Should This Exist?
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It's the question of our times: How is technology impacting our humanity? "Should This Exist?" invites the creators of radical new technologies to set aside their business plan, and think through the human side: What is the invention’s greatest promise? And what could possibly go wrong? Show host Caterina Fake (Partner, Yes VC; Cofounder Flickr) is a celebrated tech pioneer and one of Silicon Valley’s most eloquent commentators on technology and the human condition. Joined by a roster of all-star expert guests who have a knack for looking around corners, Caterina drops listeners into the minds of today’s ingenious entrepreneurs and guides them through the journey of foreseeing what their technology might do to us, and for us. Should This Exist? is a WaitWhat original series in partnership with Quartz.
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Top 10 Should This Exist? Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Should This Exist? episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Should This Exist? for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Should This Exist? episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
What went wrong with the world wide web – and how we can fix it
Should This Exist?
07/16/19 • 27 min
The web is broken. Data is mined, sold, and exploited. Social media is an endless and biased scroll through the worst of humanity. Nobody’s personal information is safe. And worst of all, it’s inescapable. The web is a cornerstone of our lives. It’s how we work, communicate with each other, and get information. And it wasn’t supposed to be like this. How did a utopian vision of a free, open, and democratic internet turn into nothing more than a machine for marketing and surveillance? In the season finale of Should This Exist?, Caterina Fake is joined by early web adopters Steven Berlin Johnson, Anil Dash, and Kevin Delaney to ask: Where did the web go wrong? Could we have prevented it? And what, if anything, can we now do to fix it? It’s a question that affects us all and will determine the future of our lives online... and off.
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What if your phone could detect how you feel?
Should This Exist?
03/14/19 • 42 min
What if your computer had an "emotion chip" — AI that could read the expression on your face (or the tone in your voice) and know how you’re feeling? Could online courses teach you better if they knew when you were bored or confused? Could your car help you stay awake if you drift off when driving? These are the questions Rana El-Kaliouby asked when she built an AI tool that examines every micro-muscle in the human face to detect universal emotions — happiness, fear, grief, disgust.
Through her company Affectiva, Rana wants to make technology more human, which she believes will serve us better. But if put the wrong hands, could this emotion-reading engine take advantage of us at our most vulnerable moments? Could our inner thoughts be displayed publicly if we don’t want them to be? How might advertisers exploit us if they are able to read our facial expressions?
To help us see around corners — we’re joined by special guests including Esther Perel (Relationship expert; host of podcast “Where Should We Begin?”), Joy Buolamwini (Founder, Algorithmic Justice League); Sam Altman (Chairman Y Combinator, Cofounder Open AI); Greg Brockman (Cofounder, Open AI); and Joi Ito (Director, MIT Media Lab).
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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The deepfake detective
Should This Exist?
10/14/20 • 35 min
Chances are, you’ve seen a “deepfake” video. But did you know it? A new breed of tech detectives are building tools to spot these hyper-realistic videos – built with AI – where people say things they didn’t say or do things they’d never do. Some of these clips are just good, fanciful fun. But a deepfake deployed at the right moment could sway an election, or wreck a life. That’s why UC Berkeley professor Hany Farid is working on a “deepfake detective" – a tool to help media outlets know what’s real and what isn’t. But the same program could also give deepfakers a blueprint for how to make their work undetectable. Deepfake technology already exists. This episode asks: What should we do now?
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Recommended: Spark & Fire
Should This Exist?
12/21/20 • 4 min
If you love Should This Exist, I think you’ll love Spark & Fire – so I’m sharing a trailer with you now for this new show that launches on January 5, 2021.
Why do I think you’ll like it? Because, a lot like our show, Spark & Fire is about the hero’s journey of bold, creative thinking.
On each episode of Spark & Fire, an iconic creator — designers, architects, authors, filmmakers, musicians — tells their own story about what really happens on the road to success, from the initial spark down the twisting path of invention. It's told entirely in their own words. No host. No interview. Just captivating stories set to terrific music.
If this sounds good to you, subscribe to the Spark & Fire feed now so you’ll get the first full episode in early January. It will help you think more creatively about everything.
Subscribe at sparkandfire.com or on your favorite podcast platform.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Introducing: Ingenious with Caterina Fake
Should This Exist?
