On with Kara Swisher

Kara sits down with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to dig into how applied artificial intelligence works at scale.  At Uber, AI powers everything from pricing, routing, and customer service to autonomous vehicles and sidewalk robots that deliver food. It has partnered with more than 20 autonomous vehicle manufacturers, and it’s moving aggressively into robotaxis. And although it may take many decades, Khosrowshahi believes society may eventually decide humans aren’t safe enough to be trusted behind the wheel. Kara and Dara discuss what this all means for jobs, congestion, climate and Uber’s business model.  This conversation was recorded live at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center as part of its Discovery Series on artificial intelligence.   Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of 2025’s most memorable images was of Silicon Valley’s billionaire CEOs lined up in the front rows at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. It was visual proof of the tech industry’s embrace of MAGA’s authoritarian-style of politics — one it has benefited from considerably over the last year. Author and neuroscientist Sam Harris has been using his podcast, “Making Sense,” to talk about the ways tech moguls are corroding our politics, and although he used to be close with some of them, he’s become a vocal critic of their support for Trump. Kara and Sam talk about why he thinks the left is to blame for the tech billionaires’ shift to the right, why all of us are bad at sorting through the glut of information we find online, and the potential risks that come with the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to A.I. They also talk about what possible tech regulation could look like, and whether everyday people stand a chance against tech oligarchs and their platforms.  (Please note: This interview was recorded before President Trump signed an executive order to block states from passing A.I. regulation.) Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Maddow is an author, podcast host and producer, documentary producer, and, of course, the anchor of her eponymous show on MS NOW. Her newest podcast, "Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order," unravels how the incarceration of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants during WWII was planned and carried out. Shockingly, the full story behind one of the 20th century’s worst American human-rights abuses might never have come to light if not for the relentless work of a hobbyist researcher — who had been incarcerated herself. Kara and Rachel dig into the story and explore the parallels to President Trump’s mass-deportation policies. They also discuss the recent boat strikes on alleged drug traffickers, the escalating drama around the competing bids for Warner Bros. Discovery and what it signals for the future of the news business, and MSNBC’s evolution into MS NOW. Please note: This episode was taped on Tuesday, before President Trump said it was “imperative that CNN be sold." Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Margaret Atwood is one of the most famous and prolific authors of the modern era. Though best known for her 1985 hit “The Handmaid’s Tale,” her dozens of works span literary genres — poetry, novels, children's books, essays, short stories — and often defy neat categorization. Now, at 86, Atwood has written her first memoir. At roughly 600 pages, it’s an intimate look at the ways her personal life inspired and shaped her writing.  Kara and Atwood talk about her lifelong passion for the outdoors, how she decided to become a poet when she was just a teenager, and her reputation for having an eerie prescience about major world events. They also talk about Atwood’s fears about the Trump administration’s use of power, and why she still considers herself to be a hopeful person despite her predilection for dark stories.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The tech billionaires of Silicon Valley and the Midwestern rural poor wouldn’t seem to have much in common. But somehow many of them have united under the MAGA umbrella. Kara brings together two reporters who have written about the opposite sides of the MAGA coin to talk about the role of social media in fueling enragement, why tech billionaires and poor Americans are coalescing around issues like education, the press and more; and how to bridge the political divide. Her guests are: Beth Macy, a newspaper reporter for three decades and the author of five non-fiction books, including her most recent: Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America. Jacob Silverman, an independent journalist with a focus on tech, political corruption and illicit finance. He’s written three books, including his most recent: Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices