Geoffrey Hinton vs. The End of the World

On Feb. 10, 2026, an 18-year-old opened fire at a high school in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., killing eight people before turning a gun on herself. In the weeks that followed, OpenAI admitted that the perpetrator had been discussing the attack with ChatGPT – and that the company had chos ...  Show more

A couple of months ago, I joined the Canadian government’s AI strategy task force. Out of thirty members, I was one of only four focused on safety. Everyone else was there to talk growth. It reflects a pattern playing out all over the world: we’re going all in on AI, and regulati ...  Show more

The global online ad racket; Ed Butler investigates how criminals are ripping off advertising firms to the tune of billions every year.Andrew Lissimore the CEO of a Canadian company that sells high-end headphones tells us what happened when he hired an ad-tech firm to organise ta ...  Show more

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. Advertising is everywhere. By some estimates, the average American is exposed to over 3,000 advertisements each day. Whether we realize it or not, "adcreep"―mod ...  Show more

It's no secret that the ad industry is huge. Advertisers spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year attempting to convince people they should buy a given product or service -- and these same forces also work around the clock to leverage the latest in neuroscience and tech ...

In Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet (FSG Originals, 2020), Tim Hwang investigates the way big tech financializes attention. In the process, he shows us how digital advertising--the beating heart of the internet--is at risk of c ...  Show more