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Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything. Why is it safer to fly in an airplane than drive a car? How do we decide whom to marry? Why is the media so full of bad news? Also: things you never knew you wanted to know about wolves, bananas, pollution, search engines, and the quirks of human behavior. To get every show in the Freakonomics Radio Network without ads and a monthly bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio, start a free trial for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Website ↗ Last published 30 October 2026 945 posts collected by Sputnik

Said on Freakonomics Radio

“I think the paths for AI where it goes wrong are many and frequent and easy. I think the path where everything goes right is narrower and harder to navigate, and that we can't do it accidentally, inadvertently. We actually have to imagine it first and imagine the details and then believe that we can make them.” — Kevin Kelly, Freakonomics Radio
Kevin Kelly · 30 Oct 2026 Listen →
“I would be surprised if there was something created that touched a lot of people, and humans had very little to do with it. Everything that I know about humans so far suggests that one of the main jobs that humans will have in the future is being human. We like being around other humans. We like human sense of humor. I think AIs will be funny, but they will have an alien sense of humor. It'll be like Spock, right? It's like, yeah, I'm around you, but I much prefer being around Kirk.” — Kevin Kelly, Freakonomics Radio
Kevin Kelly · 30 Oct 2026 Listen →
“Indie gaming has an audience that truly hates AI, right? And every indie gamer is under tremendous pressure to not say they're using AI. Except, of course, you'd be very foolish to not use AI to help you code… There's this public-private perception gap. … If you survey students, about 60% of them say they use AI, but they say 90% of the people around them use AI.” — Ethan Mollick, Freakonomics Radio
Ethan Mollick · 23 Oct 2026 Listen →
“The AI has personalities. They're all remarkably similar to each other. … They're kind of obsessed with a bunch of ideas from 2022. Like they love VR and they love NFT stuff and they like solving things through consensus. And if you ask them for creative ideas for a game or something, they love the idea of resonance and drowned cathedrals comes up a lot for some reason, long-lost continents.” — Ethan Mollick, Freakonomics Radio
Ethan Mollick · 23 Oct 2026 Listen →
“The old Fairway is to the current Fairway as, let me think, like the best live music you've ever been to versus the annoying toy that your baby has that plays a jingle.” — Hannah Howard, Freakonomics Radio
Hannah Howard · 21 Oct 2026 Listen →
“I don't think it's the industry of rule. I've never been in a meeting where somebody said, well, let's do that. It's good for us, but it's bad for somebody else. No way.” — Sachin Khajuria, Freakonomics Radio
Sachin Khajuria · 21 Oct 2026 Listen →
“If you flew in from Mars and you observed this situation, you would say, well, one party controls the House by two votes. They should surely compromise with a party that only has two votes less because that would be a sensible thing to do. But we don't do that. Both parties, if they control the House or the Senate by one or two votes, act as if they control it by 20 votes or 30 votes or 40 votes.” — David Rubenstein, Freakonomics Radio
David Rubenstein · 16 Oct 2026 Listen →
“A lot of those deals started off really crazy, like where it would be a show that didn't yet exist with somebody who had some level of fame and suddenly they were getting, you know, $8 million a year to make something that they hadn't even decided what it was yet. And that really screwed these networks because they didn't have the download numbers to bring in the advertisers that they needed.” — Jenna Weiss-Berman, Freakonomics Radio
Jenna Weiss-Berman · 9 Oct 2026 Listen →
“Let's imagine an AI automated show produced in real time. It could be a tragedy or a big event in the news. It happens so you can knock out that podcast before any human can get to market. Let's say it gets just 200 plays, okay? And you've got a $20 CPM on those 200 plays. That means you've earned … $4. And let's just slap a marginal cost down there of $3 in production costs. So that means you've made a dollar profit. And it's the ability to flood the market because plays mean money.” — Will Page, Freakonomics Radio
Will Page · 9 Oct 2026 Listen →
“If cows had litters, this would be a whole different conversation, but they don't. Once you get into a hole like we are now, it's a multi-year process to get out of it.” — Derrell Peel, Freakonomics Radio
Derrell Peel · 2 Oct 2026 Listen →

Hosts

Freakonomics Radio is hosted by Stephen J. Dubner , Steve Levitt , Stephen Dubner , Angela Duckworth , Zachary Crockett , PJ Vogt and David Duchovny .

Recent Episodes

  1. 30 Oct 2026

    693. What’s Our Job as Humans Anymore?

    With Sean Astin , Kevin Kelly , Eline Van der Velden , Tilly Norwood and Joel Waldfogel

  2. 23 Oct 2026

    692. What Will A.I. Do to (and for) Human Creativity?

    With Kevin Kelly , Ethan Mollick and Eline Van der Velden

  3. 21 Oct 2026

    Are Private Equity Firms Plundering the U.S. Economy? (Update)

    With Brendan Ballou , Hannah Howard , Dan Glickberg and Sachin Khajuria

  4. 16 Oct 2026

    691. Is This What a “Good Billionaire” Looks Like?

    With David Rubenstein

  5. 9 Oct 2026

    690. It’s Show Business, Baby!

    With Jenna Weiss-Berman , Will Page , Ben Davis and Jim Bankoff

  6. 2 Oct 2026

    689. Here’s Why Your Hamburger Just Got So Pricey

    With Derrell Peel , Robert Hodgen , Austin Frerick and Roger Horowitz

  7. 25 Sep 2026

    688. When Is a Bet Not a Bet?

    With Nicole Kagan , Gary Gensler , Robin Hanson and Tarek Mansour

  8. 18 Sep 2026

    687. Are Prediction Markets the Best Forecasting Tool Ever — or Just Another Casino?

    With Nicole Kagan , Robin Hanson and Tarek Mansour

  9. 16 Sep 2026

    How to Be a Double Unicorn, with John Urschel | Better in Person

    With John Urschel

  10. 11 Sep 2026

    686. Why Is It So Hard to Find an NFL Quarterback?

    With Dan Hatman , Stephen Smith , Kurt Warner and Scott Goldman

  11. 9 Sep 2026

    Amazon Was Supposed to Kill the Bookstore. James Daunt Had Other Plans | Better in Person

    With James Daunt

  12. 4 Sep 2026

    685. How to Survive the A.I. Shock

    With Gina Raimondo

Guests

Richard Thaler (10 episodes), Amy Edmondson (7 episodes), Kevin Kelly (6 episodes), John Preskill (6 episodes), Andrew Yang (5 episodes), Ralph Leighton (5 episodes), Michelle Feynman (5 episodes), Gary Klein (5 episodes), Max Bazerman (5 episodes), Stephen Wolfram (5 episodes), Al Roth (5 episodes), Brian Nosek (4 episodes), and 563 more.