S8 Ep271: SHOW 12-2-2026 THE SHOW BEGIJS WITH DOUBTS ABOUT AI -- a useful invetion that can match the excitement of the first decades of Photography. November 1955 NADAR'S BALLOON AND THE BIRTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY Colleague Anika Burgess, Flashes of Brilliance. In 18

S8 Ep270: THE BLIP AND THE FUTURE Colleague Keach Hagey, The Optimist. The viral success of ChatGPT shifted OpenAI's focus from safety to commercialization, despite early internal warnings about the existential risks of AGI. Tensions over safety and Altman's manage

S8 Ep270: SILICON VALLEY KINGMAKER Colleague Keach Hagey, The Optimist. At Stanford, Altman co-founded Loopt, a location-sharing app that won him a meeting with Steve Jobs and a spot in the App Store launch. While Loopt was not a commercial success, the experience

S8 Ep270: THE ROOTS OF AMBITION Colleague Keach Hagey, The Optimist. Sam Altman grew up in St. Louis, the son of an idealistic developer and a driven dermatologist mother who instilled ambition and resilience in her children. Altman attended the progressive John Bu

S8 Ep270: FOUNDING OPENAI Colleague Keach Hagey, The Optimist. In 2016, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever founded OpenAI as a nonprofit research lab to develop safe artificial general intelligence (AGI). Backed by investors like Elon Musk and Peter Thie

S8 Ep270: PRISON AND LAWFARE Colleague Mark Clifford, The Troublemaker. Following the 2020 National Security Law, authorities raided Apple Daily, froze its assets, and arrested Lai, forcing the newspaper to close. Despite having the means to flee, Lai chose to stay

S8 Ep270: CONSCIENCE AND CONVERSION Colleague Mark Clifford, The Troublemaker. The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre radicalized Lai, who transitioned from textiles to media, founding Next magazine and Apple Daily to champion democracy. Realizing the brutality of the

S8 Ep270: THE FACTORY GUY Colleague Mark Clifford, The Troublemaker. By 1975, Jimmy Lai had risen from a child laborer to a factory owner, purchasing a bankrupt garment facility using stock market profits. Despite being a primary school dropout who learned English

S8 Ep270: FAMINE AND FLIGHT TO FREEDOM Colleague Mark Clifford, The Troublemaker. Jimmy Lai was born into a wealthy family that lost everything to the Communist revolution, forcing his father to flee to Hong Kong while his mother endured labor camps. Left behind, L

S8 Ep270: STAGNATION UNDER SURVEILLANCE Colleague Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride. The severe lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic shattered consumer confidence, leaving citizens insecure and unwilling to spend, which stalled economic recovery. Local governments, cut

S8 Ep270: GHOST CITIES AND THE STIMULUS TRAP Colleague Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride. China's growth model shifted toward massive infrastructure spending, resulting in "ghost cities" and replica Western towns built to inflate GDP rather than house people. This "Po

S8 Ep270: RED CAPITALISTS AND SMUGGLERS Colleague Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride. Following the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, China reopened to investment in 1992, giving rise to "red capitalists"—often the children of party officials who traded political access for eq

S8 Ep270: THE AWAKENING OF CHINA'S ECONOMY Colleague Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride. Returning to China in 1994, the author witnessed a transformation from the destitute, Maoist uniformity of 1985 to a budding export economy. In the earlier era, workers slept on de

S8 Ep270: X-RAYS, SURVEILLANCE, AND MOTION Colleague Anika Burgess, Flashes of Brilliance. The discovery of X-rays in 1895 sparked a "new photography" craze, though the radiation caused severe injuries to early practitioners and subjects. Photography also entered t

S8 Ep270: X-RAYS, SURVEILLANCE, AND MOTION Colleague Anika Burgess, Flashes of Brilliance. The discovery of X-rays in 1895 sparked a "new photography" craze, though the radiation caused severe injuries to early practitioners and subjects. Photography also entered t

S8 Ep270: PHOTOGRAPHING THE MOON AND SEA Colleague Anika Burgess, Flashes of Brilliance. Early photography expanded scientific understanding, allowing humanity to visualize the inaccessible. James Nasmyth produced realistic images of the moon by photographing plast

S8 Ep270: NADAR'S BALLOON AND THE BIRTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY Colleague Anika Burgess, Flashes of Brilliance. In 1863, the photographer Nadar undertook a perilous ascent in a giant balloon to fund experiments for heavier-than-air flight, illustrating the adventurous spiri

S8 Ep269: PREVIEW THE ORIGINS OF THE DAGUERREOTYPE Colleague Anika Burgess. Author Anika Burgess discusses the 1839 unveiling of the daguerreotype by Louis Daguerre. Originally a scene painter, Daguerre negotiated with the French government while the public marvele

S8 Ep269: PREVIEW JIMMY LAI: THE TROUBLEMAKER VS. BEIJING Colleague Mark Clifford. Mark Clifford details the history of Jimmy Lai, a billionaire who risked his fortune to challenge the Chinese regime. Despite Beijing closing his stores in 1994, Lai funded Apple Da

S8 Ep269: PREVIEW THE PREDETERMINED VERDICT FOR JIMMY LAI Colleague Mark Clifford. Clifford reports that Jimmy Lai's conviction is inevitable due to instructions from Beijing, despite a lack of evidence beyond his journalism. With the trial concluding, Clifford an