The Most Interesting Thing in AI

A podcast series examining how AI is reshaping our world. Hosted by Nicholas Thompson, each episode features a conversation with a leading thinker who offers a fresh perspective on the far-reaching ethical, economic, and social implications of this technology. This podcast is from The Atlantic’s CEO and is produced independently of The Atlantic’s editorial staff. Some episodes have a supporting sponsor. Those episodes are clearly labeled and the sponsor is named.

The Most Interesting Thing in AI is a technology podcast hosted by Atlantic Re:think, with 41 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Atlantic Re:think hosts The Most Interesting Thing in AI, a technology show with 41 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  The Most Interesting Thing in AI

  The Risks of Artificial Relationships - Sherry Turkle with Nicholas Thompson

  Sep 30, 202657 min

  AI wants to be your friend. And your therapist. And your lover. It’s not an entirely new offer, author and MIT professor Sherry Turkle reminds us, but it’s one that’s grown more dire as AI has improved. In a conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, Turkle describes the dangers of anthropomorphizing generative AI, gleaned from hundreds of conversations she conducted (with real humans) for her new book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk To Machines. What do we lose when we make machines our best friends? And what, if anything, do we stand to gain? Turkle details her own experience creating a simulation of her mother, and the wounds that we risk reopening. Produced independently of The Atlantic’s editorial staff. Supporting sponsor: PwC. (00:00) Introduction (03:45) The surprising return of relational machines  (07:35) Why Sherry wrote her new book, Artificial Intimacy  (11:18) The problem with delegating parenting, education, and therapy to AI  (19:07) Why people seek emotional support from  chatbots  (24:40) Sherry’s concept of “dual consciousness” (29:43) Regulating generative AI use for kids (32:42) Can college students still read and write? (37:32) Distinguishing between useful AI tools and harmful delegations  (41:32) How chatbots mimicking deceased loved ones can cause new psychological harm  (50:56) What Sherry would do with unlimited AI funds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Most Interesting Thing in AI

  The Case Against the AI Bubble - Azeem Azhar with Nicholas Thompson

  Sep 23, 20261h 5m

  Among the many eye-popping numbers of the AI industry—from trillions in investments to billions in spending—one stands out: $0 in profit among leading AI companies. According to Bloomberg, “never before has so much money been spent so rapidly on a technology that, for all its potential, remains largely unproven as an avenue for profit-making.” That imbalance, and the industry’s reliance on circular financing, has led to fears of a bubble. But those concerns are overblown, according to Azeem Azhar, author of the Exponential View newsletter, who earlier this year released a report on the AI economy. In conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, Azhar expands on his findings. He says AI’s finances are sound: the demand is there, revenue is growing, and the technology will advance enough to deliver on the necessary ROI. Produced independently of The Atlantic’s editorial staff. Supporting sponsor: PwC. (00:00) Introduction (03:40) Mapping the AI economy through forensic accounting (07:50) How to think about infrastructure spend  (16:30) The "J-curve" of AI adoption (24:00) How cheaper tokens will change the market  (27:17) China's AI strategy (40:22) Is there something that could break Azeem’s model?  (48:34) What could happen when the AI firms IPO  (53:34) The effects of the culture in Silicon Valley  (56:34) Which bubble-breaker scenario worries Azeem the most (59:16) What Azeem would do if he had an unlimited budget to invest in AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Most Interesting Thing in AI

