Spark

There's been an explosion of mental health content on social media, both by licensed professionals and influencers. Is that a welcome step in destigmatizing mental illness, or is it fostering a culture of misinformed self-diagnosis?

Now that generative AI is shaking up songwriting, have we crossed a new threshold where the distinctively human talent for music is no longer ours alone?

What does play mean in a digital age, when so much happens on our all-consuming phones, and tech erases the boundaries between work and play?

We keep hearing that AI is going to revolutionize jobs. But what if the language of inevitable automation hides the ongoing need for distinctly human skills?

In a world where our digital tools keep an accurate record of handy facts and events, what is our fragile, fallible human memory good for?

The feeling of belonging is a core, human drive. And feeling excluded is painful. But has our desire to belong—and how we try to achieve that—changed in digital culture?

How long do you wait to text after a date? What did that emoji really mean? Is it healthy to feel emotionally attached to an AI chatbot or celebrity you follow on social media? Our tech nourishes intimacy, but it can also be a minefield. A look at intimacy in our digital age.

Despite the growing digital dimension of our lives, death is still a largely analog experience. A look at the uses and limits of tech at the end of life and in the afterlife.

Artificial intelligence can be an artistic collaborator, but can it be thought of as creative on its own? Or even as understanding creativity? And if you're a human creator, and you want to create for other PEOPLE, how do you reach them in a digital system run by algorithms? We look at the nature of creativity in digital culture.

For this final new episode of the show, we looked to the creator for direction (the creator of Spark - Nora Young!) She wanted it not to be a look back at what we've done, but forward-facing and positive. Sad as we are to end this show at a time when you could argue it's needed most, we bring you an episode with three reasons to be hopeful about the future. Thank you for listening and being part of the greater Spark community.                         

It's possible that the propensity to convince ourselves we have control over things —even when we don't— is the most uniquely human thing there is. But as we speed ever faster toward an AI world, will true agency even matter as long as we believe we have it?

The Olympics are just around the corner, and this summer in Paris, officials are planning a suite of security tools bolstered by AI — from spotting abandoned packages to predicting the movement of crowds. But as AI security rolls out for major public events, and at our borders, how do we balance safety, security, and privacy and guard against this becoming the new normal? 

From coveting Walkmans to using point-and-shoot cameras, there's been a growing trend over the past few years of teens wanting multiple, single-purpose, un-connected devices. It's not all about the past, though. Captivating new AI character bots are helping teens practice socializing, and giving them novel ways of learning in the classroom too.

Nora Young and Michelle Parise chat about 17 years of making Spark and listen to some messages from very special guests.

AI, social media, and virtual work pretty much dominate the cultural conversation around technology and our lives. Is it 2007 or 2024? Join host Nora Young as she revisits and reflects on the first time we covered those topics starting 17 years ago!

There's been an explosion of mental health content on social media, both by licensed professionals and influencers. Is that a welcome step in destigmatizing mental illness, or is it fostering a culture of misinformed self-diagnosis?

Digital tech allows us to track the stats of our daily activity and optimize our lives in the name of self-improvement. But it's also changed how we evaluate success and what success even means. In a world where quantification is king, what becomes of success that can't be reduced to data?

The technologies we use have long changed how we communicate. But on today's social media platforms, where content moderation is automated, people have taken to speaking in code to elude algorithmic censors. And it's changing the way we speak.

We've long talked about the data-driven turn in AI and how a Deep Learning approach has given us everything from image recognition, to ChatGPT. But what about the ongoing ethical questions about the kinds of data machines are learning on? And beyond that, what if we're starting to…run out of data?