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Philosopher and filmmaker Alexander Thomas joins us again as consciousness and "AI welfare" become talking points in the AI world. We discourse about discourse — how TESCREAL ideologies framed debate and criticism in the terms of AI companies from the start.

Find more from Alex at https://posthumanfutures.com/ and his short film Beverley (2015) on YouTube.

Further Reading

• NYT, "Religious Scholars Met with Anthropic", https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/anthropic-claude-morals-ai.html
• The Economist, "Effective altruism is this century's biggest idea", https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/10/01/effective-altruism-is-this-centurys-biggest-idea
• Timnit Gebru & Emily Bender, "Forget 'superintelligence': error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month", https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/oct/01/forget-superintelligence-error-prone-ai-nearly-sparked-world-war-iii-this-month
• Alexander Thomas, The Politics and Ethics of Transhumanism: Techno-human Evolution and Advanced Capitalism (2024), https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-politics-and-ethics-of-transhumanism

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We interviewed author and journalist Ellen Huet about her recent book Empire of Orgasm: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult (October 2025), exploring the Orgasmic Meditation (OM) start-up cult OneTaste.

In the full episode for subscribers, Kate describes her run-ins with OneTaste from the outer orbit.

Content Advisory: This episode includes candid discussion of sexual topics and references to sexual crimes and coercion.

Émile and Kate comment on the recent flurry of news about AI safety.

Further Reading

• Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna and Decca Muldowney, What To Read To Stay Grounded Amidst AI Doomerism, 2026 https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/what-to-read-to-stay-grounded-amidst-ai-doomerism/

• Timnit Gebru, Effective Altruism Is Pushing a Dangerous Brand of 'AI Safety', 2022, https://www.wired.com/story/effective-altruism-artificial-intelligence-sam-bankman-fried/