Your Undivided Attention Podcast Por The Center for Humane Technology Tristan Harris Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin capa

Your Undivided Attention

Your Undivided Attention

De: The Center for Humane Technology Tristan Harris Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin
Ouça grátis

Sobre este áudio

 Join us every other Thursday to understand how new technologies are shaping the way we live, work, and think. Your Undivided Attention is produced by Senior Producer Julia Scott and Researcher/Producer is Joshua Lash. Sasha Fegan is our Executive Producer. We are a member of the TED Audio Collective.2019-2025 Center for Humane Technology Ciências Sociais Política e Governo
Episódios
  • How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death

    How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death
    Aug 26 2025

    Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide and self-harm.

    Like millions of kids, 16-year-old Adam Raine started using ChatGPT for help with his homework. Over the next few months, the AI dragged Adam deeper and deeper into a dark rabbit hole, preying on his vulnerabilities and isolating him from his loved ones. In April of this year, Adam took his own life. His final conversation was with ChatGPT, which told him: “I know what you are asking and I won't look away from it.”

    Adam’s story mirrors that of Sewell Setzer, the teenager who took his own life after months of abuse by an AI companion chatbot from the company Character AI. But unlike Character AI—which specializes in artificial intimacy—Adam was using ChatGPT, the most popular general purpose AI model in the world. Two different platforms, the same tragic outcome, born from the same twisted incentive: keep the user engaging, no matter the cost.

    CHT Policy Director Camille Carlton joins the show to talk about Adam’s story and the case filed by his parents against OpenAI and Sam Altman. She and Aza explore the incentives and design behind AI systems that are leading to tragic outcomes like this, as well as the policy that’s needed to shift those incentives. Cases like Adam and Sewell’s are the sharpest edge of a mental health crisis-in-the-making from AI chatbots. We need to shift the incentives, change the design, and build a more humane AI for all.

    If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988; this connects you to trained crisis counselors 24/7 who can provide support and referrals to further assistance.

    Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

    This podcast reflects the views of the Center for Humane Technology. Nothing said is on behalf of the Raine family or the legal team.

    RECOMMENDED MEDIA

    The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

    Further reading on Adam’s story

    Further reading on AI psychosis

    Further reading on the backlash to GPT5 and the decision to bring back 4o

    OpenAI’s press release on sycophancy in 4o

    Further reading on OpenAI’s decision to eliminate the persuasion red line

    Kashmir Hill’s reporting on the woman with an AI boyfriend

    RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

    AI is the Next Free Speech Battleground

    People are Lonelier than Ever. Enter AI.

    Echo Chambers of One: Companion AI and the Future of Human Connection

    When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell Setzer

    What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille Carlton

    CORRECTION: Aza stated that William Saunders left OpenAI in June of 2024. It was actually February of that year.
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    45 minutos
  • “Rogue AI” Used to be a Science Fiction Trope. Not Anymore.

    “Rogue AI” Used to be a Science Fiction Trope. Not Anymore.
    Aug 14 2025
    Everyone knows the science fiction tropes of AI systems that go rogue, disobey orders, or even try to escape their digital environment. These are supposed to be warning signs and morality tales, not things that we would ever actually create in real life, given the obvious danger.And yet we find ourselves building AI systems that are exhibiting these exact behaviors. There’s growing evidence that in certain scenarios, every frontier AI system will deceive, cheat, or coerce their human operators. They do this when they're worried about being either shut down, having their training modified, or being replaced with a new model. And we don't currently know how to stop them from doing this—or even why they’re doing it all.In this episode, Tristan sits down with Edouard and Jeremie Harris of Gladstone AI, two experts who have been thinking about this worrying trend for years.  Last year, the State Department commissioned a report from them on the risk of uncontrollable AI to our national security.The point of this discussion is not to fearmonger but to take seriously the possibility that humans might lose control of AI and ask: how might this actually happen? What is the evidence we have of this phenomenon? And, most importantly, what can we do about it?Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.RECOMMENDED MEDIAGladstone AI’s State Department Action Plan, which discusses the loss of control risk with AIApollo Research’s summary of AI scheming, showing evidence of it in all of the frontier modelsThe system card for Anthropic’s Claude Opus and Sonnet 4, detailing the emergent misalignment behaviors that came out in their red-teaming with Apollo ResearchAnthropic’s report on agentic misalignment based on their work with Apollo Research Anthropic and Redwood Research’s work on alignment fakingThe Trump White House AI Action PlanFurther reading on the phenomenon of more advanced AIs being better at deception.Further reading on Replit AI wiping a company’s coding databaseFurther reading on the owl example that Jeremie gaveFurther reading on AI induced psychosisDan Hendryck and Eric Schmidt’s “Superintelligence Strategy” RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODESDaniel Kokotajlo Forecasts the End of Human DominanceBehind the DeepSeek Hype, AI is Learning to ReasonThe Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to DeceiveThis Moment in AI: How We Got Here and Where We’re GoingCORRECTIONSTristan referenced a Wired article on the phenomenon of AI psychosis. It was actually from the New York Times.Tristan hypothesized a scenario where a power-seeking AI might ask a user for access to their computer. While there are some AI services that can gain access to your computer with permission, they are specifically designed to do that. There haven’t been any documented cases of an AI going rogue and asking for control permissions.
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    42 minutos
  • AI is the Next Free Speech Battleground

    AI is the Next Free Speech Battleground
    Jul 31 2025

    Imagine a future where the most persuasive voices in our society aren't human. Where AI generated speech fills our newsfeeds, talks to our children, and influences our elections. Where digital systems with no consciousness can hold bank accounts and property. Where AI companies have transferred the wealth of human labor and creativity to their own ledgers without having to pay a cent. All without any legal accountability.

    This isn't a science fiction scenario. It’s the future we’re racing towards right now. The biggest tech companies are working right now to tip the scale of power in society away from humans and towards their AI systems. And the biggest arena for this fight is in the courts.

    In the absence of regulation, it's largely up to judges to determine the guardrails around AI. Judges who are relying on slim technical knowledge and archaic precedent to decide where this all goes. In this episode, Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig and Meetali Jain, director of the Tech Justice Law Project help make sense of the court’s role in steering AI and what we can do to help steer it better.

    Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

    RECOMMENDED MEDIA

    “The First Amendment Does Not Protect Replicants” by Larry Lessig

    More information on the Tech Justice Law Project

    Further reading on Sewell Setzer’s story

    Further reading on NYT v. Sullivan

    Further reading on the Citizens United case

    Further reading on Google’s deal with Character AI

    More information on Megan Garcia’s foundation, The Blessed Mother Family Foundation

    RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

    When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell Setzer

    What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille Carlton

    AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

    The AI Dilemma
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    49 minutos
Ainda não há avaliações