Warlords, Espionage, and Disinformation | Introducing Hot Money: Agent of Chaos
In 2020, the Financial Times exposed a 2 billion euro fraud at Wirecard, a high-flying German fintech. Many thought that was the end of the story. But for reporter Sam Jones, it was just the…
Teaching Robots How to Do Everything
AI is better than humans at a lot of things, but physical tasks – even seemingly simple ones like folding a shirt – routinely stump AI-powered robots. Chelsea Finn is a professor at Stanford and…
Making a Universal Flu Vaccine
Jacob Glanville is the founder and CEO of Centivax. Jacob’s problem is this: Can you create a vaccine that protects people against almost all strains of flu – even strains that haven’t evolved yet? Get…
Teaching Computers to Smell
Alex Wiltschko got obsessed with perfume when he was 12 years old. He grew up to be an AI researcher at Google. Then he started Osmo, a company that fused his job at Google with…
China’s Race to Dominate: Listen to Global Tech Wars
For decades, China’s economic rise has been symbolized by its unstoppable force of low-cost manufacturing. Now, it’s the leading country in cutting-edge industries like artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, surveillance technology, and more. In Global Tech…
Can a Chatbot Treat Depression?
Nick Jacobson and his team at Dartmouth medical school spent over 100,000 hours trying to build an AI chatbot that can serve as a safe, effective therapist. After a few false starts, they seem to…
Will AI Radically Change the World by 2027?… from Risky Business
This week, Nate and Maria discuss AI 2027, a new report from the AI Futures Project that lays out some pretty doom-y scenarios for our near-term AI future. They talk about how likely humans are…
Is the Future of Flight Supersonic?
Blake Scholl is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic. Blake’s problem is this: Can you build a commercial airplane that flies faster than the speed of sound – and that makes economic sense? See…
The Secrets of Silk
Fiorenzo Omenetto is a professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University and the director of Silklab. Fiorenzo’s problem is this: How do you turn a material people have been using for thousands of years into…
Infiltrating an International Ransomware Gang
A few years ago, a ransomware gang called LockBit rose from obscurity to extort over $100 million from organizations around the world. A security strategist named Jon DiMaggio wanted to understand how the organization worked.…