Answering NPR listeners' questions about the good and bad of AI

NPR | By Kevin Roose,

Casey Newton

Published October 30, 2026 at 4:59 PM CDT

NPR podcast Machine Gods is about the AI revolution. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton take questions from listeners about AI.

Tags

All Things Considered

Kevin Roose

Kevin Roose is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and one of the most widely read chroniclers of the AI era. He is the co-host of Machine Gods, a podcast about AI made in partnership with NPR, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

Casey Newton

Casey Newton is the co-host of Machine Gods, a video-first show about AI from NPR, which he hosts with Kevin Roose. Prior, Newton and Roose created and hosted Hard Fork at The New York Times, which Time named one of the 100 best podcasts of all time.

Halloween temperatures have been trending hotter. Here's what the data shows

Natalie Weber

Recent analysis from research nonprofit Climate Central found that on average, fall temperatures have warmed by 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit in the U.S. and the summer heat is lasting longer.
Here's what it's like to live in Salem, Mass., during the Halloween tourism season

Matt Ozug, Alaena Hunt, Scott Detrow, Patrick Jarenwattananon

NPR's Scott Detrow speaks with reporter Megan Johnson, who wrote about what it's like to live in Salem, Mass. — famous for the Salem Witch Trials — during Halloween tourism season.
An experiment tested whether 100 citizens could work together to reform property taxes

Erika Beras

Over the last few months, 100 randomly selected people tested whether a random bunch of citizens can work together to fix property taxes, avert a future budget crisis, and maybe reinvent democracy.
This week in science: mysterious X-rays, movement and learning, and memory formation

Ari Daniel, Emily Kwong

Emily Kwong and Ari Daniel of NPR's Short Wave talk about mysterious X-ray objects, the link between movement and learning and how a small part of the brain triggers memory formation.
How Esther Perel's parents' experience as Holocaust survivors shaped her worldview

Esther Perel is a famous psychotherapist and host of the podcast Where Should We Begin. She told Wild Card's Rachel Martin that her parents' experience as holocaust survivors shaped her worldview.