kill switch

The Nintendo Switch 2 is out – but why did Nintendo credit someone who died in 1997 in a press release for the console? Dexter talked to Patrick Klepek, of the video game website Remap, and Jeremy Parish, an expert in video game history, to tell the story of Gunpei Yokoi and how his influence led us to the Switch 2. Read + Watch:  Patrick's article on Switch 2 games he's excited to play with his kids – https://www.crossplay.news/p/best-games-for-kids-and-families-june-2025 Jeremy on Bad Dudes and Ronald Reagan – https://youtu.be/ZpZddGOKrIk Did You Know Gaming on Gunpei Yokoi – https://youtu.be/uLznLtgcqXI Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dexter doesn't have a car. But he uses AI… a lot. So, is his environmental impact worse than someone who drives a truck to work every day?  This seemingly simple question led us to a bigger conversation about water, public health, and why we still don't know much about the true environmental cost of artificial intelligence.  To help us understand all this, we talk to researchers Shaolei Ren and Alex de Vries, who’ve been studying the toll AI takes on the planet. Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For about 24 hours, Grok, Twitter’s AI chatbot, went berserk. You could ask it about puppies, sports, or movies, and it would reply with a bizarre diatribe about white genocide in South Africa. If you’ve already heard of this, you’ve probably seen people dunking on Elon Musk, and, well, that’s understandable. But Max Read, today’s guest, explains why this brief peek into a weird conspiracy theory might have actually been a good thing. Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky. Read: Max’s Substack article on the whole thing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Almost two million people watched a horrific story of a murder in Colorado: the “grisly” death of a real estate agent who had a secret affair with his stepson. The problem is, there was no crime. Dexter talks to Henry Larson, the reporter who tracked down the guy behind the video, about where the story came from and what it means for the “True Crime” genre. He also asks True Crime podcasters, Lauren Bright Pacheco and Bob Motta, about how this trend is a threat to more than just their livelihoods. Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky. Read: Henry’s article, A ‘True Crime’ Documentary Series Has Millions of Views. The Murders Are All AI-GeneratedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

About 48 hours after the US National Security Advisor was spotted using a weird cloned version of Signal, someone said they’d hacked it. It took them all of 15 minutes. We now know that TeleMessage is ‘cartoonishly hackable,’ but we still don’t know why top White House officials were using it. And what about the investigation to find out if this Israel-based app is bad on accident, or on purpose? I called up my friends Evan McMorris-Santoro of NOTUS and Joseph Cox of 404 Media to get some more context on how bad this might actually be. Here’s the links promised in the episode: Evan’s daily newsletter in NOTUSJoseph’s article in 404 on the Telemessage hackAnd here’s Micha Lee’s technical breakdown of Telemessage’s security problems Our guests:Evan McMorris-Santoro: @evanmcs.bsky.socialJoseph Cox: @josephcox.bsky.social Got something you’re curious about? Hit up @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky. See you on the next one.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you seen Shrimp Jesus? What about the Hollywood sign burning? It probably feels random, but it’s not. There are real people behind AI Slop, and there’s real money to be made. Dexter talks to Jason Koebler from 404 Media who’s been tracking AI slop since its beginnings, and they compare notes to try to figure out where the money is coming from. Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky. Read + watch:  Jason’s article, Facebook's Shrimp Jesus, Explained Dexter’s article, Inside the Economy of AI Spammers Getting Rich By Exploiting Disasters and Misery Dexter’s video: people made money doing this. (so did Instagram)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While you were going about your life, we all narrowly avoided a complete disaster. This is the story of how one lone Microsoft engineer saved all of us. Dexter talks to Alex Stamos, Chief Information Security Officer at SentinelOne, about how it all went down and why this story still terrifies him today. Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to our first episode of kill switch, where we’re diving right into the deep end – investigating how police departments are implementing AI technology. Can AI facial recognition be a magical solution to the unreliability of witness identification? Or is it just making things worse? Dexter talks to Douglas MacMillan, a reporter from the Washington Post, who has been tracking the spread of the technology, and where it seems to (repeatedly) break down. Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky. Read: Doug’s article, Arrested by AI Listen: Post Reports podcast episode, Arrested by AISee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sleepwalkers is now Kill Switch, where we explain the right now of living in the future. Everything from making money on saving fake baby animals to how you could get arrested by a police algorithm. Every Wednesday we talk to people to help us understand how our tech-focused society works …or doesn't work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Were we sleeping when everything changed? Not if you listened to the first season of this podcast, because a whole lot of what we explored is now reality. Seems like the technologically driven future is already here. So we've decided to bring the show back -- with a new host, Dexter Thomas Jr  and a new perspective.  On Kill Switch, we explain the right NOW of our super charged technological lives. Examining the ways we shape and are shaped by our ever-changing technology.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We explore the hidden role of cobalt in the A.I. revolution. The element is a key ingredient of lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from cell phones to laptops to electric vehicles. But the way cobalt is mined is troubling. New Yorker journalist Nicolas Niarchos takes us to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which accounts for more than 70% of the world's cobalt supply. There, he exposes child labor in the supply chain and reveals a new frontier of competition with China.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this special bonus episode, Oz and Karah share their trip to the Consumer Electronics Show. They present excerpts from a conversation with Matt Monahan of The Washington Post about how to best harness the power of AI, while avoiding common pitfalls. Matt is head of product for Arc Publishing, which began life as The Post's internal publishing suite, and is now licensed by hundreds of partner sites. Oz and Karah also discuss their highlights from the CES floor, including a device to track dogs' emotions.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this special episode, Oz and Karah examine our evolving relationship with the technology we create. Karah meets Jason Cohen, CEO of Analytical Flavor Systems, to see if his team can hack her taste preferences, and use AI to create a new flavor of beverage that she will love. Oz and Karah also look ahead to Season 2, previewing stories they are excited to report, including algorithms that promise to optimize end-of-life conversations. And they share highlights from conversations with guests from Season 1 who shaped their thinking about AI: Yuval Noah Harari, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Regina Barzilay of MIT.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The rules are changing. At a time when technology promises to allow the lame to walk and the blind to see, we're forced to ask: what makes us uniquely human? In this final episode of Season 1, we speak with the so-called "sage of Silicon Valley," Yuval Noah Harari, about humanity's future. We try out technology that claims to deliver on a miracle, and we meet the source of several new innovations being created by people normally left out of the laboratory.  In this episode: Professor Yuval Noah Harari, Sebastian Thrun of Google X and Kitty Hawk, Bryony Cole of Future of Sex, musician Noe Socha, and Dr. Andy Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh.  Special thanks to The Forward, and Make It All Work.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A.I. is already better than human doctors at diagnosing skin and breast cancer. And as machine learning advances, it's becoming able to decode more complex information, like brain waves and the human genome. A.I. is beginning to revolutionize medicine, and allowing us to see into the future of our bodies...but can we ever know too much about ourselves? What will happen when machine learning lets us open our own black boxes?  In this episode: Physician and author Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, Google X founder and Kittyhawk CEO Sebastian Thrun, Regina Barzilay of MIT's J-Clinic and CSAIL, Dr. Andy Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh, Gill Pratt of the Toyota Research Institute. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

War has been a driver of breakthrough technology for a long time. The first waves of artificial intelligence and even the internet came out of DARPA, a defense agency whose original mission was to keep the U.S. technologically ahead of the Soviet Union. But what happens when the battlefield is increasingly dominated by autonomous weapons, which don't require humans in the loop to shoot and kill? In this episode: Arati Prabhakar, former head of DARPA; Richard Danzig, former Navy Secretary; Paul Scharre, author of "Army of None"; and Jonathan Wilson, former Navy SEAL. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robots are coming for our jobs, and not just in factories. Artificial intelligence doesn't distinguish between blue collar and white collar work, which means that the economy of the future will look very different. And as it changes, we'll need to make big adjustments. But A.I. is also being used in the fight against world hunger. This episode, we speak with roboticists, inventors, and a fast food regular about how we'll put food on the table. In this episode: Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group, Kai Fu Lee of Sinovation Ventures, Gill Pratt of the Toyota Research Institute, George Kantor of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institue, and Walter Kankowski. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We travel to Silicon Valley where Astro Teller welcomes us inside X, Google's secretive innovation laboratory, to explain how one of the most powerful companies on earth is building the future. X is working on everything from creating new antibiotics to restoring internet connectivity after natural disasters. And they're not alone. Tech companies are increasingly involved in building infrastructure, and even playing the role of government. But what kind of power does this give them? And what can we do to rein it in? In this episode: Astro Teller of X, Lina Khan of Columbia Law School, Sal Candido & Pamela Desrochers of Loon, Jack Clark of OpenAI, and Jamie Susskind, author of "Future Politics".  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's getting harder to tell reality from fiction. Fake news and misinformation are all around us, and they're increasingly used as weapons of war. But what happens when A.I.-doctored videos are added to the mix? We meet the people fighting back against deep fakes, and even using them for good. And we visit Facebook headquarters to learn how Russian agents are trying to manipulate our behavior.  In this episode: Nathaniel Gleicher of Facebook, John Micklethwait of Bloomberg News, Jose Sotelo of Lyrebird, Danielle Citron of Maryland Carey Law, Hany Farid of Dartmouth, and David Kirkpatrick of Techonomy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where computers know exactly what we're feeling? It may sound far-off but advances in sensor technology and A.I. are making us easier to read than ever. For some, this conjures fears of a Minority Report future. For others, it means revolutions in medicine and end-of-life care. We speak with leading experts in the field of empathetic technology to understand the risks and rewards of giving up our privacy. When our technology can adapt to us, how should we respond?  In this episode: Poppy Crum of Dolby Laboratories, Jaron Lanier of Microsoft, Kai-Fu Lee of Sinovation Ventures, and Lisa Talia Moretti of Methods. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.