The Interface

This week on The Interface: is AI quietly sending your CV to the graveyard?Karen starts with the growing role of AI in hiring and why it may be far more powerful, and more worrying, than most jobseekers realise. Automated hiring systems are now used across large parts of the labour market, and Stanford researchers say a handful of dominant models are creating an “algorithmic monoculture”, where the same software can shape outcomes across multiple employers. Their recent study of more than 4 million job applications found repeated racial disparities in AI‑based screening, raising the stakes for anyone applying into a market where software may judge you before a human ever does. We look at how these systems scan CVs, how candidates are trying to game them, and what happens when tools designed to “streamline” recruitment start quietly deciding who never even gets a chance.Also this week: Thomas asks whether slow messaging might actually be better for us than instant messaging. After trying Roost — an app that sends messages at deliberately different speeds, from snail mail to carrier pigeon — he steps back to ask how we got so used to the pressure of instant replies in the first place. Messaging once felt novel; now it is the default form of contact, with Americans sending billions of texts a day and younger users often preferring texts to calls. But that speed comes with emotional costs: reply anxiety, relationship strain, and a culture in which silence itself can feel loaded. Tom asks whether slower communication might feel frustrating at first but ultimately more humane.And Nicky looks at Silicon Valley’s latest genre experiment: tech CEOs turning themselves into entertainment. With Founders Fund launching MAFIA the GAME - a game show featuring Sam Altman, Palmer Luckey, Bryan Johnson and other tech luminaries - the people building the future increasingly seem to want control not just of products, but of the story around them. Nicky asks what this says about a culture where power depends not just on having the best technology, but on telling the best myth about yourself.The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and your world. Hosted by journalists Thomas Germain, Nicky Woolf, and Karen Hao, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No jargon. Just three sharp voices debating the stories that matter — whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.New episodes drop every Thursday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”).To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.comThe Interface is a BBC Studios production. Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Google is changing up its search engine. At its recent developer conference, among a host of new AI tools, it announced the biggest changes to Google Search in its history. What will we see now? An intelligent search box. Longer text predictions. More answers to search queries instead of a list of websites. But if Google keeps us inside the answer box, with fewer clicks and fewer website visits, this could potentially break the economic model of the modern web. How will this change the Internet and our experience of it?Also this week:To the Vatican, where Pope Leo XIV issued a document this week, calling for the ‘disarming’ of AI. In ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ (Magnificent Humanity), the Pope warned that AI must be subject to rigorous ethical constraints. How is the Vatican attempting to influence tech companies? And with Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah in attendance, Karen asks why are AI companies equally interested in religion?Nicky has been following the latest developments with Roblox. The online gaming platform has 150 million daily users, many of them under 13. With a number of child safety groups urging the FTC to investigate the online gaming platform, could it be having its ‘big tobacco’ moment? The FTC alleges that it “repeatedly exposes children to sexual content and harmful adults.” What’s the solution? Roblox says it’s improving child safety systems, but how effectively can platforms of this size be moderated?The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and our world. Hosted by journalists Thomas Germain, Karen Hao, and Nicky Woolf, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No guests. No jargon. Just three sharp voices debating the stories that matter — whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.New episodes every Thursday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”).To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.comThe Interface is a BBC Studios production. Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford Executive Editor: Philip SellarsFollow Tom Germain on socials: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thomasgermain Instagram: https://www.instagram.com@tomgermain YouTube: https://www.youtube.com@tomgermain Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thomasgermain.bsky.social X: https://x.com/@thomasgermainFollow Nicky Woolf on socials: BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/@nickywoolf.bsky.socialFollow Karen Hao on socials: LinkedIn: /https://hk.linkedin.com/in/karendhao X: https://x.com/_KarenHao BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/@karenhao.bsky.social

AI is coming for your job — but not in the way you think.Karen says the real shock isn’t mass replacement (yet). It’s that AI is already reshaping work into something more precarious, more fragmented, and easier to squeeze. Data annotation and “AI training” are booming - but now the growth is in skilled labour. AI firms are hoovering up graduates and specialists to teach models the expertise they still can’t reliably produce. That’s the uncomfortable irony of “PhD‑capable” AI: to get there, it needs real PhDs (and near‑PhDs) feeding it knowledge, task by task. As Sam Altman once put it: “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.” Meanwhile, the graduate job market is shrinking fast. Is this the “uberisation” of knowledge work - stable careers broken into gigs, paid by the piece, constantly monitored - with workers training the systems that may later deskill or replace them?Nicky follows the dark logic of the online “health information ecosystem” - a system that profits from panic. A deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship should be a contained public‑health story (serious for passengers, near‑zero risk for most people). Yet within hours it’s rebranded online as a “plandemic”: vaccines, bioweapons, “Covid 26”. The contradictions don’t slow it down, because the point isn’t truth; it’s engagement. In a world where more people get health advice from influencers and podcasts, fear becomes a business model: whip up anxiety, funnel it to “link in bio”, sell a cure, rinse and repeat. The real danger, Nicky argues, is what this does ahead of the next genuine crisis: an audience already primed to distrust guidance when it really matters.And Thomas asks: is your car spying on you - and is it about to get worse? Modern cars aren’t just transport; they’re data machines. Connected vehicles can track where you go and how you drive, and that data can be shared or sold, often ending up with insurers and data brokers. The worrying bit: new US rules will push carmakers to add in‑car monitoring (including infrared and biometric systems) to spot tired or impaired drivers - creating an even bigger trove of sensitive data, with few clear limits on how it’s used.The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and our world. Hosted by journalists Thomas Germain, Karen Hao, and Nicky Woolf, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No guests. No jargon. Just three sharp voices debating the stories that matter - whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.New episodes every Thursday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”).To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.com The Interface is a BBC Studios production.Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Want to know how your world is changing, and what it will be like to live in a future being built for you right now? Don’t be distracted by politics - it’s tech driving that change.Karen Hao, Nicky Woolf and Tom Germain - three of the sharpest voices in tech - dive into the stories behind the headlines: AI breakthroughs, big-tech power, digital culture, cybersecurity, misinformation - and discover what's happening in the most bizarre corners of the internet.Every week, the trio unpack the tech stories that matter: whether they shake governments, reshape industries, or quietly alter how we live, work and connect.Informed, curious and clear-eyed, The Interface is your guide to understanding one of the defining stories of our time.Launching Thursday 12 February on BBC Sounds in the UK - and wherever you get your podcasts.The Interface is a BBC Studios Production. Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford Executive Editor: Philip Sellars