Crazy/Genius

Instagram influencers are beloved by fans and mocked by critics, but is there more to influencing than meets the eye? A look at what a growing industry can teach us about the future of life online.

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From Beijing to Brooklyn, facial recognition is on the cutting edge of surveillance technology. But does the threat of this tech outweigh its …

From Charlottesville, Virginia, to Christchurch, New Zealand, the last few years have been filled with examples of online hatred spilling over into …

Young people are having less sex, and access to digital pornography has never been greater. Coincidence? In this episode, we wade into the debate over pornography and determine what, if anything, can be said about its …

Admit it: You have no idea what privacy means anymore. These days, virtually all online activity—searching, shopping, browsing—requires giving away our personal information to tech companies. In this episode, we review …

Ten years ago, “Move fast and break things” was the clarion call of the world’s tech giants. Well, they moved fast and broke stuff, alright. Lots of stuff. Whether it’s Facebook privacy scandals, YouTube’s …

In a special bonus episode, computer scientist and data journalist Meredith Broussard explains how “technochauvinism” derailed the dream of the …

AI can beat human geniuses at Jeopardy, chess, and complex mathematics. But surely, these machines don’t have anything that even closely resembles human imagination. Or do they?

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Americans eat more meat now than ever. That’s a problem for the planet’s future. Animal farming takes up 30 percent of the earth’s landmass (the equivalent of Asia), and livestock causes one-sixth of global greenhouse …

Some scientists see aging as a disease that can be cured—but what would immortality mean for humanity?

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Over the last 130 years, the automobile shaped the modern world—it redefined the city, filled the suburbs, and revved up pop culture. With autonomous …

Climate change could be the most important problem facing humanity. To address it, scientists are thinking seriously about an idea that might sound …

Crazy/Genius is back with a new season featuring five ideas to save the world.

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It’s our best hope for life after earth—and a freezing, irradiated desert more than 30 million miles away. In our season finale, scientists and …

“Where is everybody?” That’s the question physicist Enrico Fermi asked in 1950. Nearly 70 years later, we’re getting tantalizingly close to solving …

Since the Internet exploded journalism’s business revenue, local newsrooms around the country have been in free fall. We speak to The Denver Post's former managing editor and other experts to debate how to save the …

Finding love on the Internet can be awkward, annoying, or downright scary. In this episode, two sociologists debate the merits of online dating and …

Digital devices rob us of our attention, creativity, and, some studies show, our mental health. We ask psychologists and authors if smartphone and …

Silicon Valley and Wall Street are obsessed with Bitcoin and its underlying technology called blockchain. Boosters say it'll fix everything from …

Amazon might become the first trillion-dollar company in the history of the world. Has the Everything Store become a dangerous monopoly threatening …

In the last 18 months, Facebook has gone through one of the worst public relations crises of any major tech company. In this episode, two guests debate whether Facebook is fixable, or whether its business model is …

On Crazy/Genius, host Derek Thompson asks big questions about everything from online dating to blockchain to space exploration. Is technology moving …