben Collins talks about the role of online extremism in last week’s New Zealand attacks, specifically with regard to Facebook and other platforms that allow...
Your Social Media Photos Are Helping to Build the Surveillance State
March 13, 2019 19:31 - 28 minutesOn today’s show, April Glaser kicks things off by talking about Facebook’s long-overdue crackdown on anti-vaccination groups. The social media platform announced it will stop allowing advertisements that peddle misinformation about vaccines, and they’ll make anti-vaxxer groups and pages harder to find. What took them so long? Then Will Oremus talks to Olivia Solon, Editor of Tech Investigations at NBC, about facial recognition technology, and how some companies are collecting online photos...
How To Trust A VPN
March 06, 2019 20:50 - 31 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus take a look at an increasingly popular online privacy tool--that has some serious trust issues of its own. We’re talking about VPNs, or virtual private networks, and why the average user might have a very hard time figuring out which one to trust. The hosts will also look at privacy blunder number one billion from our friends at Facebook. This one involves two factor authentication, a feature to ostensibly help keep your account safer that t...
Empathy at Scale
February 27, 2019 21:07 - 33 minutesOn today’s show, host April Glaser looks at the continuing battle between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commision. Earlier this week, the SEC asked a judge to hold Musk in contempt for tweets he’s made about Tesla’s performance. The SEC says Musk violated a settlement he reached with the commission last year, which required him to have his tweets reviewed before sending them. Then, Will Oremus speaks with journalist Casey Newton about an investigation he published this ...
Can Palantir Be Used For Good?
February 20, 2019 19:39 - 32 minutesOn today’s show, host Will Oremus looks at the fallout from Amazon’s announcement last week that they’re abandoning plans for a new headquarters in New York City. Some celebrated it as a victory; others mourned a missed opportunity; still others were mad that Amazon took its ball and went home, rather than negotiating a fairer deal. Then, April Glaser talks with Faine Greenwood from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, where she focuses on the role of drones and data intensive foreign aid pro...
Jeff Bezos’s Privacy Complexifier
February 13, 2019 20:33 - 30 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus talk about the implications from last week’s bizarre, but also serious, showdown between Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and American Media INC, the owner of the Trump-friendly National Enquirer. Bezos claimed the Enquirer was blackmailing him by threatening to release private and quite racy photos between him and the woman he was having an affair with. Bezos stood up to the alleged extortion by publishing his account of the situation, complete with t...
The Court-Records Paywall Scam
February 06, 2019 18:50 - 44 minutesLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Media Layoffs Are Trending
January 30, 2019 21:25 - 36 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss a rather terrifying security flaw from Apple, a company that prides itself on keeping information well-protected. A bug was found in the video chat app Facetime that let snoops listen in on someone by calling them on FaceTime, even if the call wasn’t answered. Then, the hosts are joined by Franklin Foer, a staff writer for the Atlantic, former editor in chief of The New Republic, and author of a book about what he calls “the existe...
Juul Heist
January 23, 2019 21:14 - 41 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss news news that the french government has fined Google close to $57 million for violating the new European privacy laws that went into effect in 2018. This comes as news that the Federal Trade Commision here in the US is considering levying a record-breaking fine against Facebook for violations to their users privacy following the Cambridge Analytica mess. Corporate fines may well be a theme this year following the great clean up aft...
Social Media's Weird Future
January 16, 2019 20:52 - 50 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss news that PG&E, California’s main power provider, plans to file for bankruptcy due to the billions in liability it faces stemming from the deadly wildfires last year. Allegations have been made that PG&E’s power lines and equipment aided in the fires and the company did not adequately address the hazards beforehand. As the home to some of the world most powerful tech companies, California’s economy last year surpassed the UK, but it’...
At CES: Tech After Smartphones
January 09, 2019 22:29 - 42 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss startling new revelations about some of the major phone carriers. The story broke this week in Motherboard titled “I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone.” It details how T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to customers location data to shady characters like landlords and collection agencies. And speaking of phones, could we finally be witnessing an end to the iPhone’s dominance of the technology industry?...
Best of 2018
January 02, 2019 22:11 - 48 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus introduce some of their favorite interviews from 2018. We have highlights from our conversations with journalist Taylor Lorenz about teen YouTube stars, former head of Facebook’s Newsfeed Adam Mosseri about real-world violence in places like Myanmar, the founder of Data for Black Lives Yeshimabeit Milner on how tech companies might share their data for social justice efforts, author Naomi Klein on cryptocurrency in Puerto Rico following the ...
Aftermath of a Data Breach
December 26, 2018 20:00 - 34 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus will talk reader mail! The hosts take a look at some of your questions and comments from the year, in particular about how your relationship to technology and social media has changed in a year that has been tumultuous for tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Then, they’ll talk about cybersecurity, hacks, and the sometimes bizarre legal battles that ensue after a big data theft. They’re be joined by Josephine Wolff, a professo...
The Information World War
December 19, 2018 20:56 - 34 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus will talk about how Taylor Swift used face recognition to surveil the crowd at a recent concert, and whether that’s smart, scary, or both. Then they’ll welcome Renée DiResta, an expert on cybersecurity and online misinformation. DiResta is the lead author of a new report to the Senate Intelligence Committee on exactly how Russian operatives weaponized social media in the 2016 election, and why it may be just the beginning of a new era of gl...
Warehouse Workers Bring Amazon To The Table
December 12, 2018 20:23 - 48 minutesOn today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss the latest round of “Tech CEO Goes to Washington.” On Tuesday morning, that CEO was Google’s Sundar Pichai, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and was asked about data privacy, location tracking, Google’s plans in China, and of course, Republicans’ favorite tech topic: conservative bias. We’ll talk about what we learned from this hearing as well as what we wish Congress might’ve asked the Google CEO. Then April speaks ...