  The Future of Economic Power - Circle’s Jeremy Allaire with Nicholas Thompson

  Sep 16, 20261h 9m

  Technological waves often arrive with a promise. The internet was going to democratize information. Blockchain was going to decentralize power. Now, AI's boosters say it will bring unprecedented prosperity. Few people are better positioned to speak to that possibility than Jeremy Allaire. As the CEO of the fintech company Circle—issuer of the USDC stablecoin—and a longtime internet entrepreneur, Allaire has been at the center of the first two technological waves. With AI, he says we’re going through a change that’s “bigger than the Industrial Revolution.” He sees a future of financially-empowered agents—and believes this technology could be the one that finally fulfills the promise of shared wealth.  In a conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, Allaire describes how the agentic economy might work, why regulation will be critical to its success, and what’s missing from the conversation around AI’s effect on society. Produced independently of The Atlantic’s editorial staff. Supporting sponsor: PwC. (00:00) Introduction (03:33) Jeremy’s early fascination with open networks (07:14) Creating the first online archive of Noam Chomsky's work  (10:54) The promise of the early web (17:00) How the internet centralized power through social media giants (22:53) Founding Circle with the vision of creating "HTTP for money" (31:18) Navigating crypto's reputation challenges (38:18) Why Jeremy wrote The Agentic Economy Treatise (43:30) How AI agents could change the fundamental structure of companies (53:34) The risks of extreme capital concentration with AI (59:40) The choice we face with AI regulation (1:05:03) What Jeremy would do if he had an unlimited budget to invest in AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Most Interesting Thing in AI

  The Race to Superintelligence - Richard Socher with Nicholas Thompson

  Sep 9, 20261h 9m

  As AI’s capabilities improve, reports of “rogue” agents and misaligned systems are becoming more frequent. In response, some activists, academics, and politicians have called for a pause in development, warning of the dangers that superintelligent AI could pose. But Richard Socher, the CEO of AI startup Recursive as well as the AI search engine You.com, sees another path. In his new book, The Eureka Machine, Socher lays out his vision for how self-improving AI could lead to breakthroughs in science, medicine, economics, and more. In conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, he details some of the ways we can mitigate its risks, explains why the limits of our own minds could hold AI back, and considers whether we’re projecting too many fears about human behavior onto an insensate technology. Produced independently of The Atlantic’s editorial staff. (00:00) Introduction (02:25) Richard's childhood in East Germany and Ethiopia (10:23) What Richard got wrong about AI hype and the DeepMind acquisition (12:14) The idea behind The Eureka Machine (17:18) How AIs can compete to make each other safer (20:30) Are fears about synthetic data overblown? (22:32) When hallucinations are actually helpful (28:16) How human intelligence could hold AI back (34:52) The metacognition tension (39:13) The OpenAI-Hugging Face hack (46:15) Would narrower AI goals have put us in a better spot? (50:30) Richard’s debate with Yoshua Bengio: are we building a dominant species? (54:29) What breakthrough will finally win over AI skeptics? (59:26) The case for widely available superintelligence (1:04:20) What Richard would do if he had an unlimited budget to invest in AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Most Interesting Thing in AI

  How to Get Hired in the AI Era - Clara Shih with Nicholas Thompson

  Sep 2, 202651 min

  For years, tech CEOs have promised that AI will take on the menial, repetitive tasks that have long been a part of office life. Typically, those tasks are assigned to younger, less experienced workers—and poll after poll shows Gen Z is increasingly concerned about what AI will mean for their job prospects. Clara Shih says those fears are, at least partly, justified. As the former head of Meta's Business AI Group, and the CEO of Salesforce AI before that, Shih knows firsthand how companies are deploying AI and where it's affecting hiring. Now, as the founder of the New Work Foundation, Shih is building tools to help young workers navigate this complex hiring maze. In conversation with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, Shih details the skills students should focus on to prepare for the AI era, how employees can leverage the technology, and why more people—of all ages—might soon find themselves working for an algorithm. Produced independently of The Atlantic’s editorial staff. (0:00) Introduction (02:35) What New Work Foundation is doing for Gen Z job seekers (04:00) Is your major cooked? Testing the "Field Report" tool (06:50) What AI exposure scores don’t capture (10:20) How colleges should prepare students for the AI era (17:30) Why beginners shouldn't use AI to learn something new (22:00) Is college still worth it? (23:42) Why applying for a job is harder than it used to be (29:52) AI will make big companies more efficient—and less fun  (33:12) How the bitter lesson could apply to entire organizations (36:12) The three buckets all white-collar work might soon fall into (42:51) Are companies actually laying people off because of AI? (47:54) What Clara would do if she had an unlimited budget to invest in AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on The Most Interesting Thing in AI. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.