Future Perfect

Mar 22 2025 47 ep. 34 mins 15.3k
Future Perfect Podcast artwork

Future Perfect explores provocative ideas with the potential to radically improve the world. We tackle big questions about the most effective ways to save lives, control new and potentially dangerous technology, and address world poverty to create a more perfect future. Good Robot is a new series about AI from Unexplainable and Future Perfect.

Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

  Society & Culture  News
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Good Robot #4: Who, me?

Mar 22 2025 53 mins  
What can we actually do as our world gets populated with more and more robots? How can we take control? Can we take control? This is the final episode of our four-part series, Good Robot. Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team. For more, go to vox.com/goodrobot Support Future Perfect by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your

Good Robot #3: Let's fix everything

Mar 19 2025 49 mins  
A simple parable about a drowning child sparks a moral revolution. Can AI help us do the most good in the world? Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team. Episodes will be released on Wednesdays and Saturdays. For more, go to vox.com/goodrobot Support Future Perfect by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit po

Good Robot #2: Everything is not awesome

Mar 15 2025 57 mins  
When a robot does bad things, who is responsible? A group of technologists sounds the alarm about the ways AI is already harming us today. Are their concerns being taken seriously? This is the second episode of our new four-part series about the stories shaping the future of AI. Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team. Episodes will be released on Wedne

Good Robot #1: The Magic Intelligence in the Sky

Mar 12 2025 52 mins  
Before AI became a mainstream obsession, one thinker sounded the alarm about its catastrophic potential. So why are so many billionaires and tech leaders worried about… paper clips? Good Robot was made in partnership with Vox’s Unexplainable team. Episodes will be released on Wednesdays and Saturdays. For more, go to vox.com/goodrobot Support Future Perfect by becoming a Vox

Introducing: Good Robot

Mar 05 2025 3 mins  
A new series about AI from Unexplainable and Future Perfect Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sucking the carbon out of the sky

Apr 28 2021 43 mins  
Most of our efforts to fight climate change, from electric cars to wind turbines, are about pumping fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But what if we could pull out the gases that are already there? Akshat Rathi, a reporter at Bloomberg with a doctorate in chemistry, knows more about this technology, called “direct air capture,” than just about anyone. He follows compa

Should I still have kids if I’m worried about climate change?

Apr 21 2021 62 mins  
Climate scientist Kimberly Nicholas co-led a study that showed the single most effective thing an individual can do to decrease their carbon footprint is have fewer kids. Despite that finding, she still says that people who really want to have kids should go ahead with their plans. She explains how she squares that circle to Vox’s Sigal Samuel, and the two discuss how to think ab

Engineering our way out of the climate crisis

Apr 14 2021 35 mins  
In an ideal world, cutting carbon emissions would be enough to stop global warming. But after dithering for decades, the world needs a back-up plan. Kelly Wanser is the leader of a group called SilverLining that works to promote research into what it calls “solar climate intervention.” Also called “solar geoengineering,” this approach involves putting particles into clouds

Unexplainable

Mar 16 2021 28 mins  
Unexplainable is a new podcast from Vox about everything we don’t know. Each week, the team looks at the most fascinating unanswered questions in science and the mind-bending ways scientists are trying to answer them. New episodes drop every Wednesday. This episode: Scientists still don't know how the sense of smell works. But they're looking at how powerful it is — dogs can a

Rethinking meat

Nov 04 2020 21 mins  
How can we convince people to change their relationship with meat? Melanie Joy has been grappling with this question for a long time. To answer it, she takes us back to other points in history when new technology helped make social change palatable. She digs into how the invention of the washing machine and other household appliances, for example, helped make feminism easier to ima