AI Safety & Ethics
Security, alignment, and responsible AI
64 episodes
#3852: The Hidden Workforce Behind AI's Intelligence
Behind every "intelligent" AI system are millions of workers in Kenya, India, and the Philippines doing repetitive tasks for poverty wages.
#3724: How the Pope's Letter on AI Actually Works
Unpacking the Pope’s new encyclical on AI: what it is, how Catholics interpret it, and why it matters beyond the Church.
#3704: Can Pornography Ever Be Regulated Fairly?
The labor conditions behind adult films and whether real regulation is possible — or just a fantasy.
#3658: How Reddit Built Guardrails for Anonymity
Reddit didn't solve harassment by killing anonymity. It built friction, reputation systems, and distributed governance.
#3649: When Wikipedia Feels Less Reliable Than AI
One reader explains why he now trusts AI more than Wikipedia on contested topics like Israel and Zionism.
#3628: Why German Comedy Is the Control Group for Jokes
Why deadpan lands in Dublin but not Tokyo, and what Hofstede’s cultural dimensions predict about your sense of humor.
#3422: How Rival Labs Reverse-Engineer a New AI Model in Hours
Inside the organized frenzy when a closed-source model drops — and how competitors map its every weakness.
#3272: Can Your Walk Really Identify You?
Gait recognition is leaving the lab. But is your walk actually unique, or just a handful of patterns?
#3216: EFF's 36-Year Fight for Digital Rights
How the Electronic Frontier Foundation has fought for internet freedom since 1990 — from the Crypto Wars to border phone searches.
#3209: When Algorithms Become Censors
How SLAPP suits, libel tourism, and Google's algorithm chill journalism more effectively than any law.
#3184: The Prank That Fooled Us All
How a sophisticated hoax exploited emotional vulnerability and what it reveals about deception in the AI age.
#3150: Can Life Skills Prevent Crime Before It Starts?
The evidence is decades old — why aren't we teaching life skills before people offend?
#3087: Inside the Conspiracy Mind: History, Belief, and Harm
Why do humans fall for conspiracy theories? History, psychology, and the surprising data on who actually believes.
#2909: The Reassurance Mirage: When Moderation Fails
How the EU Digital Services Act exposes a 30-to-1 gap in appeal success rates between platforms.
#2892: Where Does Your Biometric Data Actually Live?
Linux, Windows, and the surprising tradeoffs of storing your face and fingerprints.
#2808: Falling for Your Chatbot: Love, Loss, and Language Models
Real cases of people falling in love with AI companions, why memory makes it feel real, and what happens when the illusion breaks.
#2805: The Subprocessor Notification Nobody Reads
Why do companies send subprocessor update emails nobody reads? It's transparency theater — with a hidden purpose.
#2698: How Hackers Hide C2 Servers in Plain Sight
Bulletproof hosts, hijacked routers, and Discord channels — how command and control infrastructure stays up despite takedown attempts.
#2696: How Pegasus Silently Hijacks Your Phone's Microphone
How NSO's Pegasus achieves silent mic access on Android through zero-click exploits, kernel privilege escalation, and DMA buffer reading.
#2691: The Usability Tax of Least Privilege
Is it time to let AI agents handle your API key creation and rotation? We explore the real security tradeoffs.
#2558: Should You Say Please to AI?
The surprising cost, technical tradeoffs, and ethical dilemmas of saying "please" to chatbots.
#2526: How Peer Review Actually Works (and Fails)
The history of peer review, the Lancet's biggest scandals, and why arXiv is changing everything.
#2518: How Jailbreaking Reveals AI's Hidden Tension
What the DAN prompt and grandma exploits reveal about the structural conflict inside every LLM.
#2500: What Actually Counts as Hacking?
The CFAA, web scraping, and the messy line between curious URL-poking and federal crime.