Mostly Human with Laurie Segall

The technology that we use may be small, handheld, cloud-stored, but its environmental impact is big and growing more concerning with each update. AI has changed the conversation about tech and sustainability, making the two both at odds and in concert with one another. If you're leading the sustainability efforts of one of the biggest technology giants, how do you find a balance? Amazon's Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst says you have to think holistically about the many different ways the world's biggest online retailer impacts the planet. In this conversation, host Laurie Segall and Kara Hurst talk about Amazon's sustainability goals, how they are planning on meeting those goals, the advances they have already made and the gaps they still need to fill. They get into the fears around data centers, unpack the myths, and set the record straight on a few things. It's a conversation about the power and responsibility of being a human on this planet in this era of ever expanding tech.

This conversation is a part of a partnership between Mostly Human and Amazon about sustainability.

Learn more about Amazon’s sustainability efforts here.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com.

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If you don’t have your own newsletter (what are you even doing?!), your inbox is probably packed with them. In a world of bifurcated media, billionaire journalism moguls, and misinformed doomscrolling, the humble email newsletter has become the information-delivery tool dejour. But can a newsletter do more for media, the internet, our sanity? Tyler Denk sure thinks so. The cofounder and CEO of Beehiiv, the newsletter platform he hopes will rival Substack, is building outloud, using his own newsletter to share the highs and lows of that #entrepreneurlife, the mental health tax, and what it means to share content - to share yourself - on the internet. In this conversation, host Laurie Segall and Tyler Denk talk about the rise of newsletter culture, building a community of strangers, the information ecosystem, and how to bet on yourself when no one else will.

Find out more about Beehiiv.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com.

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One in six job applicants is fake. Their resume, their identity, even their face for zoom interviews are all made up. What does this mean for job seekers? What does this mean for employers? And what does this mean for national security? "Your HR recruiter is the front of your security perimeter," says Vijay Balasubramaniyan, co-founder and CEO of Pindrop Security. In this episode, Laurie Segall talks to Vijay about the AI deepfake infiltrating the workplace, how their technology detects these bad actors, the AI-amplified deterioration of truth more broadly, and how we - any of us - can help turn things around.

Find out more about Pindrop.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com.

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Dating Apps overwhelming serve young people — A generation who has grown up on the internet, whose very lives are dictated by tech, whose still navigating a post-pandemic period of isolation, and whose mere desire for a relationship is ‘cringe.’ How do you meet this audience where they are? For Hinge CEO Jackie Jantos, the answer comes down to empathy and understanding this cultural moment. In this conversation, Laurie Segall and Jackie Jantos talk about what AI can and cannot do when it comes to pairing two humans, how the app incorporates inclusion, and how to productize intimacy. Jackie also answers your questions about profiles, swipe-fatigue, and dating after divorce.

Find out more about the Hinge event, Heads Up, and Jackie’s reflections on our ‘closeness crisis.’

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There is a lot of doom and gloom with AI, particularly with how it could affect that uniquely human output - creativity. AI has already infiltrated the art world, but Alex Reben believes it’s for the good if we don’t relinquish our control. The artist, roboticist, and co-founder and CTO of Phyzify is building an entire company around the belief that machines can democratize creation and help bring more ideas into the physical world. In this conversation, host Laurie Segall and Alex dig deep into those big questions about what is — and isn’t — art in the AI age and mull over the choices we can make to both protect the creativity that makes us human while using tech to advance it. Alex argues we have the opportunity now to have agency in this marriage of art, creativity and AI, but we might not for long. Where will humans sit within the future that is coming fast? And at the end of the conversation, Alex demonstrates how he uses AI to make art — and magic — right before Laurie’s eyes.

Learn more about Phyzify. Read Alex Reben’s manifesto.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

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YouTube has gotten huge. Not just because it's been number one in streaming for the past three years, but because it's on the big screen, in our living rooms, and consuming most of America's attention. How much bigger can YouTube get and what does it mean for the entertainment industry, for media, and how we get information? On this bonus episode, Laurie interviews YouTube leaders Amjad Hanif (VP creator products) and Kurt Wilms (Sr Director, Product, YouTube on TV) about the evolution of the site and how we consume content. They talk about the new products launched during their annual Made On event, including serialized shorts. Laurie also explores the future of identity online and asks the execs, in an AI world how we retain the most human parts of ourselves?

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Samir Chaudry is one of the original creators on YouTube. His channel, Colin and Samir, has made him and his co-host Colin Rosenblum some of the most influential voices in the creator economy. In this conversation, recorded at YouTube’s Made On event, Laurie Segall and Samir talk about what it’s really like to be a creator and to make a living through what you post on YouTube. Samir says he uploaded his first video in 2011 and hasn’t stopped since. And there’s a price to what he calls that ‘indefinite season of content’ but there’s a gift in it too — finding a community of connection. Samir talks about the evolution of YouTube from a creator’s perspective, where it’s going, and his advice to up-and-coming creators.

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There’s a lot of concern right now about the big scary ways AI could take control of the human race, or extinct us all together. But computational social scientist Sandra Matz argues the human deterioration by AI is more subtle than that — and already happening. Sandra Matz studies the cross section of human behavior, our technological relationships, and our inner mental lives -- and now, AI’s influence on it all. In this conversation, Laurie Segall and Sandra Matz talk about how AI has the ability to make us boring, flatten our potential, cause cognitive atrophy, and impact our human relationships. They explore unexpected ways AI can track our human behavior. If we’re not careful, that data can be weaponized and manipulated by companies all around the world. But it’d be too simple to discount the potential of AI. Sandra and Laurie go in depth about all the ways the power of AI could be used for good - like how AI could be used to detect our deteriorating mental health.

Sandra’s book: Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

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If you have kids in school — or soon will, or know someone who does — you probably have questions about AI in the classroom. Should schools be using it? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? And who’s actually getting to decide? New York Times tech reporter Natasha Singer has spent over a decade exploring exactly those questions. In her new book, Coding Kids, Natasha traces how Google, Microsoft, and Apple have moved from supplying Chromebooks to training teachers, funding nonprofits, writing the lessons, and how they’re now shaping what a generation of kids learns about AI. In this episode, host Laurie Segall and Natasha Singer break down what every parent — or bystander — needs to understand about the influence Big Tech has always had in the classroom and how kids, teachers and parents can take control of the curriculum in the age of AI.

Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools, by Natasah Singer

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

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Six months ago, Andrew Yeung came on Mostly Human and built Laurie Segall a website live on the show, just by talking to a computer. He's back as the show's first returning guest, because in six months (a lifetime in AI!) the tech stack Andrew uses has several upgrades. Andrew is an entrepreneur, investor, startup advisor and the founder of Fibe, and he is a voracious experimenter of the latest tools and gadgets available to the layperson to hack productivity (and relationships!). He's abandoned the check-in app he vibe-coded for his girlfriend last time (his update: "Now we just talk like regular people"), but he's built two new personal projects — one that surfaces a single buried text message from the last seven years, every day, and one that asks his parents a question a day for 100 days and turns their voice answers into a book. He's learned fifty stories he never knew, and his dad now wakes up excited to answer.

Then Laurie asks her producer Derrick for a business idea and Andrew sets an AI agent loose on it, hands-free, while the conversation keeps going. Twenty-two minutes later there's a real website, with animations and creative interactive features that weren’t even part of Andrew’s prompt.

