{"podcast":{"title":"The Thomistic Institute","slug":"the-thomistic-institute-521456","podcast_index_feed_id":521456,"rss_url":"https://feeds.cohostpodcasting.com/8dluqp75","website_url":"https://podcast.thomisticinstitute.org","image_url":"https://files.cohostpodcasting.com/quill-file-prod/1ec23f95-40fe-429d-a0f3-244bca6fbb8f/shows/fedb9eb7-b992-446b-be01-01cd62afd823/cover-art/original_d16b8d4e377588e2605b7455efd8717f.png","author":"The Thomistic Institute","episode_count":1969,"summary":"The Thomistic Institute exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities, in the Church, and in the wider public square. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, is our touchstone. The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more. Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T22:19:20.045779+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456"},"episode":{"title":"The AI Apocalypse Already Happened (And What You Can Do About It) - Mahon McCann","slug":"the-ai-apocalypse-already-happened-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-mahon-mccann","published_at":"2026-07-29T11:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456/the-ai-apocalypse-already-happened-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-mahon-mccann","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456","url":"https://podcast.thomisticinstitute.org","audio_url":"https://audio-delivery.cohostpodcasting.com/audio/1ec23f95-40fe-429d-a0f3-244bca6fbb8f/episodes/a3577bb8-8448-4cc1-bd58-9011ed20166d/episode.mp3","summary":"Mahon McCann argues that the real AI apocalypse already happened when social media and platform algorithms took over human judgment, reshaping what we see, think, and do through an attention economy that quietly downgrades our humanity. This lecture was given on April 11th, 2026, at University of Maynooth. Apply for the Thomistic Institute Study Abroad program by August 1, 2026. To learn more, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/study-abroad. About the Speaker: Mahon McCann is an Irish philosophy lecturer and PhD researcher based in Dublin. He holds a BA in Philosophy & Economics from University College Dublin and an MA in English from Queen’s University Belfast. In 2022, he was awarded the DCU School of Theology, Philosophy, and Music Scholarship for his research on the attention economy, particularly how social media companies' commodification of user attention shapes their moral character. His academic research is at the intersection of modern cognitive science, ancient virtue ethics and transformative technologies. Outside of academia, he is involved in public philosophy communication and hosts a popular podcast, which has ranked in the top ten for self-improvement and education in Ireland, on the meaning crisis in the West. Keywords: AI apocalypse, attention economy, social media, algorithms, human judgment, cognitive decline, human agency, digital ethics, platform power, technological formation","meta_description":"Mahon McCann argues that the real AI apocalypse already happened when social media and platform algorithms took over human judgment, reshaping what we see…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2336,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-thomistic-institute-521456/episodes/the-ai-apocalypse-already-happened-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-mahon-mccann/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456/the-ai-apocalypse-already-happened-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-mahon-mccann.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}