

What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future
Slate Podcasts
Every Friday and Sunday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 24, 2025 • 30min
Trump Vs. Cancer Research
President Trump has proposed cutting $2.5 billion from the National Cancer Institute, which in addition to cuts to the National Institutes of Health and research universities almost makes you wonder: whose side is he on in the fight against cancer?
Guest: Angus Chen, cancer reporter for STAT news
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 22, 2025 • 25min
The CDC Under Fire
Two weeks ago, a gunman fired over 500 bullets at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. Between the anti-public health rhetoric coming from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the top, personnel cuts and firings, and now a literal shooting, many employees are reaching their breaking point.
Guest: Lauren Weber, health science accountability reporter for the Washington Post.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 snips
Aug 17, 2025 • 33min
Down the Text-Scam Rabbit Hole
The scam du jour arrives via a text message, offering you a job. What happens when you accept?
Guest: Alex Sammon, Slate features writer.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 15, 2025 • 27min
Trump Dips into NVIDIA’s Chips
Jensen Huang, cofounder of NVIDIA, finds himself president of a $4 trillion company, at the forefront of A.I. technology, and, consequently, something of an international diplomat, as he charms President Trump and negotiates to sell his powerful chips to China.
Guest: Amrith Ramkumar, reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Washington covering tech and crypto policy.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Ethan Oberman, Patrick Fort, and Elena Schwartz.
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Aug 10, 2025 • 30min
Here Comes the A.I. Music Slop
It’s hard to make money in the music industry. But if you could flood every streamer with hundreds of “original” songs without having to, you know, write or produce it yourself, there’s money there—and less for everyone else.
Guests:
Chris Molanphy, host of Slate’s Hit Parade podcast.
Kate Knibbs, senior writer at Wired
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 8, 2025 • 29min
What Happened After Meta Fired Its Fact-Checkers
In January, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was moving from employing professional fact-checkers to letting its users fact-check each other. If you’ve heard that it’s going perfectly, then you, too, have been exposed to misinformation.
Guest: Geoffrey Fowler, tech columnist with the Washington Post
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Ethan Oberman, and Patrick Fort.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 3, 2025 • 28min
The A.I. Data Center Push That Wasn't
OpenAI’s Sam Altman, flanked by President Trump and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, announced a hugely ambitious investment in data centers across America to support all the artificial intelligence we’re going to be using. Months in, the project has been scaled back to a single, power-hungry data center in Ohio.
Guest: Berber Jin, reporter covering A.I. for the Wall Street Journal
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 1, 2025 • 29min
The Death of an Online Whisper Network
A shadow app for the dating world had its data hacked and exposed, and it laid bare the perils of creating safe spaces for women online — and of relying on tech companies.
Guest: Kate Lindsay, host of Slate’s ICYMI
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jul 27, 2025 • 33min
Dupes!
There’s an entire economy devoted to seeing what products are trending—clothing, skin care, even Greek Islands—and delivering you a cheaper knock-off to buy.
Guest: Mia Sato, reporter for The Verge
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jul 25, 2025 • 25min
A Colbert Report
Was the Late Show too unprofitable, or too political?
Guest: Eric Deggans, NPR TV critic and media analyst, Knight Chair, Journalism and Media Ethics, Washington & Lee University.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices