Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
Outreach Signals
Publishing Details
About This Podcast
Podcasting 2.0 Features
Social Media
Explore Statistics
Recent Episodes
Bernie Goes Down the X-Risk Rabbithole (with Dr. Nathalie Maréchal), 2026.05.04
Senator Bernie Sanders recently hosted a panel on "The Existential Threat of AI," featuring Future of Life Institute co-founder Max Tegmark and other x-riskers. Dr. Nathalie Maréchal joins Emily and…
LIVE: Anthropic Imagines a Very Special Boy, 2026.04.30
Last month, we recorded our very first in-person podcast, live from Brooklyn! Alex and Emily debunk an especially soulless hype artifact about Anthropic's absurd claims of "moral education" for…
Hotter Than (AI) Hell, 2026.04.20
The weather’s getting warmer, so what better time to take a trip to the hottest place in the universe — Fresh AI Hell! Emily and Alex take a spin through more than 30 hype artifacts, with topics…
There's No Ghost in the Machine (with Carmen Maria Machado), 2026.04.13
Why are some writers and publishers so excited to automate their work? Author Carmen Maria Machado joins Alex and Emily to unpack what writers are missing when they hand off their work to chatbots,…
Uber for Military Surveillance (with Niamh McIntyre), 2026.03.30
The people who make automated translation possible are often low-paid gig workers. Usually, they don't even know who they're really working for — and it might be the US military. Reporter Niamh…
Data Centers Go Nuclear (with Maia Woluchem and Dr. Livia Garofalo), 2026.03.09
We knew that the energy demands of data centers were preventing dirty energy sources from being sunsetted. Now hyperscalers are reaching even further, resurrecting Pennsylvania's infamous Three Mile…
Data Centers in Space!? (with Dr. Adam Becker), 2026.03.02
Data centers are overburdening the planet, so tech billionaires have a new scheme — put 'em in space! Astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker joins Alex and Emily to launch this plan into the sun. We unpack…
How the War Department Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI (with Naomi Klein), 2026.02.09
AI boosters and the US military are engaged in a lethal love affair. Award-winning journalist Naomi Klein joins Emily and Alex to discuss how glitchy technology supports global imperialism — and vice…
A Bad Case of Hype-itis, 2026.02.02
Move over Dr. Google, Dr. ChatGPT is here, and it's even worse as a medical intervention! Alex and Emily scrub in to slice up some harmful new nonsense in the world of "AI" for medicine. What's the…
Hell All the Way Down, 2022–2025
This is a special episode, and it’s not like our usual livestream recordings. Instead, our producer Ozzy dug through the Fresh AI Hell archives to create a supercut of Alex's improvised transitions.…
Wrapping Up a Hellish 2025, 2025.12.15
For our last recording of 2025, Emily and Alex take on a TIME article naming the "architects of AI" as their person of the year. We also look back at the year in AI nonsense, and share findings from…
Defining AGI: Oops! All Eugenics, 2025.12.08
There's a new definition of artificial general intelligence in town, and unsurprisingly... it's bad! Alex and Emily rip up the tissue-paper-thin premises behind this latest attempt to define…
This is What Algo-cracy Looks Like, 2025.12.01
Tech leaders are pushing the idea that automation can strengthen democracy — but as usual, their bold suggestions are based on castles made of sand. Alex and Emily tear down some flimsy arguments for…
You Talked to Workers for This Labor Research... Right? (with Sophie Song), 2025.11.17
Last month, Senate Democrats warned that "Automation Could Destroy Nearly 100 Million U.S Jobs in a Decade." Ironically, they used ChatGPT to come to that conclusion. DAIR Research Associate Sophie…
Drag It All To Hell, 2025.10.27
It's been six months since our last all-Hell episode! In honor of Halloween season, we take a long journey into the very scary Fresh AI Hell mines. Topics include terrifying uses of AI in education,…
Crunching the Numbers (with Decca Muldowney), 2025.10.20
So-called AI tools are increasingly infiltrating newsrooms, particularly when it comes to data analysis. DAIR writer-in-residence Decca Muldowney joins us to discuss the need for journalists to…
Building Worlds Through Better Reading (with Reo Eveleth), 2025.09.29
Powerful AI boosters claim to love science fiction novels, but why do they always seem to take the wrong lessons from them? Reporter and writer Reo Eveleth joins us to discuss the ways tech leaders…
Three Years of Ridicule as Praxis, 2025.09.19
It's Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000's third birthday! To celebrate, Emily and Alex respond to listener questions about the show, and reflect on the past and future of AI hype. Topics range from how to…
The Robo-Therapist Will See You Now (with Maggie Harrison Dupré), 2025.08.18
Talking to chatbots can have serious mental health consequences — fueling delusions and leading users away from consensus reality. Futurism writer Maggie Harrison Dupré joins us to unpack the hype…
Winning the Race to Hell (with Sarah Myers West and Kate Brennan), 2025.08.04
Trump’s “AI Action Plan” is his latest attempt to turn AI hype into official national policy. Kate Brennan and Sarah Myers West, of the AI Now Institute, join us to dig through this pile of…
Frequently Asked Questions
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 has published 81 episodes since May 2023, covering topics in News, Science.
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 1h.
Similar Podcasts
Big Technology Podcast
Alex Kantrowitz
534 episodes
kill switch
Kaleidoscope
71 episodes
The TWIML AI Podcast (formerly This Week in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence)
Sam Charrington
787 episodes
MIT Technology Review Narrated
MIT Technology Review
183 episodes
Geek News Central Podcast
Todd Cochrane
40 episodes
Health Longevity Secrets
Robert Lufkin MD
272 episodes