The Morning Brief

From January’s protests in Iran to coordinated US–Israel strikes and widening retaliation, this episode maps how internal unrest morphed into a geopolitical flashpoint. Host Anirban Chowdhury and ET’s Executive Editor (Politics) Pranab Dhal Samanta break down the escalation ladder: is this about regime change, deterrence, or domestic politics in Washington? Can Iran’s clerical system withstand external pressure without fracturing internally? We examine oil volatility, Hormuz risks, Gulf street sentiment, and the proxy chessboard. We also assess China and Russia’s limited but strategic positioning. Finally, where does India stand — balancing energy security, diaspora protection, and strategic restraint in an increasingly combustible region?

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You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: X and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?, How Quick Commerce is Triggering a Health Crisis for Gen Z, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand and much more.

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What if AI companions are inserting themselves between children and the very people meant to guide them? In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Anirban Chowdhury speaks to Dr. Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology, Department of Media and Communications, The London School of Economics and Political Science and Dr Usha Raman, former professor,Dept of Communication, University of Hyderabad about the uncharted territory where generative AI meets childhood development. The conversation explores why AI systems sometimes offer dangerous advice to young users, how class and language create disparities in AI access across India, and whether the assumption of "inevitable" tech adoption overshadows critical ethical discussions.

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You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: X and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?, How Quick Commerce is Triggering a Health Crisis for Gen Z, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand and much more.

Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The existential alignment problem sits at the heart of the AI revolution — and the consequences of getting it wrong could be irreversible. What happens when superintelligent systems pursue fixed objectives that don’t fully capture human values? How do we govern machines that may soon outperform us across domains? And who decides what level of risk humanity should accept?

The conversation spans AGI timelines, the concentration of economic and political power, democratic resilience, liability-based regulation, and whether governments can realistically regulate frontier AI amid an intensifying global race.

From extinction-level risk estimates cited by AI CEOs to experimental evidence of systems resisting shutdown, this is no longer speculative science fiction — it is a live governance crisis unfolding in real time.

On this episode of The Morning Brief, ET’s Swathi Moorthy sits down with AI scientists and pioneers Stuart Russell and Yoshua Bengio for a candid, high-stakes discussion on the trajectory of artificial intelligence and the choices that will shape humanity’s future.

As capabilities surge and geopolitical rivalry sharpens, one defining question remains: are we building tools to serve humanity — or systems that could ultimately outmaneuver it?

You can follow Swathi Moorthy on her social media: X and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like: AI Impact Summit: Amazon's Bet on India's AI Future, Anthropic’s India Play, India AI Impact Summit: Microsoft’s Brad Smith on Sovereignty, Scale and Skills, and much more.

Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.