In this episode of Superintelligent, hosts Mike Elgan and Emily Forlini get philosophical. They debunk the myth of the screenless revolution and argue that upcoming AI devices from OpenAI, Google, Apple and others are mere peripheral devices to screens. They applaud the bipartisan movement to ban smartphones in schools, but society is far from saved. Case in point: Daters now have to worry about getting recorded on smart glasses. The episode ends with an exploration of what it means to observe our world, and what our methods of doing so say about us.
Links
Jony Ive and OpenAI’s wedding announcement
OpenAI and Jony Ive’s Screenless AI Device Could Release in the Next Two Years
Why There’s No ‘Screenless’ Revolution
Parents and Teens Support School Cellphone Bans
Can a Dumb Phone Improve Your Life? I Talked to 6 People Who Made the Switch
New Philosopher magazine
Follow Us
Website: superintelligentpodcast.com
Email: superintelligentpodcast@gmail.com
Mike Elgan - About | Machine Society | Bluesky | Mastodon | Notes
Emily Forlini - Website | PC Mag | Bluesky | X | TikTok
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Recap of Previous Episode
01:32 The Impact of Opinion Columns
03:11 The Future of Screenless Devices
06:40 Banning Phones in Schools
09:34 Bipartisan Support for Phone Bans
13:21 The Irony of Intergenerational Phone Use
17:23 The Role of Screenless Wearables
20:10 The Rise of AI Glasses and Privacy Concerns
26:57 Creepy Technology and Privacy Concerns
28:31 The Impact of Observation on Behavior
31:25 The Observer Effect and Its Implications
34:03 Media Consumption and the Quest for Knowledge
37:07 The Challenge of Information Overload
40:03 The Importance of Critical Thinking
47:34 Wisdom in Observation vs. Immediate Reaction
Disclosures
We used Gemini Pro 3 via Kagi (my son and our producer, Kevin, works at Kagi) to 1) generate keywords from the transcript (most of which we used); 2) suggest topics to link to (some of which we used); and 3) write a first draft of the show summary paragraph (which we heavily edited). We recorded and edited the episode using Riverside and used Riverside’s “Magic Audio” (which boosts and normalizes the audio).
Keywords
Superintelligent podcast, Mike Elgan, Emily Forlini, Jony Ive, OpenAI, AI hardware, screenless devices, smart glasses, Ray-Ban Meta, smartphone bans in schools, tech addiction, ambient computing, smart rings, digital privacy, observer effect, media consumption, RSS feeds, tech news, haptic technology, educational technology, wearable tech
