logo
episode-header-image
May 2023
1h 28m

The Future of War Is Here

The Ringer
About this episode

Today’s episode is about how artificial intelligence will change the future of war. First, we have Brian Schimpf, the CEO of Anduril, a military technology company that builds AI programs for the Department of Defense. Next we have the Atlantic author Ross Andersen on how to prevent AI from blowing up the world.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guests: Brian Schimpf and Ross Andersen

Producer: Devon Manze

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Up next
Today
The Future of Entertainment, Part 1: Is Hollywood's Business Model Broken?
The film and TV business has quietly—or, if you work in the industry, not so quietly—been in a depression for the past few years. Original TV work has plummeted. In 2024, Americans bought about 40 percent fewer movie tickets than they did in 2019, the year before the pandemic. Th ... Show More
46m 22s
Oct 7
Why Money Doesn't Buy Happiness in America
America is rich—richer than ever. Yet Americans are more anxious, lonelier, and less satisfied than people in many poorer nations. The 2025 World Happiness Report ranked the U.S. 24th in life satisfaction, its lowest on record. Maybe, as social scientists say, we’ve traded commun ... Show More
48m 38s
Oct 3
Is AI Really About to Solve Human Disease?
I’ve had the privilege of talking to many brilliant people about artificial intelligence. And when you ask them to imagine the most beneficial consequences of this technology, they almost always give the same answer: medicine. The dream is dazzling. Superintelligent AI will cure ... Show More
53m 41s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2023
Geoffrey Hinton: ‘It’s Far Too Late’ to Stop Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence has made headlines all year long, but the turn of events this week was extraordinary. OpenAI was thrown into chaos with the firing and eventual rehiring of CEO Sam Altman. There was a shakeup in the company’s board of directors and fierce debates about how ... Show More
35m 59s
Sep 2021
AI can be your writing buddy, your blogger, or your Dungeon Master
For the next four Tuesdays, Verge senior reporter Ashley Carman will explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning are shaping the future of a variety of industries. In this episode, Ashley explores the wild world of AI writing and storytelling to find out if her job i ... Show More
36m 37s
Feb 2024
The Intelligence: Out-of-this-world war
This is not science fiction. Space is already a part of modern warfare and as technology advances, it will be an even more crucial sphere. What will extraterrestrial conflict look like? A look at the latest Democracy Index as conflict continues to dent freedoms across the globe ( ... Show More
27m 19s
May 2024
The Intelligence: The next stage of the tech wars
The battles for supremacy in chipmaking and green technology industries are raging on. Re-electing Donald Trump will likely make America’s approach even more anti-China, and a move towards autarky comes with costs. How the landmarked Seaport Tower has pitted preservationists agai ... Show More
25m 32s
Apr 2024
AI Apocalypse
It feels like all anyone wants to talk about these days is how AI is taking over. Well, we thought it time to have an expert on to break it all down. In this episode Rick speaks with AI expert Daniel Faggella in a comprehensive discussion on the evolving landscape of artificial i ... Show More
38m 51s
Jun 2023
AI Won’t Wipe Out Humanity (Yet)
The idea that machine intelligence will one day take over the world has long been a staple of science fiction. But given the rapid advances in consumer-level artificial intelligence tools, the fear has felt closer to reality these past few months than it ever has before. The gene ... Show More
29m 51s
May 2024
The AI hype machine
Big Tech companies have rolled out a new batch of AI-powered products, improving upon what came before. But as Wired's Will Knight and investigative journalist Julia Angwin explain, they’re not even close to living up to the world-changing technology the Big Tech CEOs promised.Th ... Show More
25m 20s
May 2023
How worried—or excited—should we be about AI? Recode Media with Peter Kafka
AI is amazing… or terrifying, depending on who you ask. This is a technology that elicits strong, almost existential reactions. So, as a Memorial Day special, we're running an episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka that digs into the giant ambitions and enormous concerns people ... Show More
54m 49s
Dec 2022
Art-ificial intelligence
Between chatbots and image generators, artificial intelligence has gotten scary good lately. The Verge’s James Vincent explains what’s behind the latest wave of AI-powered creations.This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bulla ... Show More
27m 5s