This week, what does defense technology look like in 2025? Oz talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dexter Filkins about his recent piece in The New Yorker titled “Is the US ready for the next war?” They discuss how the Ukraine and Israel are reimagining what warfare looks like in the 21st century, Silicon Valley’s race toward fully autonomous killer robots, and how it all might affect the potential conflict in Taiwan.

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Would you buy a boat or a midcentury sideboard from your high school pals? Because Oz’s alma mater has opened an exclusive online marketplace for just this purpose! This week, Oz spins a yarn about Kitkat, the San Francisco cat killed by a Waymo. Locals are furious. Karah fills us in on Blued and Finka, the gay dating apps being censored by the Chinese government. Tech bros are obsessed with building statues, the FBI tries to unmask the owner of a popular internet archiving site, and we check out a flight app that could make your holiday travel more data-driven, if not less hectic. Finally, on Chat and Me, we talk about Kim Kardashian’s use of Chat—and whether it’s really her friend.

Additional Reading:

• Eton’s old boy network app is like eBay for ex-prime ministers - The Times UK
• Waymo Was Thriving in San Francisco. Then One of Its Driverless Cars Killed a Cat. - The New York Times
• Apple Pulls China’s Top Gay Dating Apps After Government Order - WIRED
• FBI orders domain registrar to reveal who runs mysterious Archive.is site - Ars Technica
• The Smartest Fliers Use This App to Survive America’s Travel Hell - WSJ
• America’s Tech Rich Is Obsessed with Building Giant Statues - Bloomberg

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This week, Oz talks to Nick McKeown, who is a member of the PM’s Council of Science and Technology, where he advises the British government on the best opportunities for economic growth in the tech sector. And according to Nick, that opportunity is AI Chips. He argues that the UK is in a good position to take second place in the race to design the next generation of AI chips and lays out how the British government can help make that happen.

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Malcolm Gladwell heads to San Francisco Tech Week to talk with IBM’s new Director of Research Jay Gambetta in front of a live audience. They discuss IBM’s plans to scale quantum computing power, the groundbreaking experiments already underway, and what impact these new computers could have on chemistry, medicine, and even finance.

This is a paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this podcast don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Visit us at https://www.ibm.com/think/podcasts/smart-talks

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This week, we dive deep into the future of prosthetics. Karah speaks with Jim Ashworth-Beaumont, who lost his arm in a traumatic bike accident. Most people upon recovery would be given a traditional prosthetic arm, but Jim is something of an expert in prosthetics and his peers have outfitted him with an experimental, high-tech device. He talks about how his work in orthotics influenced his own rehabilitation, the limitations of traditional prosthetics, and how the science fiction fantasy of restoring healing to lost limbs might be closer than you think.

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This week, Oz sits down with Stephen Witt, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and author of The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, NVIDIA, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip. They’ll discuss what's made NVIDIA the most valuable chip company in the world — and the most valuable publicly traded company, period. And how a single piece of hardware changed the world forever, and its journey to existence — from a sketch on a Denny’s napkin to powering data centers the size of Central Park. Then, Stephen demystifies why data centers are shrouded in so much secrecy and what lies ahead in our AI future.

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Do school cell phone bans actually work? This week, Oz tells us why Europe is investing so heavily in defense tech and why one company is investing in cockroaches… Karah introduces us to Billboard’s first charting AI musician, Xania Monet — and the humans that make her possible. Google dreams of data centers in space, school phone bans are making libraries more popular, and France’s DNA database catches the Louvre thieves. Then on Chat and Me, the National Women’s Soccer League gets comfortable with ChatGPT.

Additional Reading:

• The Science Behind the “Bird Theory”
• Drone start-up backed by Peter Thiel crashed and burned in armed forces trials
• AI Artist Xania Monet Debuts on Adult R&B Airplay — a Radio Chart Breakthrough
• Google wants to build solar-powered data centers — in space
• After schools banned phones, students checked out more library books: 'We're reclaiming attention'
• Arrests in Louvre Heist Show Power of DNA Databases in Solving Crimes
• Seattle Reign coach Laura Harvey says she used ChatGPT for team tactics

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404 Media’s Joseph Cox joins Oz to discuss his extensive reporting on the technology ICE is using in the agency’s mass deportation efforts. Joseph sheds light on how widespread ICE’s reach is, from facial recognition to location tracking to information databases. And the shift in how major tech companies are interacting with this current Trump administration.

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