TechStuff vs. BattleBots

The Pope called for AI to be "disarmed" — then gave Anthropic a seat on the dais. Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) unpacks what the Vatican's landmark intervention means for Silicon Valley. Then, get off Nextdoor, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) says hyperlocal publications are in ...  عرض المزيد

What happens when you let technology take over your life? Joanna Stern (Fmr. Wall Street Journal / New Things) found out. She spent all of 2025 letting the robots in: Waymos, AI therapists, robot massagers, assistant researcher agents…During that yearlong experiment, Joanna Stern ...  عرض المزيد

What will we do when robots and artificial intelligences break the law? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the issue of robot moral and legal agency. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listene ...  عرض المزيد

Fully autonomous lethal weapons—robots that can select and engage targets without human intervention—are fast becoming possible. They might minimize casualties and protect civilians in times of war. But is it morally wrong to put a computer in charge of life or death decisions? C ...  عرض المزيد

As the Invention podcast ends, discussions of techno-history become part of STBYM again. So let's explore some past episodes of Robert and Joe's other series. Here's their sidebar with Scott Benjamin about a mysterious death in the history of motion picture technology... Learn mo ...  عرض المزيد

The killer robots are here and they’re not going away. We’ve all seen footage of the cute robot dogs stumbling around with weapons strapped to their back, and loitering munitions (or so-called “suicide drones”) have become a fixture on the battlefield in Ukraine.There’s a general ...  عرض المزيد