{"podcast":{"title":"Machines Like Us","slug":"machines-like-us-97796","podcast_index_feed_id":97796,"rss_url":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/FJSi7gLl","website_url":"https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/machines-like-us/?token=s3d","image_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/5829159f-6973-4aae-be8c-2e4a6cf3b1a8/51c9ed6a-5439-45e0-9ede-c50bba95a992/3000x3000/mlu-final-apr23.jpg?aid=rss_feed","author":"The Globe and Mail","episode_count":55,"summary":"Machines Like Us is a technology show about people. We are living in an age of breakthroughs propelled by advances in artificial intelligence. Technologies that were once the realm of science fiction will become our reality: robot best friends, bespoke gene editing, brain implants that make us smarter. Every other Tuesday Taylor Owen sits down with the people shaping this rapidly approaching future. He’ll speak with entrepreneurs building world-changing technologies, lawmakers trying to ensure they’re safe, and journalists and scholars working to understand how they’re transforming our lives.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-16T04:17:35.592586+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/machines-like-us-97796"},"episode":{"title":"Why does AI sound so much like religion?","slug":"why-does-ai-sound-so-much-like-religion","published_at":"2026-09-01T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/machines-like-us-97796/why-does-ai-sound-so-much-like-religion","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/machines-like-us-97796","url":"https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/machines-like-us/?token=s3d","audio_url":"https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/afp-119681-injected.calisto.simplecastaudio.com/7862a9c5-dc9a-4d42-9fcd-d04ed44df073/episodes/8fedfc3f-7593-49da-aa6a-f934a42cf40d/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=7862a9c5-dc9a-4d42-9fcd-d04ed44df073&awEpisodeId=8fedfc3f-7593-49da-aa6a-f934a42cf40d&feed=FJSi7gLl","summary":"For years, the debate about AI was mostly about what it could do, whether it could write, make convincing art, or beat us at our own games. The questions now are older and harder. What makes us human? How do we find meaning? If a machine can do more of the things we thought made humans special, where does that leave us? These aren’t new questions, but rapid advances in AI have made them feel a lot more urgent. Even Pope Leo XIV chose artificial intelligence as the subject of his first encyclical. Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT and author of Tech Agnostic, has been asking these questions long before the machines showed up. He argues that we’re living in a moment with too much certainty, and that the most useful thing we could embrace right now might be doubt.","meta_description":"For years, the debate about AI was mostly about what it could do, whether it could write, make convincing art, or beat us at our own games. The questions…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2484,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/machines-like-us-97796/episodes/why-does-ai-sound-so-much-like-religion/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/machines-like-us-97796/why-does-ai-sound-so-much-like-religion.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}