Unpacking the contradictions in America's ideals
What has become of the America that has for so long been held up as a shining example of ideals? In conversation at the 2026 Aspen Ideas Fes...
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Ideas
IDEAS is a deep-dive into contemporary thought and intellectual history. No topic is off-limits. In the age of clickbait and superficial headlines, it's for people who like to think.
Episodes
20 of 288 episodesHuman emotion behind AI chatbot design
Behind every great chatbot are many human workers making decisions on how those chatbots behave and evolve. Recent PhD graduate Noah Khan ha...
A poet's journey from being exiled to gaining citizenship
When Rohingya poet Mayyu Ali saw his name in print for the first time, he thought: "I exist." "Even though my government doesn't recognize [...
What the far-right are borrowing from history’s fascism aesthetics
Fascism has been called “the aestheti-cization of politics.” Nazis and Italian Fascists both made visual culture, art, even fashion part of...
What Mussolini's rise and fall reveals about modern authoritarianism
In 1922, Benito Mussolini took power in Italy. Sustained by a cult of personality and iron-fisted suppression of dissent, Mussolini transfor...
How our education system is far from its original ideals
Acclaimed author Gabor Maté joins the conversation in part two of our series exploring Wilhelm von Humboldt’s public education system. Maté...
Public education was built on this key concept — now it's gone
Two hundred years ago, Wilhelm von Humboldt created the education system as we know it today. At the heart of his philosophy of education wa...
For 40 years trains brought classrooms to children
They were known as School Cars and Schools on Wheels. Trains that chugged along the railroads and brought schooling to children living in th...
Confronting the escalating attacks on universities
The Trump administration has been targeting higher education for some time now — freezing grants and filing lawsuits against leading univers...
Should homework be banned for students?
A hundred years ago homework was described as a 'sin against childhood.' But the practice is still a staple of our education system. Some pa...
How a German philosopher predicted our digital age
What happens when original artworks become endless copies? German philosopher Walter Benjamin called it the death of "aura," and his concept...
How an 'untouchable' inspired resistance against inequality in India
In pre-independence India, activist B.R. Ambedkar said India would never be free unless caste was eradicated. Today, India is rife with an a...
Why Gandhi's vision for an inclusive India never materialized
Gandhi envisioned a free India as a place of communal harmony where each person understood duty and sacrifice. Today, India is rife with an...
The suffragist who was too radical for Susan. B. Anthony
You likely have never heard of Matilda Joslyn Gage. Gloria Steinem calls her “the woman ahead of the women who were ahead of their time.” Ma...
Wait, so addiction might not be a brain disease?
That’s what Hanna Pickard argues. After analyzing the scientific research, and working with those who’ve stopped self-destructive drug and a...
Are psychopaths real? A review of the science says, no
Thanks to Dexter and Hannibal Lecter you may think you know what a psychopath is. But a critical review of the science suggests that 'psycho...
Why we should 'fight like hell' against Big AI
"We need to separate AI from empire," says tech journalist Karen Hao who used to work in Silicon Valley as an engineer. Now she’s an outspok...
With a decline in reading is our capacity to think eroding?
Thanks to AI, it's easier than ever to avoid reading books — but that convenience may come with a cost. IDEAS explores how our digital lands...
What if AI had empathy and 'maternal instincts'?
If AI continues to develop without appropriate guardrails, a worst-case scenario could lead to human extinction, warns the 'godfather of art...
Artificial Intimacy: Love, Grief, and AI Chatbots
Millions of people are using AI to “talk” to the dead. The phenomenon has left cyberpsychologist Elaine Kasket asking what happens when we r...