The Rip Current by Jacob Ward

The Rip Current by Jacob Ward

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Robots Are Coming for Factory Jobs — and No One Voted on It

At CES this week, humanoid robots aren't just a technical leap — they're a political choice nobody but the big companies have a say in.
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13:35
Humans are Tribal and Judgy, and AI is Exploiting It (with Yarrow Dunham)
What the Yale researcher has learned about kids, tribes, fairness, and punishment tells us about social media, AI, and why polarization feels inevitable…
 • Jacob Ward
1:07:30
Every Oil Empire Thinks This Time Will Be Different.
From Iraq to Suez to Algeria to Nigeria, the history of oil-driven “interventions” is a graveyard of collapsed spreadsheets and self-destroyed…
 • Jacob Ward
13:06
Why So Many People Hate AI — and Why 2026 Is the Breaking Point
From Grok’s catastrophic failure to the job-killing threat to the quiet spread of state-level AI laws in the absence of any federal regulation, the…
 • Jacob Ward
14:24
Did Weed Just Escape the Culture War?
Trump’s quiet marijuana rescheduling could unlock real research — and expose decades of policy that wasn’t based on evidence at all.
 • Jacob Ward
13:02
AI Has Us Lying to One Another (and It's Changing How We Think)
What happens when we quietly pass off machine work as our own — and start believing it ourselves?
 • Jacob Ward
12:36
AI Data Centers Are Draining Our Resources — and Making Strange Political Allies
AI data centers are exploding across the U.S. — and they’re pulling city-scale amounts of electricity and water while driving up prices for everyone…
 • Jacob Ward and Hard Reset
10:05
Jake on PBS: Is This the End of A.I. Laws?
"If these companies are to be believed, this stuff is about to be in every corner of our lives. And I don't think any of us would imagine a world in…
 • Jacob Ward
7:32
The Rip Current by Jacob Ward
The Rip Current by Jacob Ward
We're in the invisible grip of technology, politics, and our own weirdness. Written by veteran journalist Jacob Ward (correspondent for Al Jazeera, PBS, NBC News), The Rip Current is your guide to spotting it early and getting across safely.
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