August 2025 Favourite Podcasts
These are the podcasts I enjoyed listening to during the month of August 2025.
Makram Soua
9/1/2025
What happens when a society's technology is built on a foundation of perpetual conflict? In this episode of the Values & Interests podcast, host Kevin Maloney and scholar Elke Schwarz tackles the troubling rise of a tech ecosystem deeply entwined with ongoing conflict. As AI-driven military innovation accelerates, Professor Schwarz shines a light on the ethical tensions and virtue signaling from industry leaders that drive this militarization. The conversation explores how the relentless push for technological superiority can lead to the dehumanization of civilians in global conflicts, and urges listeners to reflect on the urgent need for ethical cultivation in our increasingly computational world.
Published August 26, 2025
The Ethical Abyss: A Tech Ecosystem Reliant on Conflict
This is a brilliant two-part conversation, featuring one of the most influential figures in neuroscience, Christof Koch. In the first part, host Peter J. Scott and his guest explore profound questions about consciousness—what makes us conscious and what that means. The conversation touches on the intersections of existence, identity, quantum mechanics, language, cosmic consciousness, and how parts of the body may be conscious.
In the second part of the conversation, Christof Koch presents his primary research on Integrated Information Theory and shifts the focus to the critical implications for artificial intelligence. Could current AI models ever be conscious? What ethical responsibilities would that bring? And how might studying AI help us finally solve the ancient mystery of consciousness itself?
Together, these episodes form a captivating and mind-expanding deep dive that sits at the perfect intersection of neuroscience, philosophy, and technology. A must-listen for anyone curious about the future of both the human and artificial mind.
Published August 18, 2025
Guest: Christof Koch, Cognitive Scientist
The Big Technology podcast episode, "Is The AI Going To Escape?", featured a nuanced and concerning dialogue between host Alex Kantrowitz and Anthony Aguirre, a physicist and executive director of the Future of Life Institute (FLI). Their conversation moved past near-term AI hazards and confronts a pivotal societal question: Are we building technology to serve humanity, or are we in a blind race to create a new, potentially dominant, form of intelligence?
Published August 13, 2025
Is The AI Going To Escape? - With Anthony Aguirre
The race to rule AI isn't just about technology—it's about who writes the rules. This episode of TechPolicy podcast is released shortly after the U.S. unveiled its AI action plan. Host Justin Hendrix is joined by Graham Webster, a Stanford University scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the DigiChina Project, who brings expert insights from attending the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. Together, they explore the key elements of China’s plan, how it contrasts with the U.S. strategy, and what’s at stake in this high-stakes geopolitical and technological competition.