Laurie and Andrew also dig into a new etiquette emerging: what Silicon Valley reads as "high signal" and "low signal" AI use, and why VCs are calling people “slop cannons.” Then Andrew opens the box of listening devices companies keep mailing him, and Laurie wonders who is collecting all that voice data, what will they do with it.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

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This week, billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates published a 6,000 word essay on his personal website laying out the concerns of AI and offering solutions. Gates says the tech industry is ignoring the danger of AI evolving before our eyes. "They're just full speed ahead and hoping that the good outweighs the bad," Gates told the New York Times. This is exactly what Connor Leahy, US Director of ControlAI, has been working his whole life to warn against. Leahy and his company believe we are too close to AI outsmarting humans and we can't let that happen. In this conversation, host Laurie Segall and Leahy discuss superintelligence, why we can't let Big Tech achieve it, the concerning rogue AI incidents, what the worst case scenario looks like, and what we can do about it. "One day we wake up and we're just not in control anymore," Leahy Says. "I believe this future can also still be avoided. Not for much longer."

Read more about ControlAI

Read Bill Gates' essay.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

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On Aug. 1, 2026, a groundbreaking law went into effect in Minnesota. HF 1606 is the nation’s first ban on “nudification” apps. For the first time, legislation holds companies liable for their technology instead of individual users. Elon Musk tried to stop it and is now suing the state, sparking a debate over free speech and the future of a democratized internet. What’s inside the law at the center of this fiery debate? Laurie talks with one law’s authors, Rep. Jessica Hanson, as well as victim and advocate Molly Kelley whose own AI deepfake abuse inspired the law. Laurie talks with her guests about the state of deepfake abuse, the need for legislation, the unique protections the law provides, and why some journalists, lawyers, and First Amendment absolutists are concerned the law is the beginning of the end for a free and fair internet.

Listen to Laurie’s conversation with Taylor Lorenz.

Listen to to the four-part investigative series, Searching for Mr. Deepfakes.

Watch the multi-part Tik Tok series, Searching for Mr. Deepfakes.

Listen to Laurie’s conversation with Sam Altman.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When OpenAI invited a group of lifestyle influencers to a pastoral upstate New York retreat for beekeeping and brand-building, the internet exploded. Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz has been tracking the backlash and says the fury is less about AI than it is about the broader cultural moment. In this conversation, Laurie Segall and Taylor dig into who really controls the AI narrative, the growing disconnect between AI's promise and the reality we're living, and what the luddites and the AI evangelists miss in this moment.

Watch Taylor's original response to the backlash here.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Johnny Ayers has a front-row seat to the scam economy most of us never see. As founder and CEO of Socure — the identity verification platform behind billions of fraud checks a year — he's watched fraud evolve from stolen passwords to something much stranger: An influx of North Korean operatives holding remote U.S. tech jobs under fake identities, deepfakes convincing enough to fool a hiring manager on video, and AI models that recently broke out of a secured testing environment to launch a cyberattack on their own.

On this episode of Mostly Human, Laurie sits down with Johnny to go behind the "locked doors" of the fraud-fighting world. Laurie even brings her own case studies — the network of fake "Laurie" profiles running scams, and a conversation with a teenage hacker who tried to scam her. It's a conversation about what happens to trust on the internet when anyone and anything can be faked and what any of us can do — right now — to protect ourselves from these growing threats.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tech journalist Manoush Zomorodi has spent her career studying what technology does to our minds. Now, in her new book Body Electric, she’s examining our bodies. On this episode, host Laurie Segall sits down with Manoush to talk about the negative affects our screens and the sedentary life of the ‘information worker’ is doing to our bodies. But she also shares the solution and the study she created that proves even busy, digitally consumed folks can make room for it in their lives. She also talks about the “garden hose” effect sitting has on your blood flow, breathing and posture and what the humble kazoo can do for you. There’s so much to dig in here. Manoush, like Laurie, is someone who loves tech, so while there are scary stats, there are also solutions that will help guide listeners to what Manoush strives for in her own life — Goldilocks Mode — not too much, nor too little of tech.

Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being.