09/26/23 • 2 min
Renowned creator, entrepreneur and pioneer Caterina Fake brings together some of the most brilliant and visionary figures of our time, many of them friends and colleagues, for deep discussions about inspiration, humanity, technology, and the future of the world. With Ingenious, she explores the sources of inspiration and the hopes fueling luminaries working on the cutting edge of creativity, art, entrepreneurship, and technology. Shaping the outcome of global conflicts, climate change, education, and other forces acting upon the future, Caterina poses essential questions about where we are headed and how our ingenuity can solve some of the world’s thorniest problems.
You can listen to Ingenious here https://link.chtbl.com/ingenious_ste
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
How to hack your way out of aging
Should This Exist?
06/27/19 • 31 min
Imagine meeting your great-great-great-grandkids. Or going to law school in your 80s, learning to snowboard at 110, taking a gap decade instead of a gap year. Greg Bailey dreams of a world where everybody lives twice as long, and no one gets sick. His startup, Juvenescence, is developing a whole ecosystem of anti-aging medications to help you live longer, healthier. Which sounds great. But would this world of perky centenarians wreak havoc on our already strained resources? Would natural aging become taboo? Would dying? It's a technology that prompts us to ask some of the biggest questions of all.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The next gen of meat will be grown in a lab
Should This Exist?
05/30/19 • 35 min
Imagine biting into a steak that didn’t come from a cow. Or a chicken breast that did not come from a chicken. Imagine if your favorite meat dish did not involve an animal getting killed. This is Isha Datar’s dream. She is a scientist on a mission to not only reinvent meat but the entire meat industry. If Isha's dream comes true, we'll live in a post-animal bioeconomy where animal products – from meat to leather and wool – are harvested from cell cultures, not animals. And we're able to feed a growing global population sustainably, affordably and safely.
But does meat grown in a lab really take animals out of the picture? And do we want to step further into a landscape of man-made, mass-produced food? Host Caterina Fake discusses the possibilities and pitfalls with Isha Datar, executive director of New Harvest, and Kevin Delaney (Quartz Editor-in-Chief); Ben Turley and Brent Young (owners, The Meat Hook); and Andrew Pelling (biophysicist).
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What if you could Photoshop your voice?
Should This Exist?
05/21/19 • 37 min
Mike Pappas and Carter Huffman believe their invention fulfills the promise of the digital world: the complete freedom to design your identity. But what if we all used it? The human voice is a key marker of authenticity and individuality, and Modulate uses A.I to transform your voice into anything you want it to be. In real time. If you’re a woman and want to sound like a man, Modulate can help you. If you’re a teen and want to sound like a grandparent, Modulate can do that. If you’re from Italy but want to adopt a French accent, speak into Modulate, and you will. Should this exist? The gift of free expression also comes with a price. Yes: Modulate could allow people to be their true selves and speak in a voice that represents who they are. Yes: Modulate could expose institutional vocal bias against certain sounds and accents. But it also could contribute to the world of deep faking and harassment. At what point is digitizing our real-world identity too much?
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
We can change the DNA of an entire species — in the wild
Should This Exist?
05/02/19 • 45 min
Kevin Esvelt knows the stakes are high. As a geneticist at the MIT Media Lab, Kevin discovered a technique called a gene drive, which gives humans a power we’ve never had before: to change the DNA of entire species in nature. This capacity is so new and so unprecedented that when Kevin made the discovery six years ago, it was “literally unimagined by any human being at that time — not in science fiction, not in any form of literature, not in any scientific journals.” Used successfully for good, a gene drive has the potential to save millions of lives by eliminating diseases like Malaria. But in the wrong hands — or even in well-intentioned hands — the results could be catastrophic. How do we weigh the potential for enormous good against the terrifying unknowns? Host Caterina Fake thinks it through with scientist Kevin Esvelt as well as special guests Baratunde Thurston (Comedian and host of the podcasts Spit and #TellBlackStories); Janna Levin (Director of Science Programs at Pioneer Works, Columbia Professor of Astronomy) and Joi Ito (Director of the MIT Media Lab).
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Should This Exist? have?
Should This Exist? currently has 28 episodes available.
What topics does Should This Exist? cover?
The podcast is about Podcasts, Technology and Business.
What is the most popular episode on Should This Exist??
The episode title 'What went wrong with the world wide web – and how we can fix it' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Should This Exist??
The average episode length on Should This Exist? is 27 minutes.
How often are episodes of Should This Exist? released?
Episodes of Should This Exist? are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Should This Exist??
The first episode of Should This Exist? was released on Jan 21, 2019.
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