Ideas

There are two things most people agree on — artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing, and the grave risks AI poses are very real — no one, not even ChatGPT, really knows how this will play out. Renowned “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton argues we need to put the brakes on AI development until we know for sure it can be kept safely under control.

Owain Evans is a leading AI researcher and the founder/director of Truthful AI. In his 2025 Hinton lecture series, organized by the AI Safety Foundation, he discusses the risks presented by AI, the means at our disposal to keep it escaping human control, and the challenges of developing coherent, comprehensive strategies to prevent AI from becoming a menace to humankind.

Have time for one more podcast? Don't miss our feature interview with AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton: Why AI needs to be nicer to us and develop 'maternal instincts'

And it is dying. At least for us, humans. Our chatter and connection online is being overrun by bots — more than half of online activity is non-human. The internet is on it's way to feeling haunted, like a deserted mall where the fountain is still gurgling, the canned music is still playing, but the people are nowhere to be found. IDEAS explores the dying internet and what we will do when it's dead?

If you like this episode, you may want to listen to: We're not machines. Why should our online world define life?

Guests in this episode:

Cory Doctorow is an activist with a non-profit called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He's a writer and journalist. His most recent book is called Enshitification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It

Matt Hussey is a UK-based therapist and tech journalist.

It was a simple honeymoon photo from 1941. A stranger posted it online and the commentary was vicious. The woman in that picture was Albanian author Lea Ypi’s grandmother. In the midst of the Second World War and the violent end times of Mussolini’s government, Ypi’s grandmother must have been a fascist, a collaborator, a traitor to Albania. In her book, Indignity: A Life Reimagined, Ypi attempts to find the truth of her grandmother’s life, in a journey that mixes philosophy, fantasy, history, and family narrative.

When he was eight, 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer Alex Neve watched his mother fight for daycare in Alberta. It’s shaped how he thinks about human rights activism. Neve shares the pivotal moments in his life that led to his human rights advocacy — and shines a light on the chorus of people he carries with him. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 14, 2025.

Thanks to AI, it's easier than ever to avoid reading books — but that convenience may come with a cost. IDEAS explores how our digital landscape, coupled with the decline of reading, is changing the way we think.

If you like this episode, listen to our podcast with Geoffrey Hinton, the 'godfather of artificial intelligence' who says AI must develop empathy and 'maternal instincts' or we risk human extinction.

Guests in this episode:

Adriaan Van der Weel is a professor emeritus by special appointment at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. He's also the co-author of The Ljubljana Manifesto on Higher-Level Reading.

Maryanne Wolf is director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and the author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World (2018).

Naomi Baron is a professor emerita of World Languages and Cultures at American University and the author of Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters (2026).

Leah Sargeant is an author and senior policy analyst at the Niskanen Center.

Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed in Philosophy. She is the author of The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (2024).