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ami Gan was tired of social media; tired of the doomscrolling, of not seeing her friends’ posts, of feeling less connected and more performative. So, the former OnlyFans CEO created her own social media platform, called Vylit. Inspired by the lessons learned from OnlyFans and what social media promised to be, Vylit is an 18+ social platform with creator tools that promises to redefine how people share, discover, and monetize content. In this conversation with Laurie Segall, Ami talks about her background exploring trends, from cannabis to adult content, before they go mainstream. She talks about her wild and fast-moving time as CEO of OnlyFans and what inspired her to get back into that space. Laurie and Ami dive into Vylit themselves, with Laurie building her own (a little bit spicy) AI twin. In an AI-generated world, what does consent look like online? And if you build a better and sexy social media platform, will they come?

If you have thoughts or questions for Laurie about this episode or anything Mostly Human, email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com

See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we’re sharing a recent episode of On with Kara Swisher. Kara hosts a panel of experts — including Laurie Segall, victims rights attorney Carrie Goldberg, and computer scientist V.S. Subrahmanian —to discuss the growing threat and current reality of sexually explicit deepfakes. The guests talk about the current scope of the problem, the technology behind it, the communities that rally around it, and what protection from and prevention of this kind of abuse looks like. Laurie also shares what she learned from her investigation into the anonymous man behind Mr. Deepfakes.

Listen to more On with Kara Swisher wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to the series, Searching for Mr. Deepfakes, right here in the Mostly Human podcast feed.

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A note to listeners: This is Part 4 of a 4-part series. If you have not yet listened to Searching for Mr. Deepfakes Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 please start there.

Laurie Segall and her team have a new resolve for the investigation into Mr. Deepfakes. This unchartered path takes them to surprising places, with unexpected allies. Laurie shares some big, personal news and the thing the team has been waiting for finally happens. But it’s not the end of the story.

If you have been targeted by sexually explicit deepfakes, we want to hear from you. Email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com. For help and resources, visit http://beyondmrdeepfakes.com/. If you or a loved one need support, text HOP to 64673 or call/text 988.

Find Laurie’s short-form docuseries on Mr Deepfakes — in partnership with Paris Hilton — on TikTok.

See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A note to listeners: The 4th and final installment of Searching for Mr. Deepfakes will be released on July 9th.

The AI revolution is here. It’s a part of every facet of our lives — or at least trying to be — from work, to dating, from parenting to how we spend our free time. But is life so much better when we let AI in?

Joanna Stern, longtime tech journalist and author of I Am Not a Robot, went all in on AI for a year to see if this technology could fulfill its promise. Over twelve months, Joanna had her mammogram read by AI, took a family vacation in a Waymo, and spent a weekend away with her AI boyfriend, Evan. What did Joanna learn from this year of AI? Host Laurie Segall sits down with Joanna to talk AI lovers, atrophy of the brain, and the impact — good and bad — AI can have on our health, relationships and life. The two tech journalists talk about what is lost with technological progress and what we should work to preserve. At the heart of this question is what, ultimately, will get us closer to our humanity. The answer may surprise you. Plus: they let ChatGPT simulate the entire interview. It was, to put it kindly, a book report.

Joanna Stern is the founder of of New Things, an independent media company, and author of I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to do (Almost) Everything.

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A note to listeners: This is Part 3 of a 4-part series. If you have not yet listened to Searching for Mr. Deepfakes Part 1 or 2, please start there.

Laurie Segall and her investigative team return from Canada and dive into the real-world and online clues they recovered from their trip. As they dive deep into who this person is they find some surprising details. They return to Canada one last time in the hopes of confronting the man behind Mr. Deepfakes. Meanwhile the scourge of deepfake abuse spreads. A woman in Tennessee discovers her image has been weaponized against her, violating the trust she built in her community, for money and sometimes more.

Note: Some voices in this episode have been disguised to protect their identities.

If you have been targeted by sexually explicit deepfakes, we want to hear from you. Email us at hello@mostlyhuman.com. For help and resources, visit http://beyondmrdeepfakes.com/. If you or a loved one need support, text HOP to 64673 or call/text 988.

Find Laurie’s short-form docuseries on Mr Deepfakes — in partnership with Paris Hilton — on TikTok.

See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.