Original broadcast date: January 15, 2021. Breathing is essential to life. And lately, the safety of the air we inhale, or the need to pause and take a deep breath, is on our minds a lot. This hour, TED speakers explore the power of breath. Guests include former world champion freediver Tanya Streeter, journalist Beth Gardiner, activist Yvette Arellano, paleontologist Emma Schachner, scent historian Caro Verbeek and mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe.

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(Note: This episode originally ran back in 2022.)

This past weekend, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse had the second largest domestic opening of 2023, netting (or should we say webbing?) over $120 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada. But the story leading up to this latest Spider-Man movie has been its own epic saga.

When Marvel licensed the Spider-Man film rights to Sony Pictures in the 1990s, the deal made sense — Marvel didn’t make movies yet, and their business was mainly about making comic books and toys. Years later, though, the deal would come back to haunt Marvel, and it would start a long tug of war between Sony and Marvel over who should have creative cinematic control of Marvel’s most popular superhero. Today, we break down all of the off-screen drama that has become just as entertaining as the movies themselves.

This episode was originally produced by Nick Fountain with help from Taylor Washington and Dave Blanchard. It was engineered by Isaac Rodrigues. It was edited by Jess Jiang. The update was produced by Emma Peaslee, with engineering by Maggie Luthar. It was edited by Keith Romer.

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It’s the thrilling conclusion to our three-part series on AI — the world premiere of the first episode of Planet Money written by AI. In Part 1 of this series, we taught AI how to write an original Planet Money script by feeding it real research and interviews. In Part 2, we used AI to clone the voice of our former colleague Robert Smith.

Now, we’ve put everything together into a 15-minute Planet Money episode. And we’ve gathered some of our co-hosts to listen along.

So, how did the AI do? You’ll have to listen to learn what went surprisingly well, where it fell short, and hear reactions from the real-life hosts whose jobs could be at risk of being replaced by the machines.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin. It was engineered by James Willetts and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Keith Romer edited this series and Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

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Co-principal investigator for a neuroscience experiment launching to the space station soon walks us through the goals of the experiment and how it might benefit patients back on Earth. HWHAP Episode 291.

In the cult comic American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang weaves mythical folklore with a coming-of-age immigrant story. The author reflects on why his story still feels relevant to young readers. Host Manoush Zomorodi also speaks with Ben Wang, star of the new Disney+ adaptation of the award-winning graphic novel.

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In Part 1 of this series, AI proved that it could use real research and real interviews to write an original script for an episode of Planet Money. Our next task was to teach the computer how to sound like us. How to read that script aloud like a Planet Money host.

On today’s show, we explore the world of AI-generated voices, which have become so lifelike in recent years that they can credibly imitate specific people. To test the limits of the technology, we attempt to create our own synthetic voice by training a computer on recordings of former Planet Money host Robert Smith. Then we introduce synthetic Robert to his very human namesake.

There are a lot of ethical, and economic, questions raised by a technology that can duplicate anyone’s voice. To help us make sense of it all, we seek the advice of an artist who has embraced AI voice clones: the musician Grimes.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin, with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by James Willetts. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

We built a Planet Money AI chat bot. Help us test it out: Planetmoneybot.com.

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We used to think some jobs were safe from automation. Though machines have transformed industries like agriculture and manufacturing, the conventional wisdom was that they could never perform what’s called “knowledge work.” That the robots could never replace lawyers or accountants — or journalists, like us.

Well, ever since the release of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, it feels like no job is safe. AI can now write essays, generate computer code, and even pass the bar exam. Will work ever be the same again?

Here at Planet Money, we are launching a new three-part series to understand what this new AI-powered future looks like. Our goal: to get the machines to make an entire Planet Money show.

In this first episode, we try to teach the AI how to write a script for us from scratch. Can the AI do research for us, interview our sources, and then stitch everything together in a creative, entertaining way? We’re going to find out just how much of our own jobs we can automate — and what work might soon look like for us all.

(And, in case you’re wondering… this text was not written by an AI.)

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Keith Romer. Maggie Luthar engineered this episode. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Jess Jiang is Planet Money’s acting executive producer.

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Three NASA human research experts discuss CIPHER, the first study integrating multiple physiological and psychological measures to assess how extended durations in space change the human body. HWHAP Episode 290.

Original broadcast date: August 26, 2022. Everything is not what it seems. We can easily disguise ourselves in both the digital and physical world. This hour, TED speakers explore the ways we go incognito… from espionage to virtual reality. Guests include former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez, artist Holly Herndon, anthropologist Mary L. Gray and digital fashion designer Gala Marija Vrbanic.

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