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Behind every innovation is a new kind of power. TechStuff unpacks how technology reshapes influence, creativity, and control, from Silicon Valley’s rising moguls to the cultural forces they create. Because tech is the new religion, economy, and entertainment, all at once.

Each week, Oz Woloshyn and the brightest minds covering tech dig into the weird, funny, and sometimes unsettling ways technology, AI, and the internet shape our daily lives. From AI and social media to privacy, digital burnout, and the creator economy, they ask how all this innovation is changing who we are, how we work, love, and make meaning.

Smart talk, strange stories, and the questions everyone’s Googling: whether AI will replace us, how social media is affecting our kids, and what it all says about us.

Get in touch here: techstuffpodcast@gmail.com

TechStuff

Will AI bots replace humans in the workforce? Could one replace Evan… right now? That’s what we tackle on this week’s Shell Game, in which Evan sees just how much of his job his voice agent can handle on his behalf. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shell Game: My Digital Twin

Is building data centers in space actually feasible? It may be, thanks to Ariel Ekblaw. The scientist, VC investor and co-founder and CEO of Aurelia Institute has devoted her life to democratizing space and ensuring that humans will one day be a spacefaring species. Ariel sits down with Oz to discuss self-assembling space architecture, how science-fiction influences her inventions, and why she doesn’t think billionaires investing in space is a bad thing.
 
Download SAILY in your app store and use our code techstuff at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/techstuff

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TechStuff Redux: More AI in Space Than on Earth? Really!?

How close are we to human extinction because of AI? Leading AI expert Professor Stuart Russell believes we’re much too close for comfort and has been raising the alarm for a few years. Ironically, Stuart himself wrote the book that laid the foundation for AI research back in the 1990s. And he was the only AI expert Elon Musk’s team called upon during their trial with OpenAI. 
 
Stuart joins Oz to discuss what changed his mind about pursuing AI superintelligence and makes the argument that human extinction is being treated as an external liability in favor of shareholders.
 
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The Man Who Wrote the AI Textbook Says We're Heading For Extinction - The Story

Evan looks into the depths of his AI-powered voice agent by sending it on a new mission: going to therapy. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shellgame.co/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shell Game: Take a Deep Breath

How much of what you see online is actually real? This week, Reed Albergotti (Semafor) breaks down Anthropic's latest clash with the Trump Administration. Is Anthropic’s own messaging to blame? Then, Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) talked to students that walked out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement speech at Stanford. Their protest was about much more than AI. Finally, Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) exposes the fake "caught cheating" videos flooding social media, which are secretly ads for vibe-coded apps promising to catch the unfaithful.
 
Additional Reading: 
 
 US Limits Use of Anthropic AI Models Fable 5 and Mythos | Semafor • 
 The White House Said Anthropic’s Powerful AI was ‘jailbroken.’ Here’s What That Means | The Washington Post Sundar Pichai faces boos, walkout at Stanford graduation ceremony over Google's Israel, ICE ties | TechCrunch • 
 The Secret Stanford Off-Campus Class for Tech’s Next Titans - The Story | TechStuff • 
 
Download SAILY in your app store and use our code techstuff at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/techstuff

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Would You “Cheat” On Your Partner For Money? - Week in Tech

Is AI happening to you — or for you? Pew Research found that 50% of Americans are more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence. Michele Jawando and John Palfrey think that's a signal that more people need to get involved. 
 
Oz sits down with Michele, CEO of the Omidyar Network, and John, president of the MacArthur Foundation, to unpack Humanity AI: a coalition of ten major philanthropies pooling $500 million to ensure the future of AI is shaped by — and for — everyone. Along the way, they get into why Michele believes "AI is not destiny, it is design," how Humanity AI grantees are using the technology to serve the public good and what success will look like for the collaborative effort. 
 
Additional Reading: 
 
 What the data says about Americans’ views of artificial intelligence | Pew Research Center • 
 Humanity AI 
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You Didn't Get a Vote on AI's Future. Someone's Fighting to Change That - The Story

Evan takes his experiment in a new direction by having his AI-powered voice agent converse with … another of his AI-powered voice agents. What can these surreal and hilarious conversations between two AI incarnations of Evan Ratliff tell us about identity, authenticity, and the best and worst of human interaction? Enter this digital hall of mirrors to find out.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shellgame.co/subscribe
 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shell Game: Conversations With Myself

How much would it take for you to tattoo a memecoin's name on your forehead? Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) tells us about the platform where crypto speculators pay strangers to do almost anything in service of pumping their coin's value: Pump.fun Go. But Taylor argues this is bigger than a weird internet rabbit hole — it’s a burgeoning ‘bounty economy,’ that’s quietly warping reality itself. 
 
Then: Sriram Krishnan, the Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, is leaving the White House. Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) explains his impact, what this means for the future of federal tech policy and who is jostling for influence in his place. 
 
Finally, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) on the ‘show’-ification of everything. Even the tech industry is getting into the game, literally. The Founders Fund just bankrolled a slick YouTube series where tech billionaires like Sam Altman and Palmer Luckey play Mafia, the parlor game. It’s bizarre. So why does Silicon Valley keep trying to make content happen, and who is it actually for?

Additional Reading: 
 
 These 430 Viral Videos Are Being Preserved in a British Archive • 
 The Bounty Economy Is Breaking Reality - by Taylor Lorenz • 
 Top Trump artificial intelligence adviser to leave the White House • 
 Kareem Rahma and the Tyranny of Web Video Shows | The New Yorker Can Tech Legends Find the Liar? (Mafia Episode 1) • 

 • Download 
SAILY • in your app store and use our code 
techstuff • at checkout to get an 
exclusive 15% off • your first purchase! For further details go to
 https://saily.com/techstuff 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Internet Found a Way to Monetize Reality Itself. It's Going Exactly as You'd Expect - Week in Tech

Did your college have a secret society? Well, Stanford has a secret off-campus class training the next generation of Silicon Valley billionaires. And it's literally called "How to Rule the World."
 
Theo Baker arrived at Stanford as an aspiring coder with dreams of building the future. Instead, he stumbled into the "Stanford-within-Stanford" — a hidden pipeline connecting a select few students directly to Silicon Valley CEOs, yacht parties, and venture capitalists offering millions before you even have an idea. Then he decided to write a book about it.
 
In How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, Theo traces his freshman year transformation from tech idealist to award-winning investigative journalist — including the reporting that brought down Stanford's own president. He joins us to talk power, secrecy, and what Silicon Valley is really teaching the next generation.
 
Additional Reading: 
 
 How to Rule the World by Theo Baker • 
 

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The Secret Stanford Off-Campus Class for Tech’s Next Titans - The Story

Evan turns his AI-powered voice agent loose on the people who are always at the forefront of technological adoption: the fraudsters and the rip-off artists. How will the scammers and spammers react when they face Evan’s voice agent in a battle of wits? And what happens when they deploy the same kind of AI voice agents on Evan that he’s using on them? Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's produced and edited by Sophie Bridges, and written and hosted by Evan Ratliff. Samantha Henig is our executive producer. Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shellgame.co/subscribe
 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shell Game: Me and My Scammer

From the good old days of roughing it to the high tech campsite of the future, we look at the tech of camping.

 
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TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Camps Out

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